This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
My name is [xxx], since young until now I had bought total 7 Toyota vehicles in my life. My Toyota Sienna 2009 has problem with the power slide door that it open and close by it self a few times while I vacuum the rug of floor today. The car was at parked and engine is off. Also I found the cables on the slide door hung out exposed on the side of the door edge. Please see picture attached. Information redacted pursuant to the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6).
2009 Toyota Sienna with mileage lesser than 110,000. The left sliding door wont open. Looked at the Toyota web site and found out that its part of the vehicle warrantee as long as its mileage is lesser than 120,000. The consumer stated the dealer advised the vehicle was not included in the recall. Updated 10/17/2017
Upon opening the driver side power sliding door, the cable snapped, and the door would not open. We disengaged the power and figured we would continue to use the door in a manual setting. However, once the door was closed, we discovered that you cannot open it if the cable is snapped. It opened up about 8-12 inches, but would go no further. Although out of warranty, Toyota agreed to fix the assembly due to an enhanced service agreement. In Jan. 2015, the same thing happened on the passenger side and we could again not use the door. After taking it to a Toyota dealer again, we were told they would not cover it under the enhanced service because it had been covered in error the first time. We asked them to just get it to a point where we could open the door manually, but they said the full repair ($1600) had to be done to do that. Upon doing research, we discovered that this is a common problem among many Toyota Sienna owners over the past 10 years. We are filing this complaint because we believe that it is a major safety hazard to not be able to even manually open the sliding doors when the power assembly fails. If there is a switch for manual operation, it should always function in manual mode. What would happen if both doors were broken and there was an emergency? children (or anyone for that matter) would not be able to quickly exit the vehicle, nor would emergency workers be able to get them out quickly. These repairs are around $1600 per door. Many families cannot and should not have to spend this kind of money to merely get a door to function in a manual setting.
Sliding door cable - driver's side. Toyota stated there is a tsb for the passenger side sliding door cable, yet not for the driver's side as it's optional. Seems Toyota has an issue with cables in general in cold regions where salt is used on the roads. When the cable snapped the vehicle was parked on a slight decline (front of vehicle lower than the back), so when my young daughter opened the door and was in the process of exiting the vehicle the cable snapped and the sliding door, which is heavy almost smashed her.
While on a decline, automatic sliding door cable snapped while door was automatically closing. Door slammed shut just as an 11 year old child got into the car. Thankfully she was not injured. Brought it to dealer and since models 2004-2007 underwent recall for this very incident, sliding door was fixed at no charge. It was found that cable which allows the sliding door to glide open and close fluently was rusted and rotted away causing it to snap. Car is parked in a covered and closed garage all year through. This was on driver side. The passenger side had the same rust and rot but since still functioning, Toyota would not replace as a preventative measure. We were always concerned that this would happened again and took great care especially on declines. While parked on flat driveway, 6 months later, second sliding door cable snapped. Thankfully no injuries. Brought it to dealer and were told that they would not cover this time. We were also told by one of the dealer's mechanics that 2009 model is exactly made like 2004-2007 so he could not understand why the recall was arbitrarily given to only those years. Now door is manual but without cable, even on the slightest decline, door slams shut. Will not stay open. This is a major concern for my children's safety. They will not cover cost to replace it or fix it but the door is not safe to use otherwise.
- Mechanicville, NY, USA
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The cable broke on the power sliding door due to the plastic coating being worn, exposing the cable to the elements and rusting it. This vehicle is less than 5 years old.
The contact owns a 2009 Toyota Sienna. The contact stated that the sliding doors erroneously opened while driving various speeds. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where it was found that the door mechanism was rusted and was causing the doors to not spring back in place. The vehicle was repaired but the failure recurred. The manufacturer was contacted about the failure. The failure mileage was 49,463. Updated 12/24/13 each time the consumer returned to the dealer, they claimed they fixed the problem. However, the door would pop open again, disabling the security system and causes the battery to go dead. The consumer had to tie the door shut. Updated 12/24/13
The sliding back door was being closed from the power button near the drivers seat. The door wouldn't close so the button was pressed again. The door then slammed shut with great force and could have injured anyone in it's way. Now it is inoperable and needs a very expensive repair. Apparently this is an ongoing problem with this generation of the Toyota Sienna vans and Toyota refuses to address it.
I was driving my 2009 Toyota Sienna with 2 children in the back and when I went over rail road tracks the sliding door on the passenger side opened. This is a great concern for me especially with the kids in the back. Toyota want $1500 to fix this problem on a 2009 with 47,000 miles on it. There should be something that will make them fix this problem. I know it would be a major recall but the safety that goes along with this is an extreme concern!!!!! this van cost me over $35,000 and the only reason I bought it was because of the safety of the van. Well that was a mistake and the service department at Toyota is looking to make money off me. I am a single mom who can hardly keep up with everything else but this is just wrong, and I think our government should force them to do something about this before kids start falling out of the vans onto the streets and getting fun over!!! please help me!
I have a 2009 Toyota Sienna mini-van with automatic sliding doors. These doors are an accident waiting to happen. Unlike an elevator door that will immediately reverse if someone or something is in its path. The Sienna's doors continue to close unless forcibly pushed back to retract with a serious amount of strength. My arm has been bruised and I could only imagine a child's hand being caught. It's inconceivable to me how these doors do not operate on the same premise as an elevator. Very dangerous!
The automatic sliding door on our van has closed on our 3 year old twice, causing minor injury. The first time, the door hit his head but did not encounter enough resistance to engage the safety open until it had pushed him against the side of the van. Then the safety engaged and the door opened. It left red marks on both sides of his head. We took the van to the dealer on April 12 2010 to have the door looked at, and requested that the resistance be lowered. On April 28th the door again hit our child, this time the door completely latched closed on his hand, pinning his hand in the door. His thumb had a "dent" in it, and is now extremely and immobile the next day. He is being taken to the dr today. I called Toyota corporate 10 minutes after the incident to report it.
Our automatic sliding door was opened but would not close. No amount of tugging, finessing, or cursing would make it shut. Children were stranded in phoenix heat in August because the vehicle was unsafe to drive with a door that could not be closed. There are many mentions of this exact problem on various blogs and all report difficulty in getting Toyota to offer a solution that didn't cost $1-2K. Almost all owners reported the "fixed" doors to have failed in some way again with dealers refusing to cover the cost of the second (or third) fix. The failure had to do with the actuator that unlocks the "U" shaped striker assembly. It seems evident that the cable is either breaking, stretching, or that some solenoid is not doing its job. The outsome of our problem was that a second vehicle had to be obtained, children and their seats moved to the new vehicle and the van driven in an unsafe condition back to our house 10 miles away because the dealership was closed. To complicate this, the Sienna was down to no gasoline and it was the driverside door that was stuck in open position which made it impossible to put fuel in the vehicle. What if this same scenario happened in the middle of the dessert here at a rest stop in 120-degree heat with no tow truck in 100 miles and no way to drive the van with children inside? this is not only possible, but likely. Our van has two (2) automatic doors and this problem has been reported by many people. Lastly, no one who reported the problem, reported the problem permanently fixed by anything the dealerships were able to do. For us, this first incident is probably covered by warranty, but how about future problems? the actuator issue is a design flaw. The fuel door behind sliding door makes it an inconvenient design flaw. That this is on a vehicle that Transport children, makes the design flaw a serious safety concern. And that Toyota is not addressing the problem in any substantial way just plain sucks!
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Oro Valley, AZ, USA