GSGALLANT

In the last few months, it seems that quite a few people (I count 4 or 5 on this forum alone) have had the tranny cooler in the radiator burst, causing tranny fluid and coolant to mix, requiring extensive flushing of both systems, and potentially causing irreversible damage (especially to the transmission). I'm sure there are many other cases of this happening that we on Yotatech don't hear about.

With that many cases of something this serious happening, you would think that Toyota would start investigating to see if a recall (or at least a TSB to document this problem) is warranted. I am thinking that everybody who's had this happen should be notifying Toyota directly, so that they can get a good indication of how many people this has happened to. What do you guys think? Any benefit in doing that?

I sent in a question to Toyota Canada, and received a quick response saying that they have not had reports of this happening. See email correspondance below:

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Dear Mr. Gallant:

Thank you for your recent correspondence.

Toyota Canada Inc. is not aware of any common concerns with the 4Runner such as you have described. However, we suggest discussing this directly with the Service Manager at your Toyota dealership. They would be in the best position to advise you in this regard.

We would also like to mention that we have noted your comments regarding the 4Runner and have forwarded them to the appropriate departments within Toyota Canada Inc. for information purposes.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us and for allowing us the opportunity to comment.

Sincerely,

Alice McNamee
Toyota Canada Inc.

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on 2007-10-17 (Ghislain Gallant) wrote:

Hi there,

I am a member of several Toyota discussion forums on the web (Yotatech.com, UltimateYota.com, toyota-4Runner.org, etc...), and I also own a 2002 4Runner and a 1993 4Runner. In the last few months alone, I've noticed several discussion posts on the forums detailing how the tranny cooler (inside the radiator) has ruptured, leading to mixing of the coolant and tranny fluids in both the cooling system and the transmission, requiring the replacement of the radiator, and at a minimum, a flush of both systems (the most extreme case I saw required the replacement of the transmission).

I counted 4 or 5 different cases of this happening in the last few months, mostly to 3rd gen 4Runner with the 3.4L, with slightly more than 100,000 miles. To me, this does not seem normal on a vehicle that otherwise is just starting to get broken in at that mileage. Has there been many cases of this happening reported to Toyota? At this time, is there any talk of possible recalls due to this problem? I currently have 90,000 miles on my
2002 4Runner, and frankly this problem has been weighing on my mind for a while. I am even considering bypassing the factory cooler with an aux tranny cooler to prevent this.

Thank you for your time,
Ghislain Gallant

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