Front Active Spoiler Failure

Time to call the dealer and schedule some time.
One more unnecessary over engineered item to fail.... and it did!

Fr Active Spoiler Malfunction Visit Your Dealer.
Sure you can make it go away, pops up again complaining every few minutes.

It started intermittently and now its constant.
Sort of hanging now... doesn't go up or down. (Front spoiler, not me!)

Well I guess that after searching a bit this doesn't seem to be too common of a problem.
Just lucky I guess.

Anyone else have this device fail? If so I am curious about the time it would be needed to be fixed.

Love to bypass the device and did find a company that makes such a gizmo. Not really sure I want to pay 100+ just to not see a message anymore.

 

Unplug the motor, disconnect the battery to reset it. If the message goes away just remove the spoiler. Six bolts. Two on each side and two in the middle facing forward. I removed mine. Didn’t see much change in fuel economy.

 

Had this failure. 1st one that the dealer had seen. Had to open up a ticket to toyota and had my truck for days. Spoiler Motor was the culprit and had to be replaced

 

ARB1977 Have seen some discussion on spoiler delete. Did you get a warning when you initially disconnected the plug from the motor or did you disconnect the battery first. I have the air dam on mine and and would rather not have it at all. I have a 24.

 

2023 Tundra CrewMax. I just put on a new winch that did not leave room for the air damn motor.With The new software updates it does not appear that you can clear The insanely annoying dash notification. Took it to the dealership, they cannot permanently remove or flash the system. I bought a delete plate from online for 40 bucks. It mounted up nicely and kept the factory motor and plug. But due to the motor just sitting in there and spinning it will not calibrate and still get the warning. Looks like you can buy a delete chip from Yoda Mafia. But I've also read with the new computer updates they are now not working but that is to be determined. I've called and left them a message and emailed them but have not heard back yet. They're 180 bucks and 6 to 12 weeks out is the lame part. Does anybody else have any solutions besides somehow zip tying the entire ridiculously large useless motor behind the grill and then 3D printing some sort of stoppers so the motor can calibrate every time you start the truck

 

No I just took the spoiler off. Everything worked. In fact I achieved the best mpgs. I got coming into work, 24.1. Today I took off the pivot arms. A 10MM bolt on both sides. Motor still works. Just no spoiler.

 

Glad my Canadian ‘24 Tundra with TRD off road package came without the spoiler.

 

Ok a few options then for me.... I would like to get it repaired (I mean why not its under warranty) but after that I'd love to disable it.

When I see those other brand trucks with the standard plastic spoilers, I'm jealous......

I did shove the spoiler back up in the hidden position and that seemed to remove the error.
Once I hit some speed, error came back.

 

That’s the design of it. I believe it deploys 30-40 mph. I hate the spoiler. It does nothing for me. MPG’s remained the same after removal.

 

Same with Pro's.

 

FIXED! No more error messages. With the hidden winch bumper installed, there was no room for the whole motor. The dealer cannot permanently flash the error message out.
The fix:
I had to cut the motor housing mounts off with my Oscillating Multi-Tool. (NOT anything that penetrates the housing with the motor and gears inside.). I also had to cut off the Flap that bolted to the actual valance. (the flap that moves up and down). I zip-tied the motor on the x-bar that runs in front of the truck behind the grill.
Hope this helps!

 

Here is another spoiler gone bad. Yesterday the message started. Took the truck to the dealer and a mechanic came out with his computer to see if he could reset it or bring it back under the truck. No success. He said he had seen several of these fail and many other dealers have reported this also. He said that due to the motion losses in the spoiler and linkage the motor/gearbox can "over rotate past open" and then it doesn't have the power to oppose this jammed condition and rotate backward. He said the new motor or gearbox has an internal stop that does not allow it to go to far. New parts were ordered and seemed available next week. He said it was a pain to replace and they allow about 5 hours repair time. Unplugging the motor does not take the message away. Keep you up to date.
Now have to be careful or I will destroy the down spoiler. I told the service advisor I would try to be careful, but if I destroyed it Toyota would have to replace it. He agreed with me for what that's worth !
PT in Tennessee

 

I removed the spoiler along with the side hinges. Kept the motor plugged in. It’s easy to remove.

 

Just take the useless spoiler off. Leave the motor plugged in. And 5 hours?! You can take the whole front clip off the truck in 5-10 minutes and the one piece motor and 4 bolts are literally right there.

 

Motor/Gearbox replaced today. Technician showed 1 hour to replace and reset system. Seems ok now.
Thanks
PT in Tennessee

 

Quite a few of these spoiler motor failures the past few months reported here. ‘23 and later TRD OR dont have them. I’m glad now that I don’t have one after having to clear two re-tread tire carcasses now on freeways at high speed. It would have been toast already. (even with its little clutch mechanism) Interesting to hear from many that removing them didn’t affect mpg. Rumor was it only helped a small fraction of 1mpg anyway.

 

I took mine off at 1700 miles. I’ve gotten as high as 24.2 mpgs without it, currently 4000 miles.

 

So, north of $1000 to fix something out of warranty that you don't even need. That's why these trucks will vanish quickly as they start reaching the half life mark for all that unnecessary shit, even if the rest of major mechanical components are in a livable state. But they are not usable, because, say, a butt blower controller is dead and holds the CAN network down until replaced.

I've seen, diagnosed and repaired weird car electronics issue, like a tiny, and I mean tiny, resistor in AWD computer talking to the brake computer only via a dedicated line caused a no start condition.



Because of a chain of software bugs in a bunch of computers prevented immobilizer function. Like, the rest of the car network was totally fine, it is just one untested scenario in software caused all of that. You can't even diagnose it properly, because of two dozens of unrelated errors popping up and hiding the root cause. Pulling fuses didn't help, because the CAN bus was still electrically down.

Toyota is no better. I'd say, it is even worse. Was getting a sporadic brake controller malfunction and engine no start when installed a Leer cap with LED dome light. Why? How? What else will crap out as it ages?

So, few years ahead, $1000 here, $1000 there, "Fsck this junk, I'm getting a new one!".

 

I lifted my truck this weekend and had to remove the spoiler and am getting the error. I didn’t disconnect any of the electronics. Do the bolts need to be in the motor still by chance? Any ideas here would be helpful.

 

I don't think it has anything to do with the bolts. That whole big stupid box with the motor in it has to sense when the spoiler is down and up. The motor is probably overturning without the actual spoiler on. I had to completely got mine and zip tie it up behind the grill in order to make the error go away. I think I posted on those thread somewhere with some pictures.

 

No one has mentioned it, but the dealer has to manualy move the spolier to change the oil. My failure notice happened right after my oil change. I immendaitley returned the truck to the dealer, but the tech's computer went out and I have to return this week so they can check it out.

 

There is no "manually moving" of the spoiler required. If they're in there manually, physically cranking on the spoiler or motor, they're doing it wrong, and you need to find a different dealer with a better service department.
There is a "Service" position easily accessed by the WSW stalk. Puts the spoiler in the down position for an oil change.

 

This happened to me last week at 42k miles and I was genuinely surprised it held up that long. I was doing 80 mph and didn’t see half a tire on the road until it was too late and there was no where to exit (I’m a little smooth brained in the mornings) but the hit didn’t feel bad and there was no physical damage to the drivetrain and fuel tank just some marks on skid plates.

There were no errors for the rest of the drive but after being parked for 9 hrs and going for a drive the truck start showing me the active spoiler malfunction error every 5 secs. I looked up the price for the motor assembly and rip.

I started looking up @testerdahl videos interviewing engineers and attending the rolling chassis event because I remember seeing this part mentioned and how the failure mode was designed. Thanks Tim you saved me some good chunk of change and I’ll try my best to help others in the same boat as me.

You can fix this problem pretty easily. No tools required, and essentially you just need to realign an internal position sensor that confirms the position of the spoiler. During a hit the internal clutch slips and absorbs the shock (beautiful).

To realign the spoiler limits turn off the engine pull up on the mist lever and wait for the spoiler to deploy (It wont fully deploy because the clutch slipped and the motor can’t turn past a limit switch) pull on the spoiler to position to the fully deployed position. This shouldn’t take a lot of force, but once the spoiler is deployed the force it’s takes to push it back is much greater so you could use this to judge if the spoiler is fully deployed. Now start the engine and go for a drive and if your spoiler is working then you are done.

If your spoiler isn’t fully retracting as shown below then you simply have to follow the steps below and push it back up to its retracted position.


Start by turning off the engine and disconnecting the motor assembly’s 4 pin connector after this push up on the spoiler.


Reconnect the connector. Go for a drive and your spoiler should be adjusted to its original position and the position sensor is happy. Hope this helps someone from an expensive bill.

 

Someone will come up with a delete module that can be plugged in place of the motor to trick the truck into thinking it's still there.

 

@mayan This is GREAT info. Thanks.

So, contrary to what I posted prior to mayan, there IS a condition where manually cranking the spoiler (back) into position is the solution.

Just not when it's time to do an oil change, assuming spoiler operation is normal to begin with.

 

I believe these modules already exist for $300. (Edit, it’s $30 lol)

Yeah this would only apply if the spoiler took a hit. For regular maintenance you should not be able to move the spoiler at all, the plastic might flex but that’s about it.

 

Wonder how tried and true this one is:

https://cbioffroadfab.com/product/tundra-front-active-spoiler-delete-module/

 

Here's the one I'll be going with assuming I pick up a JB4:
https://burgertuning.com/products/f...QZ48D39ZoxXexgqjTXgvKIDK4dTa9kFM5T4LFAMBtGzBp

 

@mayan thanks for the shout out. Crazy to think a rolling chassis video would be helpful like this. Sometimes you just video whatever you can at events never realizing what will come of it.

 

Any difference in mileage with & without spoiler?? Seems like I've seen it somewhere that there was no difference. My truck has one, its working, but I've also leveled truck & added bigger tires, so is this thing really doing any good at all?