The Ac was not working consistently the prior summer, and I took teh car to the dealer. They cahcrged me 200 and told me they could not ID the problem. Then my husbands car, same make, model, year had teh same problems, and they told him it was his compressor. His was repalced. As the weather warmed up again, I used it, and it was only blowing hot air. Took it in - delaer charged me 100 and said they could not find anything. By June, the failure was constant. I brought the car in again, they told me they could not find anything., and recharged the system. A week later, I came back, frustrated with cooking in the car, I told them to check the compressor since they had replaced it on my husband;s car for the same symptoms just recently. Sure enough, called me back, said it was not just the compressor, but the clutch, and my extended warranty had expired the previous week. I told them I had repeatedly brought it in for the same problem when it was under warranty. They had me pay half of the charges.

Now a year later (a month past the 1 year warranty on the repair, the clutch has failed again. Dealer wants to charge the full amount again - another 2k! 3 failures of the compressor clutch on the 2004 Toyota sienna, for minimal use! Who is the mfr of the part! Toyota needs to stop contracting with them. Do not get a remanufactured/refurbed part - the part is life limited, and will just fail again.

This happened when I took my family on a long trip to Florida for Spring break. Before Chattanooga, the battery light came up and I heard a 'wee' sound - didn't know what the sound was. I thought the battery had failed as I had never changed the battery since I bought the van new.So I took the next exit and went to Walmart to fix the battery. They fixed the battery but told me that the battery wasn't charging. I thought maybe the alternator has failed. I decided to drive to Atlanta and have the alternator fixed in Atlanta. To conserve battery, I switched off the air vent, and the car stereo. By the time I got to the Atlanta suburbs, it became dark and I had to switch on the lights. Once I switched on the headlights, within a few minutes, all the lights on the dashboard including ABS came up. I pulled over to the nearest shopping center parking lot and called my friend to pick me up. I towed the van that night to America's service center where I got the bad news Sunday; the A/C compressor had seized up and so the belt had broken.

The a/c compressor on this vehicle had failed once before in 2006 and the Toyota dealer had fixed it under warranty. I am pissed that Toyota never fixed the entire system because I had to change the entire system now - the failed A/C compressor that time had sent metal particles into the condenser and evaporator. So now the compressor failed again. And the way Toyota has designed the car, I couldn't put a smaller belt bypassing the A/C compressor (that's what I was told).

It really messes up a vacation when such a thing like this happens. I am out of the warranty period and so Toyota won't fix it for free. I have seen in the internet that this A/C compressor seize up and failure happens a lot in the 2004 Sienna - they haven't done any recall because nobody has died from it. I will never buy Toyota again.