Tundra engine recall - interesting news

My arbitration decision came in last week, and they didn't know when the engine would ship at the time. I disagree with the arbitrator's reasoning that the parts shortage was beyond Toyota's control; they're able to build one engine and ship it in less time than the 54 days it took them. They just leaned into the fact that they need to provide 100,000 engines for the recall. Well, I don't need 100,000 engines; I only need one.

 

"Delays beyond the manufacturer's" control is BS. Manufacturers are not required to take the lowest bid. If they feel a particular supplier may not be up to a task, they can choose a more responsive one. At any rate They know this if they are a competent arbitrator. How was this arbitrator chosen? Sounds like they are either in Toyota's pocket or are not familiar with commercial manufacturing.

 

https://www.ncdsusa.org/ assigns an arbitrator from their staff, they're supposed to be neutral and impartial but NCDS is a service who's clients are the manufacturers, not the consumers so I presume they deny claims at a far greater rate than the court systems. Still it's a good way to get your case heard by Toyota because if you go to Toyota's website and try to submit any online customer service request or try and find their customer service email you'll find they don't have an email and their online ticket system doesn't actually work, the submit button at the end is fake or doesn't do anything, it's almost funny how little they care.

Edit: There are circumstances where Toyota will forgo the arbitration process if you present a good case that meets certain criteria and they will agree to your claim. Then, you'll just get contacted directly by the manufacturer prior to the hearing. A few Redditors who had seized engines from this safety recall previously had success with getting their Tundras bought back this way.

 

Arbitration is always setup to benefit the industry not the consumer.

I used to be a homebuilder. Industry standard then was pay a home warranty service $600 and give it to the buyer for free. When they signed acceptance it married them to arbitration for any defect claims during warranty period to an arbitration board made up of 3 building industry reps. The warranty was a scam to avoid law suits and flow everything to rigged arbitration

 

Remedy Documents are now available on NHTSA

JOB AID - https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RMISC-24V381-1496.pdf
TECHNICAL INSTRUCTIONS - https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCRIT-24V381-9262.pdf
DEALER LETTER - https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCMN-24V381-0422.pdf

 

Interesting. So if you live in California you must have the service campaign performed before you can register the vehicle the following year.

 

California doing California.

 

So they stagger the order of replacement by production date. 1st 4 months of prod can call now. Then in January next 4 months of prod. And in March the last 4 months of 2022 prod where mine would fall. And so forth.

27k replacements quarter probably equates to what 2 to 3 a week for the average dealer seems steep. But if Toyota/dealer dues not pull people to do it to get it over with, a lot of people will put if off

 

Warranty Reimbursement Procedure

Verify Vehicle Eligibility - 1. Check Vehicle Inquiry System for Campaign Eligibility ----> Not Covered

No Further Action Required

So any failures outside the recall (Hybrids) are SOL. And there have been failures in the spreadsheet outside the recall window.

 

Why are they SOL? If they are not within the recall, they are not within the recall. And besides, recalls CAN be expanded to include more vehicles/broader date ranges at any time they see fit.

 

They are not SOL. They will go through the normal repair procedure as long as they are in the Powertrain Warranty window and even then, Toyota has been making good on taking care of the customer.

 

The ones that don’t fall under the recall get short blocks. Not ideal as some people are on their 3rd short block, but better than paying out of pocket for it all.

 

Dropped by my dealer this AM to schedule the permanent fuel tank fix and have them order the replacement for cracked seat trim. Happened to mention the engine recall, and he said mine was available. Will be delivered to the dealership next week and take 3 days to do the swap.

My 2022 truck has been running great and currently has 25K miles, pavement pounder and towing ~5,000 lb toy hauler. Fingers crossed this all goes well.

 

It does seem odd that they are replacing what appear to be perfectly running engines, there are way more engines running well than failing, so why replace something that isn't broke, unless they know that it WILL break due to a design fault. Surely if ALL the motors included in the recall had debris left then they would be failing way more often.

Hope your swap goes well with no lingering issues.

 

I scheduled mine this morning, was very surprised to reach someone competent and knowledgeable at the dealership. They are gonna order everything for the 4 recalls, engine, fuel line, Epb reprogram and moving in neutral.

Fingers crossed the whole process goes as smoothly as today's interaction with the dealership did....

Edit: I will be at almost 90k when it goes in for repair. Truck has had zero issues for me and runs fantastic.

 

While this is nothing more then speculation, With regards to the recall one might suspect their calculating on a Bell curve where they are seeing most or potentially most failures. Again nothing more then pure speculation. If one does not fall into the recall but has a failure the best solution they have come up with is to do a complete engine replacement as the alternative was deemed in the recall by them to not be adequate. Of course I would suspect in this latter scenario there may be some delay as it would have to be determined that the engine in question suffered from the same problem as the recalled engines.

 

I traded out of my 23 Tundra in September for a Tacoma TrailHunter. Certainly not as big as the Tundra but again I didn't need all that room. Couple of reasons for my trade. First, I had a 22 Limited and traded up to a 23 TRD Pro. No Issues and really liked the Pro. As said earlier, came down to didn't need all the room but needed the Terrain capabilities and the TrailHunter Nailed it. I also saved insurance cost and better MPG. The TrailHunter Quality and build are excellent. The Hybrid has plenty of power at 460lb FT of Torque and so far, the off-road capabilities match or better the Tundra. Just returned from a 700 Mile Road trip averaging 18.3MPG running 70-80MPH.

Why I sold then? Dealer wrote a sizeable check back to me and I drove the Trailhunter off the lot. I remained concerned with the Engine issues and the way Toyota continues to take the head in sand approach. Didn't want to be the next one posting engine grenaded and stranded me. One thing I have noticed is the Oil Pressure difference. The 3.4L had much lower oil pressure in the 25-35lb range when warm and bounced around like a yo-yo. (run a scan Guage 3) The 2.4 Turbo Hybrid is much higher in the 45-50lb range and is steady impacted by RPM changes

Toyota denial-head in sand approach: Case in point, yesterday received call from selling dealer for my 22 limited. It was urgent that I schedule time for the engine replacement. (All of a sudden, its urgent). Toyota didn't even have records updated showing the 22 traded November of 22 for a 23 TRD Pro.

 

now you can worry about the trans in the taco grenading instead of the motor,

I kid, I kid...

 

I stopped by my dealer this morning & he told me all about the phases & said I’m in phase with a build date of February 22. He told me they haven’t been able to order any motors yet. Besides the phase approach he said motors that have already failed will be priority regardless of the phase.

I said I’m in no hurry to get my done & I don’t want to be the guinea pig. He said he understood.
I asked what kind of warranty comes with the new motor. He said that’s one of several unanswered questions. I scheduled service for next week & made sure they weren’t going to try & keep my truck while they got it. He said they won’t.

 

Well looks like my truck will be either phase 2 or 3. My truck was built in June of 2022. So eager to see feedback from the first phase group.

 

Wow... This is definitely a big surprise for me

 

Some great info in there, thank you posting.

 

Maybe it's just me but 27,000 vehicles per phase getting done in 2 months seems just a tad optimistic. Well, maybe like 10 tads optimistic. LOL. I am phase 4, BTW.

 

Yeah that was a goal set by some clueless, optimistic C level suits, probably with a gun in their hand at the organization - no doubt. This is going to take years.

 

And according to Toyota paperwork, they will notify CA dmv in July 2025 for whoever did not complete recall yet, and dmv won't renew registration.

Let's see how that plays out. They will most likely have to push back this date... Hopefully

 

There are 1275 Toyota dealerships in the US. 27,000 divided by 1275 equals 21 Tundras per dealership. Assuming that the job takes 3 days per car, it's 63 labor-days. Some large dealership can certainly work more than one Tundra at a time. Challenging but certainly doble.

 

The math is there, but in real life there is no way this is going to happen.

 

All dealerships have limited master techs. The certifications are not cheap. Demand out strips supply of qualified talent. So take a couple of master techs along with a likely decent helper techs out of daily operations for a year plus. That means lots of other work previously done by higher skills gets pressed down to greenhorns

Enjoy your Toyota experience

 

I think there will be a significant number of people that refuse to take it in until they have a problem based on the worry the dealership will do more harm than there is benefit.

 

If I was a Tech, this would be a great time for opportunity. I think it will go fine, much like the frame swap, it’s just going to take much longer than they are anticipating.