First repair @ 33K miles (Rear hatch strut)

I have the 5 year/100K mile Toyota Platinum, I bought it through this site when I had 35K miles on the car. This is the first time I have used it. My current mileage is 55K.

Tried to use it for broken engine under cover on 12/29/11 but Toyota would not let me use it, they claim the under cover is a body panel or trim piece.

 

Mine too at 20K .... I really hit my head hard the first time I didn't realize it.

Pissed me off big time.

REV

 

Weak struts usually start showing up as the weather gets colder. A 50 degree temperature reduction reduces the internal pressure, therefore the force, by about 10%.

If you strut was borderline in the summer, by winter it will be inadequate.

.

 

UPDATE !!

Took my car in today, my service advisor (who knows me by name) listened to my complaint ... but because it was pretty warm today, it didn't act as bad. Wasn't right, but not as bad as yesterday. He went in and got the keys to a new one, and we tried that one, and obviously it was better. I said ... yup, that's the way mine used to be ... he said no problem Lee, I'll order 'em up and pop 'em on next Tuesday.

I said thanks very much !!

I love my Toyota dealer and it's service department.

So glad I have a good one ! They have never disappointed me, except once when they overfilled my oil on one of the Toyotacare services, which they promptly corrected, and gave me a free oil change coupon for the trouble. No biggie.

REV

 

Further UPDATE ...

Just got the struts replaced ... works like new ... service advisor did mention that performance would be reduced in cold weather .... I'll get them replaced before 36K if it deteriorates again.

Seems like a common problem .... the damn things are $127 EACH. If it does happen after warranty is up ... I won't be putting Toyota struts back on.

REV

 

Same problem here as well. 2011 with 20,500 miles, June '11 build date.

Just noticed the problem for the first time last night after parking the car outside in 40F weather for a few hours. Hatch would open up 1/3 the way and stop. Second try resulted in the hatch just falling back closed.

MB860 ?

 

Anyone that had replaced theirs, can I have your old one? Both of mine was damaged(the mounting part) by the garage door when we had hatch left open.

thanks

 

If it's replaced under warranty the dealer can't/won't give the old ones to you. They say they have to send them back ... not sure if they really do or not.

REV

 

this may be out of date, but generally speaking if it is a known issue, they don't technically have to send the parts back to Toyota. What they do have to do is save teh parts for verification, meaning someone from Toyota or an outside company has to verify and mark/destroy the old parts. This is to prevent a dealership from over billing the auto manufacturers. Meaning billing Toyota for 20 strut replacements this month, when they actualy only did 10. If it is an unkown failure reason, they may actually have to send the parts back to Toyota, so T can inspect the part and see where/how the part failed. Is it a one off issue, or is it part of a problem that needs to be addressed?

So while technically, in this case, and if things haven't changed in the last 15 years since I knew this to be true, they may not have to send the part back, really it is a matter largely of semantics and just sounds better than "we have to hold the part for verification."

Years ago, this was a big difference between Honda and Toyota versus the Big 3. The Big 3 almost never got parts back, they just had the parts verified, so they weren't learning from, and fixing problems. Where Toyota and Honda wanted the part back, because they wanted to know ASAP what the problem was, so it could be addressed ASAP. Instead of continuing to replace the same part over and over again for years, not knowing if they all failed the same way, and thus indicated a problem, or if they were all different random occurances that were unrelated.