1998 Toyota Sienna LE from North America - Comments

Just below 50,000 miles, oil consumption rose and blue smoke on startup. Dealer says that the engine has sludge, and that Toyota will not repair it under warranty since this "obviously" indicates a lack of oil changes. The van has had regular oil changes at 4 mo./4000 mile intervals.

The van also has several squeaks and rattles, especially in the dash and right side sliding door. Rear brakes developed an intermittent squeal.

The van is quiet and fairly comfortable, but we liked the Dodge better when test driving. Concerns about its transmission and belief in "Toyota quality" led us to the Sienna. Big mistake!

Based on the obvious lack of quality and even worse backing of their product, I'll never buy anything else that Toyota makes. Worst car I've ever had, by a long stretch.

I agree, I would have never bought anything from a foreign country. Toyota's are underpowered, unreliable, uncomfortable,not durable wannabe American cars that can't pull a hot wheels car. They are total and complete TRASH! You should have gone with a Dodge and you would'nt be in this situation. I know a lot of people with foreign vehicles and they talk as if they're God's gift to the Earth. I would rather have a reliable comfortable durable overpowered American vehicle. Next time BUY AMERICAN!!!

Isn't the Sienna built in America? So are the Camry, Accord, Corolla, 626, Avalon, etc.? Obviously Toyota's got it wrong with this car (some other fellow's had sludge problems), but to say that "foreign" (you really mean "Japanese", don't you?) is junk is pretty well ignorant and blindly patriotic (stress on blindly) -- you'd better try to count how many good reviews cars from Chrysler, GM, and Ford exist in these surveys (talking solely of American products) vs. bad Japanese reviews and keep living in your insular world. Gees, what percentage of Caravans and Voyagers get good reviews here from within America? Almost zilch!

Well I have to totally disagree about Toyotas being unreliable pieces of trash. I owned a 85 Ranger and a 86 Mustang and had nothing but problems with them. Prior to that, I owned a 76 and a 79 Aspen. Better cars engine wise, but they too were prone to problems. I decided that my next vehicle would probably be a 4Runner and ended up buying one 4 years ago. It's a 93 and aside from usual maintenance costs, has not had a problem at all. It's getting close to 10 years old and looks and drives like brand new.

I was so impressed with it that I decided to replace my Ranger with a Toyota pick-up and purchased a 89 SR5 3 years ago. Now this one had some minor front-end maintenance issues, but I was a bit foolish to not get it checked out before I bought it so I can't really quibble about that. It's fixed now and aside from a bit of rust looks and drives like brand new as well.

Now I do have to agree that some Toyota vehicles are problematic as I was thinking of buying either a Camry or a Sienna for the wife. After reading some of the comments on this site I was pretty surprised at the extent of the negative feedback of those 2 vehicles. I finally decided on a 97 4Runner. My other 2 Toyotas are standard which the wife can't seem to learn how to drive in case you're wondering why I would buy another 4Runner. A bit pricier then what I wanted to spend, but so far it too has been problem free.

Where I work it's very inconvenient to have an unreliable vehicle. Early morning start and no chance of making up time if you have to drop off a vehicle at a garage. Since buying my first Toyota, this problem has been a non-issue.

American cars compared to Japanese? Please, you don't know how many flaws there are in American cars. Chrysler and Dodge are unreliable cars. Followed by the other crappy makers of Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, etc. Recently, GM or some manufacturer had a huge recall involving some million cars and SUVs.

I'm not saying that Japanese cars are flawless. But don't forget that Toyota's luxury division, Lexus had won numerous J.D. Power & Associates awards for their reliability and recently Toyota and Lexus models won nine or something awards. Half were Toyota the other half was Lexus.

I've had many Toyota's in the past and they weren't perfect, but they're reliable.

Honda/Acura

Nissan/Infiniti

Toyota/Lexus.

They're all way better compared to American cars. PERIOD

You are absolutely wrong. Japanese cars are underpowered, rusty, and just an el-cheapo piece of junk. I speak from experience. drive a Gm and you will notice the difference.

How much do you want to bet? How can you explain the GM Recall? The recent crash testing of the Ford Explorer Trac getting 2 stars out of 5. Ford's incident with the Firestone tires and the Explorer.

I also speak from experience. My sister-in-law drove a 1996 Grand Caravan. It made VERY weird sounds. I don't know why, but I've heard very weird sounds from the Town&Country and the Caravan.

American cars suck...they're the real lemons. Too many problems with American cars.

People look at Japanese cars for reliability, not power. And so far, I have not seen any Japanese car rust after 1990. Don't forget that Dodge had paint problems in the past. An old friend of mine has an old Dodge van from the 80's. The paint flakes off and rust under the paint.

And cheap?

Look at the new Chevy Aveo. It's below 10K. I've never seen a Japanese that cheap.

Go to www.google.com. Type in "Toyota Engine Sludge". Check out the links. This is a big problem that Toyota is trying to downplay. They even have an extended warranty for 8 years unlimited miles that sounds good on paper, but you will find accounts all over the net where people are being denied warranty coverage for this problem.

I'm very aware of the sludge problems and I cannot support Toyota to that extent. Toyota obviously screwed up when it came to that point. But OVERALL, Toyota has always been famous for it's reliability. Even though the sludge problem doesn't prove it.

Toyota quality has declined. They are still riding the coattails of the past reputation, of being invincible. But now you have engines that sludge (excuse me, but engine failure is a SIGNIFICANT problem and overshadows power window failures, AC problems and other nuisances), transmissions failing, brake problems, and even the minor annoyances formerly attributed to only American made cars. The new 2004 Sienna has already had a recall on the gas tank. It used to be Made in America was the seal of quality and then our quality declined, then Made in Japan developed the same sense of infallibility that used to be held by Americans, and now that quality is declining. DO NOT BUY Toyota because you think you are getting something better than American. You will be buying it for all the wrong reason.

People who talking about Japanese cars being unreliable are wrong. My dad used to have a 1996 Dodge caravan. Believe me that van really sucked, because the transmission start giving problems and he had to spend lots of money on other repairs. After he sold that caravan he bought a Camry because his friend has a Camry that has passed 200k and still running every day. My father's Camry has 119000 miles and still running without any problems. So I also bought a Camry, Man! those cars unbelievably durable. if you change the oil at every 3k you won't deal with sludge. Go to this web site and look for your self what is reliable and what is junk. http://v22.autos.yahoo.com/consumerreports/best_worst_used.html

americn cars used to be well built cars but not these days.

NEVER BUY DOMESTIC VEHICLES!!!

There are a few factors which people generally overlook between domestic vs import vechicles. Now before I begin all of these general comments may not apply. I think a big difference is the type of purchacer between domestic vs import. There are exceptions, but import buyers respect their vechicles more towards care maitnence many purchase their vechicle for the long term. Domestic vechicles appear to get less care as they are constantly lease returned and replaced thrown to the second hand buyer with their lower resale value. Example how many un abused Neons have you seen latley? people beat domestics, don't maintain them and expect it to last. Excluding some exceptions how many more of these common domestics are out there compared to imports Ex 10 Caravans:2 Siennas problem for problem the Caravan will have more heard of problems in its life cycle with 10 people owning Caravans compared to 2 people owning Siennas. With lower resale an "abuser" who has less money is gonna buy the Cavalier instead of the $1000 dollar more Civic then the destruction begins.

Hahahaha, if only this guy knew in 2002 what would happen to the big three American car company 6-7 years later! Almost down the drain, Chrysler is almost bankrupt. My family bought American cars but all of them were a let down. Constantly having some issues, which cost money, mind you these were bought new and have average miles! Tired of all the unreliability, we tried a "USED" Toyota Previa minivan and WOW! This van is super reliable, it got 247,000 miles on her and still starts and drive like brand new!!! Nothing like any of the American cars, even brand new, this Toyota hands down has the most unbreakable engine and transmission in any vehicle we've had!!

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9th Feb 2002, 09:47

I agree, I would have never bought anything from a foreign country. Toyota's are underpowered, unreliable, uncomfortable, undurable wannabe American cars that can't pull a hot wheels car. They are total and complete TRASH! You should have went with a Dodge and you would't be in this situation. I know a lot of people with foreign vehicles and talk like they're God's gift to the earth. I would rather have a reliable comfortable durable overpowered American vehicle. Next time BUY AMERICAN!!!