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Comments
I see this post is from 2009. Has this continued to work for you? You probably already sold your van and got a Honda!!!
I called customer service and received a case number. I'm still waiting to hear back from the Customer Service manager as I was told that he/she may be able to assist me. I sure hope so. I was hoping that this would be a recall. This door of mine is not automatic and is used very infrequently. It just does not make sense to me that both bolts could rust out at the exact same time, perfect circles. Seems like a factory defect. If nothing else, there should be a way to fix this issue without having to replace the entire door... crazy.
Anyway, thanks for posting this information as I think that I may have to try your solution.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Toyota-faces-skeptics-as-apf-1233530185.html?x=0
I don't know what I would have done had I had to go through this to fix the drivers door for it called for a 'whole new door' and a rental for over a week.
You can count on my not getting a toyota.. again and my last three 'brand new cars have been toyota' top of the line tooo.. as the cressida and now this.. xle sienna. I'm an older lady to have all these parts falling apart is rediculous...
How about printing all of these complaints out and taking them into the dealership or sending to the manufacture? :sick:
Please direct me to it.
cherane
the same problem( it is a matter of time), because it is the design and the
material that they use in this assembly that screw up. I heard that the
new sienna use entirely different design. Why change it, if it does not hav
e problem right...... there got to be problem with the old design... I was
thinking to keep the sienna for least 8 years, but i might have to
turn it in early because lately there are noises from the front when I bre
ak on a down hill road. It is not the break. I can not reproduce it execpt
in a 45 degree down hill road. Maybe something is loose or broke again
I would not be surprise it is another washer cushion or something
as worn off again. Small stuff that cost a lot of money to fix with this van. Another money pit.
To put this in perspective, the prices paid thread has 10,413 posts, and this thread has 418. So it's not like every van purchased has this problem.
Knocking on wood.
PS the power doors are my favorite feature
http://toyota.justanswer.com/uploads/snd27613/2008-07-17_221901_sienna_door_inop- _tsib.pdf
Because the motor still worked a little, I thought it may be the hinge so I ordered the hinge and bracket ($124 with tax) and installed them on Saturday. Still had the same problem. The cost of the motor is listed online at $840. I made the decision to turn it into a manual door which took about 20 minutes and saved me $840. If you want to go this route (while you decide whether you want to spend the money to get the motor replaced) here is what you need to do. I am referencing steps in the TSB
1. Follow step 4 - Remove end rail moulding (this is at the end of the track at the rear of the van under the back windows.
2. Follow step 5 - Remove center bracket No. 2. which is under the moulding you just removed.
3. Follow step 6 - Remove center bracket No. 1 which is at the other end of the track almost inside the van.
At this point you should have two cable dangling in front of you. They are attached to the van at the hinge and go into the upper clutch assembly for the door. you can see the full picture in step 9 of the TSB.
4. I took wire cutters and cut the two ends of the cable right at the door hinge.
5. Replace the rear bracket (it holds the moulding too.)
6. Replace the moulding.
The front hinge is optional. Save it somewhere in case you want to replace the motor.
I had a fully functioning manual door. you may want to remove the fuse for the door motor just in case somebody pushes the button. not sure what would happen then.
This may or may not work for you and I make no claim that this is a good idea. But it is an alternative to a costly repair if you can live without the power feature and seems to be working for me. Good luck!
Can you do it at home? Not sure because I don't know you. Although I have a "corporate job" now and don't get my hands dirty on a regular basis, my uncle owned a transmission shop when I was growing up and I worked for him summers doing engines and transmissions (and some body work) so I have above average mechanical ability.
If the idea of paying somebody to change your brakes and rotors is a foreign concept to you or you don't think twice about digging around under the hood when something isn't right then you should be able to do it.
The basic idea of the repair is to remove all the window trim, remove the window, remove the inner panel, remove the motor and lock assembly inside the door, pop out the motor, replace the motor, put everything back together. Draw pictures of wiring harness and the 5 or 6 cables you need to disconnect inside the door so you get everything back together where it goes. Draw a picture of the upper cable pulley and clutch to make sure it is installed correctly.
My opinion is that you can open and close a door manually a lot of times before it makes sense to spend $800 on something that will probably break again anyways. But, if you have small children and the door is a needed feature then it may be worth it to you.
Hope that helps...
We replaced the upper and middle right hand side sliding power door hinge on my 2004 Sienna LE. Cost of both hinges was about $110.00. My friend and followed the TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) in post 146. We didn't have to replace the motor/cable assembly. The door started to rub against the quarter panel due to a worn bushing in the middle hinge. We did take the door completely off the van. Make sure you label the wiring and have sliding door window rolled up all the way when re-installing. I saved $500.00 in labor by doing it ourselves. My friend is a BMW auto body man. Another option is to speak to a Toyota certified body shop vs. the dealer body shop. Some dealers outsource their bodywork.
I just pushed the button on the dash that makes the door manual. Why do you need to remove the motor?
Two weeks after buying it, the trunk door stopped operating. It now opens and closes at will and is completely misaligned.
The trunk door's remote controlled electronics are screwed up and we have to manually force it down to close shut and stay shut.
On top of that, the dealership claims WE "bent" it (there are no dents or dings anywhere btw, and we are lost as to how it got "bent"... maybe we took a sledgehammer to the door joints??).
What next... the passenger seats start sliding at will and the seatbelts start popping out?
This car is a danger.
Toyota is right - with a Sienna, ANYTHING could happen. How magical is that?
Of course, Toyota refuses to fix the problem... on a brand new less than 14 day old car (with additional 7 year extended warranty above and beyond the regular warranty).
What's the point of paying close to 40 grand? You get to be the biggest fool you'll ever know.
You also get to think each and every moment how much you are playing around with your children's safety by having this car in your garage.
At any time, the mechanically-astute passenger side door might decide it would like to open up right in the middle of traffic, and lo and behold, your kid is thrown out like bathwater. Or the wonderful sliding "captain: seats might just like to slip and slide around on their own while you're driving. Or maybe your sunroof will come crashing down and end your Sienn-ic misery. It's definitely a very... "Mommy" feeling.
Trust Toyota - never again.
Note: (This car was purchased in July 2010 from a dealership in MD. The owner lives in NJ and her local area NJ dealership has refused to even consider that the car's mechanism is faulty. Drive back to MD and face another rejection there? Sure Toyota, after stiffing us for 40 large, we've got nothing else to do but kowtow to you. Nice.)
The problem is that the sliding door coil is housed inside a paper thin plastic assembly. When that 1 cent assembly cracks, the spool unwinds and the door stops working. I had a local body shop pull out the power assembly and now use the door as a manual. I watched the guys open the door...the plastic assembly is all 1 unit so that you cannot fix or repair it. The whole item must be discarded. This is to ensure that Toyota will charge you $1500-$2000 to fix the power door.
As for the liftgate, I reported Toyota to the NHTSA for that problem. I was under my liftgate when the thing collapsed right on top of me. It is a big heavy door. Thank goodness I am a big man...it could have killed one my kids (I kid you not). If you don't believe me, just remove 1 strut, lift the gate and let go...it will collapse with a massive 'whomp'. I had to replace both struts as Toyota refused to fix it either (it was 3 and 1/2 years old at the time). Of course, about half a year later, I get a notice in the mail that toy-car-ota will replace any defective struts, but this was not a recall. I didn't retain the receipt of the strut (who would after 6 months?) and Toyota would not reimburse me for the cost.
I hate toy-car-ota and will never buy another one again. I should have saved my money in anticipation for the repairs and bought a Chrystler or a Dodge. Oh yes, I forgot that my time wasted on this piece of junk was not factored. Repeat after me...do NOT buy a toy-car-ota......do NOT buy a toy-car-ota......do NOT buy a toy-car-ota......do NOT buy a toy-car-ota......do NOT buy a toy-car-ota......do NOT buy a toy-car-ota.
I sincerely hope that your experience will be better than mine.
-BY
Less than one week after purchasing the van, we had our dealer look at this. They witnessed the problem and claimed that there was a programming error. They re-programed the doors and sent us on our way. Next morning -- same problem. This time, they kept the van for several days, videoed the problem and dealt with Toyota in California (we are in NJ). According to Toyota (as explained by the service foreman), there is a glitch in the timing sequence of the latches -- a latch is apparently not releasing fast enough resulting in the fastener being pulled out while still latched -- hence the popping sound and rough opening.
The worst part about it is that Toyota knows about the problem but does not have a fix! There reaction was yes, its a problem, but your stuck with it. Now take your $45,000 van and go home and hope that Toyota comes up with a fix soon.
I usually make it a practice not to buy a car in the first year of production. However, I liked the van and thought I was getting a good deal. I also believed that Toyota was different and would have gotten a car right by the time they brought it to the market. I also thought that Toyota would stand behind their products. I should have listened to the countless anti-Toyota posts on this and other sites.
We like the van, but fear bigger problems with the doors down the road. It is probably just a matter of time before the latches or parts of the doors that are getting pulled out fail from the stress of repeatedly being pulled out. Hopefully, Toyota has a fix before then. Glad I purchased the extended warranty.
..and that person's van also has the EXACT SAME problem that our car has. The tailgate is "bent" in both minivans. In the exact same way, and the exact same location even.. right at the top of the tailgate/rear trunk door, where no one would ever think something can get "bent" as if it was a piece of paper. The mechanic said something about the body's metal being a single sheet and so it got bent or whatever... how does that happen??? Does no one check these things before they sell them??
In the other person's case, the door just doesn't open anymore. In our case, it opens and shuts and opens and shuts without ever really staying shut.. or open. These are BRAND NEW less than twenty day old vans we are talking about. So there is something definitely WRONG with the new 2011 Siennas coming out.
BUYER BEWARE.
Toyota is going to have a major recall on their hands. The best part is, they don't even care. There was a guy from Toyota looking at and photographing both vans when we got to the bodyshop, the minute we showed up and the mechanic said we were the owners (we'd gone to take some library books out of the van), the Toyota guy literally just ran away. We learnt later that he was from Toyota. We were disgusted and shocked to see that the Toyota guy did not even bother to give us any basic customer service or apologize that our car was having problems. That's called running away from your responsibility.
I am so upset ... we had the car for barely TEN DAYS!! And it now looks like a pigsty now that all the body shop people have been all over it. The repair people said they will "detail" the car after "fixing" it. What is the point of that? It was a brand new car right out of the factory floor!! It's like giving me a stale pancake that's been pulled out of the garbage, wiped up, plated and served. Would you like syrup with that?
The mechanics kept saying "Toyota is a great brand, great car, this Sienna is so great to look at". Yeah, right. It's a junk pot now... in under ten days. I appreciate the fact that cars get a kinda-smelly "bodyshop" feeling once they start to need repairs and all that.. but isn't that supposed to start AFTER the warranty period has expired? ie, in about 3-7 years?? This was my new baby!!! And now it's... not so new, and not at all nice anymore.
I am never going to ever recommend this brand of car manufacturer to anyone ever again - even my worst enemy doesn't deserve something so obviously UNSAFE and totally... quality-less. I'm just afraid the doors will start falling out, or even OVER my kids... One of my friends was going to buy a Sienna right after us. They were there when our door failed, and now they've bought a Honda Odyssey just yesterday. Thank goodness atleast one family is safe.
Toyota is now, for us personally, the worst car a person can get. It's getting worse, and worse, and worse. This dealership is trying to help us, but it's not going to give me back my brand new car. It's been dismantled, left near giant junk heaps in the body shop repair yard, driven probably by a dozen people, poked, prodded, sweated in, had its innards taken in and out, and all in ten days. It was a dream turned into a nightmare.
If any $5 item from Walmart is defective, you can return it and get a refund or exchange it for a non-defective piece. Walmart cares about their $5 items. TOYOTA on the other hand, does not even care about it's $40,000 item that you've paid your hard-earned money for. I think they have made too much money, that's the main problem. They have become used to cheating people our of their earnings.. and in fact, in the case of the 50 people who died because of faulty pedals, cheating people out of their lives.
We put a call into corporate Toyota HQ, caseworker was supposed to call us. No call as yet. They probably are waiting for this problem to just go away in time and they don't need to do anything about it. Trust me, it won't. The next time you sit in a Sienna, think about the safety of those latches and doors. This is a major disaster waiting to happen.
It is really troublesome to see a brand new car that has big problem in its early stage of life. What else could have gone wrong with it in the future right. A lot of problems with this van has happened. I do not want to repeat them again............
Oh, I did not see the damage on your 2011 van but could it be the hydraulic lift that cause the bending?
Anyway, Good luck with your brand new van...
I also had the same prolem with the liftgate hit me in the head so many times. I got the letter telling me it was unders some form of recall (but not a recall) and the Chantilly dealership told us it was not on our car. Proceed to tell us it was only on vehicles with automatic lift gates. I called corporate and they said that it was on our vehicle. Fought with the chantilly dealership for a long time. I finally went to Manassas and the guy pulled it up on the computere there they had it fixed in 2 hours. The manager called from Chantilly and did apologize after finding it somewhere in his computer that is was covered. He offered to do it. This of course was after I had it fixed at Manassas Toyota and I had sworn off the Chantilly dealership.
I will never buy a Toyota again.
It cost about $200 including the part.
Next, $40,000 might be loose change for lamborgini owners, but not a typical Toyota customer - ie. us. It's so easy to talk about someone else's money so
casually. After all, it's not your earnings going down the toilet.
I paid $40,000 for a brand new ( not USED) vehicle to go defective within 10 days.
Do you think I am a fool to pay $4,000 per day for a car?
Plus, it's not some luxury sedan, it's a MINI- V A N. What is a minivan for? For the KIDS. Nobody LIKES to put money in these things unless they have no choice!
Kids equals safety first. That's why some companies actually have those words in their name. understand?
What residual value? An Accord has residual value, a Volvo has residual, a Merc has residual value. A Camry USED to have residual value before the pedals fiasco.
Nevermind, you're a Toyota person so who am I talking to.
As you are aware of, 14 days AFTER being in the shop, Toyota motor Corp FINALLY decided to replace our car trunk door.
this was not on day 1 or day 3 or even day 10. It took them. 14 days to come to the decision to replace the door. All that time they were probably wondering how they could get out of it. Now, we are in our 3 rd week of not having the car we paid for in full and own, a less than two week old car when it went to the shop.
Pls bear that in mind. This was not a 1 month old, 1 year or or 1 decade old car. You expect me to pay $40,000 for something that works 10 days, and Toyota has the gall to sell me an extended 6-7 year warranty for that???
Thats called take- my- money- and- run.
Wake up! These kind of third- world tactics don't work anymore. Even in the third
world, people know their rights by now.
On top of that, you ( Toyota ) has no regard for the real customers of a sienna - the kids who sit in it. Just because they can't sign on the dotted line, you just ignore them, is that it?
who gives a hoot about residual value when my kid's airbag won't
deploy, or the sliding door shuts down on her?
I'm not asking for bells n whistles. Build a solid car that works. We can buy a $100 portable DVD player And put it in ourselves, but we don't know how to build cars. We can just shell out for them, so you take us for a ride?
That's just NOT done.
Again, as you are well aware, since you've asked for a follow up which I was going to post anyway - the door is still on it's way. When it gets here, prolly Tuesday, it'll be put in and that's that. It's called what is commonly known as a quick- fix, ESP because this customer in particular is a headache. The engineers who came down from Toyota have zero clue what's wrong - otherwise don't you think our phones with be ringing off the hook with self- congratulatory smugness?
After all this, we will be taking the thing back to the MD dealership we got it from. They have - so far- agreed to replace the vehicle. Do you know why? Because we have spent $100,000 at that same dealership, as all THREE of our Toyota purchases in the last 5-6 yrs have been from Laurel Toyota. In all this, TOYOTA CORPORATION has done fiddlesticks for us.
It's the LAwrenceville NJ BODYSHOP that is getting the door fixed. It's George and Renee who've been so helpful. It's the lawrenceville bodyshop that's given us a rental till the car gets fixed.
It's our laurel Toyota DEALERSHIP that's promised to replace the car. NOT TOYOTA.
Toyota's doing zit.
That defective minivan could have come from any Toyota dealersip across the nation. instead of me, someone else could have bought it. Regardless, a human being's safety is at stake.
The dealer is just the middleman, they retail whatever they get in wholesale from the manufacturer. The bodyshop is the last place a car should be visiting, in it's dying days. It's not an ICU for newborns.
TOYOTA made this car on IT'S assembly line in IT'S plant in Indiana. This car came out from IT'S line faulty and unsafe. It is a Toyota corporation fault plain and simple.
The dealer has agreed to replace it because it values our safety like we do. That's called CUSTOMER SERVICE. We just hope that they stick to their promise, because the trunk door will likely take another 7 - 10 days to fix, so we are talking atleat two more weeks.
I will send my friends and family to these two dealerships IF they Really want to buy Toyotas. If you seriously want to buy a Toyota, these are the places to go to. Atleast the people are human.
But for now, after this Sienna, we are done with Toyota. There is something called ethics And decency which Toyota motor Corp seems to have lost.
Regardless, the car manufacturer gets their money THERE and THEN, with no need to proceed to arbitration or lemon law or other legal hassles on their side, so why isn't it the same for the consumer? Because we consumers individually have limited buying power and the car manufacturer has a lot, hence whoever has the most loot has the most clout and wins?
How come the car manufacturer does not have to go through fire to get their money? Can someone tell me this?
When buying a new car, the car maker and the dealers say basically that this is "THE" car for Mr or Mrs .X, they collude together to sell something that has been put hot out of the oven without proper testing just to make it to market before their competitor does, and that way to make a quick profit. Then, when the item is defective, they fold their hands, sit back and say sorry, can't help you; or, go to arbitration to get your money back or whatever. That's total nonsense. Something is sold with the full knowledge that it may or may not work - is that even ethical anywhere?
We consumers are fools to buy it, that's for sure. The idea is, whatever we put out, fools will rush in to lap it up, so why bother. That's the complacency Toyota is showing.
We thought a Congressional or Senate investigation is usually enough for a man to shape up his act. Nothing seems enough for Toyota.
With those pedal situations, come to think of it, those people have been murdered by plain simple negligence. They innocently put their trust in a company that simply does not care. Someone should be putting Toyota on trial for that.
Why should I go through arbitration and deal with Toyota-paid lawyers who will obviously rule in favor of their paycheck? Just because I bought a faulty car doesn't make me that stupid.
And when selling me that car, Toyota didn't make me sign any extra paperwork that said this car could be a lemon, who knows, and in that case, please be prepared to go car-less for 30 days before dumb you, your $200/hour lawyer (or even worse, advocacy group with lengthy waiting periods to get in for an initial consulation) can send us a letter about how the car is a lemon and the lemon law should apply and then we can send a return letter that MAYBE, we'll see, etc etc blah, and THEN after another 10 days has passed before we can start discussions about getting a replacement possibly, and another 20 days will pass before the company starts to consider our request for a refund and then another 30 days has passed before we finally get a replacement or refund. Don't forget to factor in that "corporate check processing" time (which conveniently never seems to apply when it's your check they're cashing), and all that time going back and forth with the snail mail/email/whatever to get the legal work over with - IF you're lucky enough to get a refund.
If you don't go the lawyer route and decide to do things yourself, or you do both the legal and your own legwork, in all that time, you have to be calling a generic company 1-888 number that puts you on hold forever, and deal with case managers who either don't answer or are out and 90% of the time you don't even get their voicemail so you have to leave a message with "Toyota Customer CARE" (ha!), and even then you still have to be the one calling them back to check on the status of your case.
You're working? Hey, I have a job too. I'm not just sitting around to deal with all this runaround all day. My time means money too, not just Toyota's.
Nowhere did Toyota tell me when I bought this car, that I might need to wait a whole half-year to get what I paid for. They didn't wait more than a few hours to get my money, I have to wait 3-6 months? Wow. Car manufacturers don't tell you this, and they expect you to shut up and take it? That's rape.
And no, this doesn't just apply to my situation, this applies to anybody who's buying a new car.
I'm yelling and screaming bloody murder, hell yes, I a right to. I'm not interested in being another Toyota statistic thank you vey much.
A defective new car within it's warranty period and all Toyota can do is "fix" it?? B.S. And then they want us to take that car down the road and kill someone with it???
Hell NO!
And how the heck they sold me that extended warranty shamefacedly beats me. It's as if they're saying this is the next best thing to sliced bread and here's our seal on it, we're THAT good.
Hey, don't sell me something that makes no sense whatsoever.
More fool me for buying it.
But I'm not the only toyota consumer. There are lots of innocent people out there with cars still under warranty who are having to eat the cost of their repairs, whose insurance costs are going up because of those repairs (I'm not talking about accidents here where drivers are at fault or problems caused by car owners themselves), or who have bought new cars and are experiencing "little" problems or are getting runarounds for major ones. Why have all these people had to shell out their hard-earned money for something that doesn't work? What did they do wrong?
They bought a Toyota, Japanese-quality, Japanese hoshin-kanri whatever, expecting the quality they paid for.
If something has gone wrong with the quality, if there is something faulty, tell us plain and simple. Lower your prices to fall in line with something that stinks. Your principles have already been lowered, lower buyer expectations as well so that they know who and what they have to deal with. Then a person can say, hey, I'm getting what I paid for. Then Toyota won't be getting any complaints because then they will be in a position to say, this is what you paid for, this is what you get.
Until then, don't dare make a grab for our money, and don't you dare call your minivan a "family-friendly" (hence safe) vehicle to be in.
The driver's side sliding door hinge in our 2005 LE is falling apart and we want to replace it before the door falls out. But I'm having trouble finding the part.
Thanks!
For those attempting the fix on your own, I found you don't need to remove the window, but you do need to disconnect the 2 bottom bolts that are accessed by remove the rubber covers. After you disconnect the window, you can lean the whole assembly out to get to the screws. I used a cheap glass suction cup to keep the window from falling down and that worked great. My other surprise was that the 2 screws holding the motor on wouldn't come out no matter what, they just stripped, I tried a extractor but they kept stripping. I ended up just cutting them from the front using a dremel (it easy to see how to do this if you already have the new part). I had to run to the parts store to get some screws, I should have picked a couple up from the dealership when I was there buying the motor. The screws are M4 x.7 and ~25mm long. With the run to the parts store it took me a little over 2 hours.
Door works great and the wife is happy with her Toyota again.