Some Toyota Tundra Owners May be Eligible for $10,000+ Frame Replacement
Posted: May. 07, 2010 10:05 a.m.
Toyota has a problem with rust. The automaker ha faced hundreds of consumer complaints about dangerous premature frame corrosion on its trucks. Toyota ultimately offered to buy back thousands of Tacoma trucks with rust problems for 150 percent of blue book value, only to see owners of Toyota’s other pickup, the Tundra, emerge with similar complaints. Toyota blames a supplier, saying the company provided inferior steel for the truck frames.
Toyota issued a limited recall on Tundra trucks in certain states, but the recall hasn’t ended the complaints, and the Japanese automaker is now taking the extraordinary step of offering to replace the entire frame – a four-figure expense – for some 2000-2003 Tundra owners.
Autoblog explains, “While all of the pickup trucks are eligible regardless of their geographic location, dealers will only replace the frame if holes due to rust can be found. Put simply, the frame must have holes larger than 10 mm in diameter (about the width of a marble). For those vehicles, Toyota will replace the frame and offer a rental vehicle during the process.” The program is limited to operational trucks, and excludes those with major damage, or salvage titles.
The Tundra fan site Tundra Headquarters thinks the replacement program could be a sign that the automaker is “changing for the better.” They comment, “When stories of Tundra frame rust first began to appear in the news in April of 2009, Toyota’s response was cryptic. While Toyota seemed to indicate Tundras had this issue, they did not seem overly concerned about resolving the problem quickly.”
Now, with the company willing to take on a more than $10,000 per-truck expense to fix the problem, the frame replacement program “seems to indicate a change in Toyota’s posture on this issue – perhaps it’s a result of pressure from NHTSA, but we’d like to think that Toyota’s new
PR team has helped Toyota execs recognize the negative impact rusting frames has on sales of new Tundras.”
LINK:
Some Toyota Tundra Owners May be Eligible for $10,000+ Frame Replacement - U.S. News Rankings and Reviews
Linear Mode
