Faults:
I come from a family of Toyota owners, and have owned two Land Cruisers and an Avalon XLS myself, before purchasing my 2002 Tundra SR5.
I had the serpentine belt replaced at about 5,000 miles, as well as the driver's door window motor.
At around 8,000 miles, the dealership replaced the drivers door window motor again.
At 15,000 miles, I had a lot of "creaking" coming from the dashboard that was unexplainable. Then the passenger side air bag cover started rising up and out of the dash. I had the truck in for the dashboard six different times. Each time the dealership would take it apart, and not properly put it together. One of the times they lined underneath the dash with sound deadening felt. When I picked the truck up, felt was sticking out of all the vents and stereo control openings.
The technicians also forgot to connect the air vents, so I had no heat for an entire week until they were able to take my truck back in. This was during January of 2003, when the temperature was below negative for a straight week. The technicians also forgot to attach the tower molding on the driver's side, so I was able to fit my entire hand between the molding and the interior ceiling.
When I brought up the fact to the service manager, that if I were to trade in my truck to them or another dealership, I would lose value on it from all the felt sticking out of the dash, he had no response.
I also had problems with a clicking sound coming out of the front end when applying the brakes, which was never resolved.
The battery became corrosive at around 10,000 miles too.
I ended up replacing the tires at around 18,000 miles, which isn't unheard of after speaking to other Tundra owners.
Needless to say, the creaking continued and was never fixed properly. I am one that can block out annoying sounds, but it became obnoxious and irritating to drive. I sat down with the general manager, sales manager, and service manager. They all seemed to be "feeling" for me due to my bad experiences, but quite frankly as things progressively got worse, they were not willing to help out one inch.
I wrote a five page letter to Corporate, documenting all the servicing issues I had with the truck and dealership. An official from Toyota contacted me and said I could go forward with my case to arbitration; which I did. It got nowhere! I tell everyone, "do not waste your time in arbitration." You have a.01% chance of winning. When I found myself picking up the truck constantly, and then calling the service department the next day because the problems were still occurring, I decided to trade it in for a Mitsubishi Montero Limited Edition and give someone else the nightmare.
Friends and family would joke at how often I had a loaner car. Out of 15 months of owning the truck and making monthly payments on it, it was in the shop for 4 1/2 months total.
It was a beautiful and comfortable truck; on and off the road it handled well. I was saddened to have had such a bad experience with Toyota, since they have always made such a great product.
In December of 2004, I was a sucker and tried to give the 2005 Tundra SR5 Off Road one more shot. What a sucker I was. It has been in the shop three times so far for rear brakes, a droning sound coming out from under the front part when traveling between 30-39 mph, which hasn't been resolved, and a bad air sensor intake and manifold at 3,000 miles. (The truck started bucking and continuously shifting on its own (it's an automatic) while traveling at 55mph on a straight away in the road). I have spent over $30,000.00 on each truck, and both are lemons!
27th Dec 2011, 09:56
Those trucks are very good used trucks deals... 02-04 models are going for $8000-12,000... which is a very good deal, because those Tundras were very expensive when new... but finding a good, clean one owner/non-accident truck is not easy, because most of the people that have them don't want to part with them. They know what they have. Also many of those older Tundras are built better than the new ones...