Toyota Sienna Maintenance and Repair (2004+)

gregali119

I picked up my 2004 Sienna LE on Dec. 2, 2003 and, after 700 miles, the transmission started acting up.The dealer said it was a solenoid problem and could be fixed easily. However, after looking into it further, they say parts are not available and they will replace the transmission. The car is still in the garage at this date.
  Has anyone anymore to add to this problem. Have those of you that have had replacement transmissions had any more problems. Any suggestions? I am quite concerned about this since I am about to make a cross country trip with the new vehicle but, at this point, I am sort of apprehensive about it after reading all of the complaints about this transmission.

dooper67

My XLE with 500 miles doesn't seem to have the problems described above, but I do notice that when I take my foot of the accelerator, there is a very subtle engine braking that I have not noticed on other cars. Is this normal for this transmission.

hatcher8

gregali119 don't let the dealer replace the transmission until they have performed the following computer upgrade mentioned earlier in the forum message #1238. see below....

#1238 of 1400 Transmission clunk by sarniasting Nov 19, 2003 (9:29 am)
romie1 - I have read on other boards that this has been a problem with others. I am not an expert by any means and perhaps others such as kmead can provide a better insight on the problem. Toyota has issued a TSB, # TC007-03 to repair the problem to dealers. As I understand, it is a change to the computer program for the transmission. Talk to your service manager and mention the above TSB. I hope this helps.

Go to the dealer and tell them you want to see TSB(Technical Service Bulletin from Toyota # TC007-03. If they are in the dark then call Toyota USA

Hope this helps

theking

I sell Toyota and I have had customers call me and I helped them in the service department...As a salesperson I want you to be happy with your purchase...I want you to have friends and relatives see me for a Toyota...I want a customer to buy from me again...I am one salesman who does not forget prior customers when they have problems with their cars....You have problems with service department..I lose future sales from you and your friends and family. If your salesperson has not helped.......he is not doing a good job representing the dealership !

patriot04

I just got the 2004 XLE Ltd. AWD. I am confused: are the controls like the Windshield wipers not supposed to light up at night? (just like the other buttons on the radio/cd controls). Similarly all the windows buttons (up/down) except the Driver side auto up/down can not be seen at night either. May be I am missing something but for a $38K plus vehicle should one not expect smething this simple? I can not see anything on the wiper control lever at night!!!!!!!! Is this how they are supposed to be?
I like the vehicle otherwise except it should have a higher HP engine and power folding outside mirrors and power passenger seat as an option with memory controls. Parking in the garage is an effort in itself.
Thanks

shmunson

Just got my Sienna and I noticed that the drivers seat is pushed to the left about an inch too far. As you hold the steering wheel, your view of the gauges show this misalignment. You can also feel the tug to the right in your shoulders. My friends van is the same. What was Toyota thinking here? I doubt this is an engineering problem.

shmunson

I search this thread as well as others and didn't find any mention of egg smell my van is experiencing (other than on other Toyota vehicles - ex: 4runner). Any one else? Reason? Fix? Does this last? Thanks.

stever

Beckyo was complaining about the service department. Why should anyone have to call their salesperson to get their van properly serviced? Most of us never see our salesperson again, especially since they move around so much.

You post sounds more like an ad for yourself...

Seems more effective to call the GM or Toyota Customer Service and politely yell about the service department.

Steve, Host

gregali119

hatcher8, thanks for the input and I did mention the TSB you suggested to the service dept. That bulletin applies to a software adjustment which they had applied prior to further work on the transmissio. My problem was a failure of electronic components which, believe it or not, were not to be available anywhere in the States. As a result, they had to replace the whole transmission. Hopefully, all will be OK after I get the car back.

kmead

Steve:

Regarding the post by theking, I think you are coming down hard on someone who is trying to do a good job. Yes, you could say he is advertising himself, but what he says he does is what a good dealership needs with longterm employees to keep customers. There are many dealerships that keep employees, some of the ones I frequent have had the same salespeople for the last 11 years (yes there are new ones that don't make it that long).

I have been lucky enough to have a great sales person who greets me everytime I am at the dealer, he always wants to know how it is going, why I am there. He has brought me to work several times when the service shuttle was out making other dropoffs. He is a great person who listens to his customers and does his best to serve them.

A sales person giving information through his chain of management about customer feedback on the service department is a good way to keep that side of the business in line.

No a person shouldn't have to get the sales department to intercede with the service group, but I do know it happens.

stever

Good points.

My last new purchase involved dealing with 4 or 5 lousy salespeople at various showrooms and one excellent one that we bought our van from. Turns out ours was the last van he sold; he left the next day to sell Jeeps.

I know there are several salespeople who hang out on Town Hall that really do a good job for their customers, and Theking appears to be one of that group. But from the customer stories around here, they seem to be all too rare a breed.

Steve, Host

roey

We picked up our van on the last day of the year/LE/8. When I was playing with the controls on the way home, my daughter yelled about the "yucky" smell. When I turned it all the way up, it was terrible! It has not smelled since that day. Good luck.

jnevans

I booked my wife's van for the transmission service. A quick assessment on the short trip home suggests the problem is fixed. Thanks to those who posted information about this TSB.

Also, to kmead, you are of course correct about the rear window washer/wiper function. I re-read the manual and it makes no mention of a wash/wipe position. Anyway, thanks for the tip.

Neil

drivenow

I'm looking for a solution to the following problem...I keep my cell phone pluged into the Cig Lighter/Accessory Outlet 24/7/365 in order to keep the charge fresh. Unlike my other vehicles, the Sienna shuts off the power to the outlet when the key is removed---and, more annoyingly, my cell battery fully discharges and drains when it remains plugged into this powerless outlet. HELP!!! - can this outlet be programmed to retain power when the key is removed from the ignition? Thank you.

kmead

you could rewire it to a always hot circuit.

theking

I can understand your views...How can my message be an ad for me?? All I can say I work for a Toyota dealer in one of our 50 states...There are times that there are communication problems between a customer and service department...I am not saying my service department is always 100% correct how they treat a customer but as a salesman if I can be a "buffer",then I will help...You must remember that a happy customer means more potential sales for myself(Am I being selfish??)

Karen_S

Please understand that the hosts in the Town Hall have had a great deal of past experience with less than scrupulous salespeople who will say just about anything to lure customers to their dealearship. I believe my co-host was attempting to determine your true intentions.

Have you been over to our Smart Shopper board? There are sales specific discussions there which have a high percentage of salesfolk participating. Perhaps that would be the place to talk about how the salesperson can help a customer with a service problem.

dtownfb

i noticed the same thing when rented a Camry a few weeks ago. The front outlet (in the console) only works when the engine is on. I own Nissan Quest and it has four outlets. The one in the console and the second row only work with the engiine on. Teh one on the side of the console and inthe rear of the vehicle work all the time.

My guess is the Sienna may have a similar situation. Check in your owner's manual to see if the other outlets work all the time. This si where I found out about the Quest's outlets.

Good luck.

rtaaop

Does Toyota offer Satellite Radio for the Sienna? If so, how would it be installed in an existing setup?

kmead

so far the only ways to input outside inputs such as aftermarket CD, VCR, DVD, iPod, etc is to use a cassette adapter or a FM modulation. The various vendors have yet to provide a direct input into the Toyota stereo such as PIE and so on. Sorry if that is not what you wanted to know.

jumpmaster1

I agree but its a shame. You can always install a Delphi in your Sienna but it would detract from the Nice Interior. But the XM in my Expedition does Rocks.... Jumpmaster1

lalalalala

earlier I saw at the toyota.com that in my area they have Sienna Le with DVD prewire as an option, but I don't see them any more.

impact01

To avoid serious injury from the seatbelt in case of an accident, one should not recline the seat all the way when the vehicle is in motion.

dako_tian

A year or two back, a family of 6 or 7 was driving home in a Suburban from a couple states away to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The father had gotten tired driving, but when the wife drove as he slept, she took a wrong turn and drove many miles in the wrong direction. The father then took over again and was almost home, when he fell asleep at the wheel and drove into the back of a semi.

Though all in the vehicle started out in seatbelts, all except the father were unbelted at the time of the accident as they had laid down to sleep more comfortably.

Only the father and one of his children survived. Small comfort, I think....

All the information I've seen (it's probably in your owner's manual!) says not to recline either, since you (and more so, your children) can slip under the shoulder and lap belts in a collision. Maybe not as bad as the family above that was completely unbelted, but IMHO being severely injured is not all that much better than being killed outright (and, arguably, may sometimes be worse).

Every case I've heard of where someone had defeated the safety belts and/or child safety seats resulting in a child's death, they had done so for what seemed like a very good reason at the time.

sam_chan

Is it true that the tempature for the second and third row must be controlled by the controls above the 2nd row?

I could control the the rear fan from the front, but I don't seem to be able to do the same for tempature. Is it how it was designed?

The problem I have is that my kids sit in the back and they are too young to adjust the tempature by themselve. And the back controls are not reachable from the driver seat.

beckyo2

I totally agree with you on the help of a salesman with the service dept. I purchased my Sienna out of town and therefore don't have a connection at this dealer. I just recieved a check from the service dept. for losses I incurred when the fuel tank they installed incorrectly, failed. There was no note of apology and they didn't cover all of our expenses. When the car broke down on a Sat. night in a small town we had to spend the night at a hotel because all the car rental outlets closed at 6:00! They said that was not a covered expense. Anyway I just don't think they are at all concerned about Toyota quality.

As for the post from pampickens, here in St. Louis a 12 year old girl who was riding in a reclined position was killed because a seat belt can't provide protection at that angle. Her parents have worked tirelessly to inform the public of this potential killer. Toyota is being very responsible in the design of the seats.

Peace, Becky

kinct

This is an interesting situation. While driving you should under no circumstances recline all the way (just irritated the wife and kids by not allowing them to recline over the holidays). But what if you stop/overnight in the van. Then this is an annoyance.

The ideal would be a "smart seat" that would allow full recline only when the vehicle is stopped. The vehicle would only be able to start if the seat were raised, unoccupied, or a manual override applied (in the case of an object laying on/over the seat.

I think Toyota did the right thing. For now...

dako_tian

Each week seems to bring still another local report of some mother who ran into the store "just for a minute!" and whose car was stolen with the left-alone kid(s) inside. And now, several who ran out somewhere leaving young children alone in the house with a burning candle/space heater/other fire source only to return to dead or severely burned offspring. Add to that the frequent instances of children being killed (the at-fault parent usually survives) because of impatience at a train crossing gate and the decision (is it even right to attribute conscious-thought status to such actions?) to drive around the gate.

I don't know, it just seems to me that we as a people deserve all the necessarily-choice-limiting idiot proofing we are getting.... If only for the sake of the still-innocent children who so often suffer for our bad judgments.

Of course, then there is the economics of what the "it's my life, isn't it?" thoughtlessness costs society....

just4fun2

Are you saying that the front passenger seat does not recline fully?

mac13kc

My dash heater is working great, but my rear heater takes a long, long time to pump out warm air. Should the air temp be similar?

ABS make a loud "crashing" sound when applied. Told Toyota dealer and he told me that the brakes were fine. I have ABS on my Honda and I can feel the pulsating, but with my van the "crashing" sound seems like the brakes will come through the floor. Anyone else hear this noise?

davenow

Noticed a peculiar thing: When I was test driving a LTD FWD a couple of days ago. (I don’t know if it was just this particular minivan's problem or not) I noticed that when the vehicle was not running the tachometer was not resting at zero. The arm was up somewhere above 0 but below 2. Is this in the design of the tachometer? Or was this a problem with this particular instrument? Just wondering? Does anyone notice the same with theirs?

LDegrelle

This is a very touchy subject. I am pretty much against the idea of 'idiot-proofing' an item that should be common sense. By that rationale, we should limit the speed of the vehicle to 65mph. Its the maximum speed limit of the most of the USA (don't know about Philippines). Also a crash at higher speed will most certainly be very injurious if not fatal.

Perhaps we should remove door locks, so as not to trap any children in the car.

Rear windows shouldn't go down at all since children can stick their limbs or heads out and get hurt.

These are absurd examples of course, but given the right bunch of screaming mothers - who knows? I do not think I should have to be penalized because of the stupid. When did personal accountablitity become such a taboo idea?

I would not let my children recline all the way as I exercise common sense. Put a note in the manual telling the people what level of incline is not safe (headrests below a certain mark, what have you). But that's just my opinion (I don't see it as being 'thoughtless').

dtownfb

LDegrelle: While I agree with your rationale, it is not practical in today's society. All the bad, money hungry lawyers (most lawyers are not like this but like bad car salesmen, you only need a few to ruin the whole profession) The car companies are simply protecting themselves from as much liability as possible. This is probably why the 2nd row seat in the Sienna does recline all the way. You seem to be a reasonable person but there are plenty of people that would sue the car company if something were to happen.

dako_tian

I agree with both of you, I think. However, I'm guessing that Toyota limited the recline of the second row seats because they could save money (and weight) by doing so and because they thought they could get away with it without losing too many customers. The safety issue is a reasonable, if after-the-fact, explanation though and I'm betting they'll take it! ;-)

My point is even more than the lawsuit and medical expense monetary strains that idiocy puts on all of us. Real idiots probably don't have sufficient insurance nor personal financial responsibility to pay for their own expenses a majority of the time. Plus, even if they do buy enough insurance, the cost of their claims percolates through to all of us who buy insurance anyway.

Beyond the economics are the huge numbers of children who pay the price for their parents' and/or guardians' bad judgment. I guess I'd rather pay a little price of some limited options for myself and mine if it might save some child from unfortunate breeding stock.

Of course, if you believe in the Darwin Awards' view of this helping to reduce some of those bad genes out of the gene pool, well.... Unfortunately, though that idea is humorous and many of us might not-so-secretly agree, it still comes uncomfortably close to the schemes of a certain egomaniacal Austrian-come-German of a generation or so ago....

indyjones

My kids left the door open , and the next monring the battery was dead. Is there any setting which will prevent the battery from draining if you farget to close the door?

Thanks in advance

BTW, I have XLE AWD, package 14 if that helps.

zebra5

A salesman at one dealership told me that installing optional leather on an '04 LE8 would impair the side row curtains (part of option pkg #7, or BW). A salesman at a different dealer told he's done it before. Anybody here heard of a conflict before between dealer-installed leather and the side row curtains on an '04 LE8?

kmead

There are leather kits available that are designed to be compatible with the seat side airbags for the front seats.

Leather would have no effect on the side curtain airbags which are bundled with the side airbags in option 7.

So it can and has been done. Make sure the kit they get is specifically intended for seats with seat side airbags.

kmead

Here is a method to ensure you do not suffer a dead battery due to interior lights being on.

Close the door of your Sienna. Are only the front two lights on? (meaning the ones above the driver and passenger) If those are the only lights on, hit the remote to lock the doors. The last two lights will go off immediately. If the alarm armed, then all your doors are indeed closed and you should not have any battery drain.

If any of the rear lights are on, either one of the three rear doors are open or someone has left the rear lights on. To see which one it is, hit the remote to lock and arm the alarm, if it does lock (and does not annoy you with that lengthy high pitch noise), then someone has left the lights on. If it didn't lock check the rear hatch to ensure it is really closed or the left side door as it can be difficult to get either properly closed due to the excellent seals on these new vehicles.

masterpaul1

On most modern cars today, they have an auto off feature that turns the interior lights off when the key is out the ignition to save the battery. This feature works with the doors open too when the interior lights are on. They usually would turn off in about 15 minutes. Check your owners manual to see if it mentions anything about this.

kmead

Unfortunately, on the Sienna, Toyota has managed to program the main computer such that it does not shut off the lights before draining the battery. On this and several other forums there are many many people that have had this same problem.

Hopefully, Toyota will get their heads our of you know where and provide a TSB to overcome this. My VW Golf automatically shuts off the interior lights when the vehicle is not running and the doors are locked or if the vehicle is not running after 1 hour. It is possible, they just have not managed to get it right, it is among a small number of problems with the Sienna that is extremely frustrating for all of the owners of this fine vehicle.

dako_tian

Being a sometime programmer myself, I can see that perhaps they followed the specs exactly and programmed it to shut off the lights, as you said, immediately after the power has drained (what a difference poor word choice can make when translating to absolutely literal computer language!). Whoops! By then the computer isn't working either. Oh well, you just need to issue a change request and it will go on the list of bugs to be fixed.... ;-)

user777

Hopefully it wasn't a case where they didn't have sufficient time or resources to test the system thoroughly before they had to turn it over to the production and marketing types.

A typical and unfortunate complex systems engineering scenario.

kmead

I work in new product development making object versus manipulating bits and bytes, and gaffes like this are not just the pervue of software development. One often doesn't find out about a problem in a part until the final tooling is done, at which point there is little opportunity to fix it or fix it like one would want to.

There was a nice Dilbert on this subject the other day, if you look at the Dilbert site, it was on the 4th. Would that marketing really got their just deserts that way : ) rather than putting the blame on design and engineering...

Just kidding.

liaison

Can someone tell me how the windshield wiper de-icer is supposed to work? Does it de-ice the wiper and then you turn on the wiper to get ice off the windshield or is it mainly for when it is snowing and icy while driving? Read the owner's manual and could not find any explanation for how to use the de-icer.

kmead

The de-icer works when you turn on the rear defrost (this also turns on the heated mirrors). The de-icer affects only the windshield bottom area where the wipers park. It keeps ice from building up there and can thaw ice to allow the wipers to move out of the parked area.

It can be used to get ice off the lower parked area when cleaning off the car or to minimize ice buildup on that area and the wipers during inclement weather while driving.

It is a pretty nice feature.

mercier1

I am scheduled to pick up my XLE FWD with package #12 tomorrow morning (Monday 1/12/04). If anyone has suggestions for inspecting the vehicle before signing the papers I would appreciate hearing from you. Particularly any ideas that have worked like a check list or any problems you had that others should avoid. I did a search on "delivery", "Check list" and "list" and did not find a matching thread.
Thanks,
Paul

kmead

You will need to search the web. Its out there. If you use a few of the words in the title of your post you will get there.

mercier1

Thanks to kmead for the suggestion. I found a check list on Yahoo that is very specific. Here is the link for whoever else wants it.
http://www.fool.com/Car/Worksheets/DeliveryChecklist.htm

kmead

If you look further, you will find there is one that is specific to the Sienna. I would point you more particularly in its direction but they would delete the post and might revoke my privelage.

olizer

Karen - please keep us apprised of the outcome of this problem. I have heard of this before. Why buy the hitch if you can not use it? Thanks.