I was driving to a cabin in the hills along a twisty highway and saw two yota pickups that had severe front tire/suspension failures.

If memory serves one was a 00-06 Tundra, the other was a small early 90's light pickup, 2wd std cab I think. Both looked stock or close to it I believe.

The tundra's front wheel had folded in, as if the upper ball joint or arm had broken apart.

The other looked similar but I didn't get as good of a look at it, i'm guessing a similar failure happened.

This is the first time I've seen this sort of failure in person, and since I saw TWO in the same weekend, and they both happened to be toyotas (not dodge, which has had ball-joint failures documented in Durangos and Dakotas in the past)...I thought I'd ask;

Is this a common problem in vehicles in general? Common in Toyotas? Perhaps it has something to do with the area and the twisty roads and light offroad driving (Probably at the most bumpy gravel roads with these stock trucks) wearing out suspension components?

 

I think the only thing common to this particular instance was either abused vehicles or lack of maintenance on the owners parts

 

im sure ill catch hell for this but i dont trust new toyotas at all. ive beat the piss out of old IFS toys and the worst that's happened so far, knock on wood, is just a typical rattly front end

 

i had my right lower ball joint fail on the trail near a mudhole after installing it like 2000 miles ago. the ironic thing was i had been crawling up some pretty nasty rocks before hand. and the ball joint was a $22 special from napa autoparts. both front tires were turned oppisite directions and i had to walk home 5 or 6 miles. it was an interesting experience.

 

I had a lower BJ fail on my '95 Tacoma (RIP) about 3 years ago.....I did abuse the poor little truck though(high speed offroad, jumping, j-turns, etc). I've seen this on newer tacomas as well. Just about 6 months ago I came across a 01-04 Tacoma (2wd) sitting in the middle of a busy road with the tire folded into the fender well. It's a shame.

Guess you just gotta take care of those damn BJs