Transmission Gears Seized At 66K Miles While Driving

brenpull

I have had the absolute worst experience with my 2010 Toyota Sienna that has 66K miles. The transmission gears seized (completely locked up) while I was driving down the road, causing such friction/tension that it exploded through the top of the cover of the transmission. Parts of the transmission were falling out of the car and the transmission fluid completely emptied onto the road. This created an incredibly dangerous situation. Transmission repair = over $5000. I was outraged and took my complaints all the way to the top of Toyota Corporate. Worst experience EVER. I will never, ever buy a Toyota again, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone buy a Toyota unless they plan on dropping $5K immediately after the warranty expired at 60,000. Deborah Houston, Executive Analyst, was unpleasant.

stekicar

Thank you for posting this. I am in the market for new minivan and Toyota will be off my list. Not because what happened to transmission, it can happen, but because the way Toyota responded to your problem.

acehawk

Did you do any towing? Change the fluid? There's gotta be more to this than transmission suddenly gernade itself.

mhunterdts

I have the same problem with my 2010 Toyota Sienna XLE 71,500 miles. Yesterday we were on the highway and all of the sudden the engine revved way up and I had no power. I was able to pull to the side of the road with my momentum alone. After investigating I have no power except second gear. I was able to drive at 25 MPH on the interstate until the next exit. Had the tranny investigated and indeed it is toast. I asked the service department if there is any maintenance on the toyota transmission, swap fluid at 100k miles, that's it. So now I have a nearly 6k bill for a rebuilt tranny. I also called toyota, and they said "good luck".
There were no symptoms or ill behaviors prior, it just went out all of a sudden. What a pain in the neck!