Comments: 1-15, 16-30, 31-45, 46-60, 61-75, 76-79
Sorry to hear that Toyota is a royal pain to deal with. Try dealing with Ford!This is a tire company issues not car issues. Complain to the company that mfg the tires or the NTSB. Toyota is not the only car company
(BMW, Nissan, Acura) that puts run flat tires on their vehicles. These tires have had durability problems and the tire company knows it. What sucks is that there is no space for a spare unless you have the dealer install a kit that makes the 3rd row seat fixed. It cannot be folded down and have a flat cargo area. This a link for 1 class action lawsuit.
http://www.autosafety.org/article.php?scid=185&did=1165
May 6, 2007.
I guess I am probably the only one to have a hint of a favorable comment to post, but only after the bad experiences outlined up to this point by others.
The Bad. The first run flat tires on my 2004 AWD Sienna wore out at 18,000 miles two years ago. Several complaints to the dealer and threats to "go upstairs" got the response I needed: My choice, either 4 new run flats or 5 regular tires using the back seat store-away as a wheel well (eliminating the fold down seat option), either choice at Toyota's expense. I choose the 4 new run flats.
The Good. We now have over 25,000 miles with very little noticeable wear on the new run flat tires. I am now wondering if Toyota or Dunlop could have fixed their wear-out-early problems with the run flats?
I am not sure whether posters in the USA have seen this site:
Http://www.rftprogram.com/
It's a class action suit and settlement.
All the best, Valerie.
Late in 2006 Toyota did reimburse me for the cost of removing the runflats and putting on 4 new non-runflat tires. I had replaced the tires 6 months before they sent me the offer and all I had to do was to send in copies of my invoices for the new tires. I got their check came in about 5 weeks. They did not prorate the mileage which even pleased me more. Note that I had called Toyota and complained (see my previous post to this group). I am now a happy Toyota owner.
Don Hazle
Port Matilda, Pa.
Dear Fellow Complainers, Aug.23,2007
We bought a 2006 AWD Sienna and are having the same run around with Toyota and Dunlop. The local dealer replaced all four of the first set of run flats for free. They had about
28,000 miles on them. We must be the lucky ones. The new runflats now have about 27,000 miles and are about worn out. This time, the dealer says there is NO warranty on the replacement tires, only the original equipment tires. I guess we should have done more research before being sucked into Toyota's claims of being customer friendly. No salesperson ever mentioned that the tires were cost prohibitive.
C.P.Hicks in VA!
I have a 2004 Sienna that is not a AWD, and I am on my third set of tires, Michelins and have only 65,000 miles on it. Discount Tires says it is because the wheels are out of alignment yet Toyota rotates and balances the tires everytime I have an oil change, and I get an alignment at least once a year. Now the drifting is so bad I am going in for another alignment. Go figure-Toyota says that is normal, Discount Tire says Toyota doesn't know what they are doing, etc.
Thank goodness for this website!
I have been dealing with Toyota Canada for the past 4 years over my 2004 Sienna AWD. When my first set of run-flats blew out at 30000km, there were no options to replace them and the warranty was out on them by a month. My dealership sent me to the local Dunlop dealer who told me the tires were crap and put a set of all season regular tires on guaranteed to last 100,000 km. They lasted 40,000 km. The Dunlop dealer sent me back to Toyota and said the problem was the van, not the tires.
I went to Toyota with this and have been fighting with them for the past year. I agreed to put their 'new and improved' run-flats on to prove it to them at a cost of $1800(although my Dunlop dealer said they haven't changed the run-flats and that the Sienna AWD are the only make of vehicle experiencing problems with these run-flats). This 3rd set of tires is already worn after only 25,000 km.
I have also had to replace 3 wheel bearings in 2 weeks this summer at a cost of $1600. I have been driving a courtesy vehicle from my dealership since Aug. 1 as a result of these problems and am not returning it until Toyota has reimbursed me for the past $1800 price of the tires and the cost of the 3 wheel bearings. They have replaced the tires, but say it is a one-time deal only.
I too have been a loyal Toyota customer. This was my 3rd new one, and now it's my last. As soon as they reimburse me for my past expenses, I'm selling it! Shame on Toyota for not standing behind their product and putting millions of lives at stake! I was very interested to learn of the class action suit from this site.
C. Hunt-Ford
Ontario, Canada.
We have a 2004 AWD, we have 81,000 miles on the van. We are now on our four set of tires. We did away with the runflat's in the first 12,000 miles. We just when with regular tires and spare.
The problem has to be in the front end of this van. We now have Toyo tires and they are no better than anyone else.
We have taken it to 5 different front end alignment. NOBODY can keep this vehicle tires in alignment or balance any tire on this vehicle for any lenght of time.
We have a DVD player and you have to keep open it because the vibration will cause it to close enough that the kids will ask to pull it back so they can see.
We did get our money back from the first set of tires we replace from Toyota. Someone will get kill someday and they will find the design flaw in this vehicle.
I wish they could fix this problem because we like everything else about this van. But drive it gets worst all the time. We will be trading this vehicle off next week.
I found this site to be very helpful - thanks for having it here.
I own a 2006 Toyota Sienna LE Van, All Wheel Drive - AWD.
I got 30,000 miles on my tires (Bridgestone B380) - no vibration or rough ride. Tires wore out on outside edges of front tires. moved them to back and now I have worn out the outside edges on front tires once again. Should get more miles than that - in my opinion. Local dealer here in California had an attitude and said it was my fault for not rotating the tires more often. I told him I expect a better response from a Toyota dealership.
The car came with a Jack, and the place where the back left seat would normally fold down into, has room for a full size spare tire - or so it appears. There is a bracket beneath the carpet to hold the spare in place. I have just ordered a spare rim from the Toyota dealer (cost $90) and five new Michelin P225/60R17 tires from COSTCO, as well.
I don't want to have a runflat / zero pressure tire if it is not going to last better than 30,000 miles, and especially if it is hard to find that time from a dealer and even more especially if it is going to cost me an extra $150 to $200 more per tire.
I will no longer be able to fold that back left seat down so it is flat in back, so that is a bummer. I would have expected more from Toyota in their design and was truly disappointed in the poor attitude exhibited by the Service Rep at the local dealership.
I just posted to this site yesterday (Oct 16 21:52) and today I went to the Toyota dealer for warranty work on a broken power outlet. While I was there I asked them to rotate the tires one last time before I put the new ones on that I was buying in COSTCO next week.
See me previous entry that starts with...
" I found this site to be very helpful - thanks for having it here.
I own a 2006 Toyota Sienna LE Van, All Wheel Drive - AWD.
I got 30,000 miles on my tires (Bridgestone B380) - no vibration or rough..."
When showing the vehicle to the Service Rep, he said the rear tires were totally shot. I explained that I had failed to rotate the tires every 5,000 as it says in the manual, and that I learned from these internet pages that Toyota wasn't doing anything to replace such tires, so I had ordered conventional tires and would be installing them next week at my own expense. He said "let me look into the matter while your car is being serviced".
An hour later, when I picked up my car, he typed on my work invoice that the " RUNFLATS WILL BE REPLACED GOODWILL Warranty."
I could not believe it!
He said Toyota knows they had a problem with certain tires on this AWD Sienna Van. Apparently my particular tires and situation met the criteria.
He says the tires should be in tomorrow, and I 'll have the new tires on by tomorrow night.
I had already picked up my new spare wheel (it was special order by me the day before) - guess I'll save that, since I will probably be needing it for a spare when I switch over to the conventional tires once these new ones wear out in a copule of years. According to your other writers on these pages, I'll probably get less than 40,000 miles on those new tires, and I know they do cost over 100 bucks more for each of those runflats. I might as well plan on switching.
Thanks again for posting all of this super info on your pages.
PK
California.
I own a 2004 AWD Sienna. I'm on my second set of tires that were part of the recall where Toyota replaced the original equipment RFTs at not charge an NO warranty.
I'm now having issues with my current set of tires with 16K miles on them as they now emit a "grinding" "harsh rubbing noise" at low speeds. So, I took took the vehicle into the dealer and they had 4 mechanics look at it and none of them could identify the reason for the noises. To add insult to injury, the service folks claim there is no issue and there is nothing to be concerned about. I asked to speak with any of the managers, but no one was available to speak with me. What ever happened to customer service?
Disgusted what took place, I left the dealership and was going to have a local tire shop have a look at the tires over the weekend. Well, the weekend came sooner than expected as the noisiest tire went flat two days after my visit to the dealer. I brought it to the local tire shop and they said that the tire was un-fixable since the bead on the inside of the tire had been compromised. My local tire shop said this can easily happen with RFTs if you have an untrained person using the wrong equipment when mounting the tire.
Armed with this information, I brought the Sienna back to the dealer and they proceeded to measure tire pressure for 3 days and never looked at the inside tire bead. I told them they needed to inspect the tire bead from the inside. They did this and found that the bead was in fact torn, but they claim not bad enough to be a concern. I asked that they inspect any of the other tires and they did and found the same problem with the next tire.
They have seen the issue on the two tires and claim there is no problem and have yet to take any course of action to correct the problem. Being totally dissatisfied with the results I was getting, I called Toyota's Customer Relations center and told them the story. They simply said sorry, but Toyota dealers are independently owned and that since it's a tire issue Toyota will not get involved and that I will have to work with the dealer to resolve the issue.
At this point, I'm not sure why Toyota (or any automobile MFR) sells cars with tires on them as they do not stand by the tires. Also, since when is it OK to improperly install a tire and then claim you have no liability for an improper installation.
This RFT tire thing has just gotten worse over time. It just seems like Toyota engineered the AWD Sienna around RFT tires and now they will not stand by their product regardless of the tire situation. No wonder why Toyota is now getting bad press from Consumer Reports!
RJ -CO.
I am also on my second set of tires on my AWD 2004 Sienna replaced by the dealer. I run snow treads in the winter therefore I am averaging 13000 miles a set of tires.
I had an oil change and a tire rotation today and mentioned that I noticed a "noise" a week ago in the front drivers side. The dealer called and said I needed a brake job on a car with 37000 miles on it. I am less than pleased. I pitched a fit and the dealer is going to comp the costs.
I have driven Toyota's for years and been a happy camper. I think the 2004 Sienna AWD car is a bit of a lemon. Where is the government recall on this car? Thank heaven consumer Reports is out and about. Maybe Toyota will shape up and do more for those of us who joyously bought what we thought was a great car.
I purchased A 2004 Sienna LE FWD in Jan 2004 these are not the run flat tires and at 38,000 miles in Aug 06 had to replace due to thumping & vibration in the rear. The rear tires were extremely unevenly worn & cupped. I replaced the OEM tires with Goodyears purchased from WalMart at 61,000 miles I experienced the identical problem with the new tires and replace the 2 on the rear for cupping fortunately I had road hazard and WalMart prorated the tire and I got out for $100.00 for 2 new Goodyears. My wife & I love everything about this van with a family of 5 but are frustrated with the poor wear on the tires. There has been a class action settlement reached on the RFT, but it does not apply to my vehicle. Sounds like a factory inherent defect & I will be contacting Toyota immediately to raise he11 with them about these tires.
I bought a 2004 Sienna XLE Limited AWD in July of 2004. The first set of tires (Bridgestone B380) lasted ~25,000 miles, and the ssecond (Dunlop SP??) has taken me to 52K miles. The Toyota dealer ate the cost of the second set of tires, but the Dunlops have not worn as well as the Bridgestones.
My experience in dealing with this issue has been pretty reasonable, but the information available from online communities, like this one, have been very helpful. Toyota and its dealerships have a partnership to act responsibly in dealing with customers. When this partnership fails in this regard, the customers need to call them on it. I am a huge fan of "voting with your wallet/pocketbook"...don't support bad business.
I think run flat tires have much room to improve, but the idea behind them is good.
JW in Mass.
Oh boy, I cannot believe I am reading this!
WE SPECIAL ORDERED our 2004 Sienna AWD Limited (with all options). It took 5 months to get.
I complained about the steering (or lack there of) from the first 6 months at 15,000 miles. 2 rear tires were bald, so I was first told to pay. I refused; $41,500 and I needed tires, NO WAY. I was then told the tire rep said this was a gift (one shot deal), the tires were on him.
Then last Dec (2006) tires were bald once again. I complained that 2 tires were replaced less than 15,000 miles before and was finally told about the recall. Tires were once again replaced, but all the while the steering is still pulling to the right.
Now at 40,000 miles the same problem; I just paid to have the steering corrected (alignment) and the tire light is on and it is still pulling. It is out of warranty and is now my problem. This is only one of many problems with this vehicle.
The rear liftgate fixed 2x, fuel tank. Back up camera (I almost paid $800.00) but waited 2 weeks and got that recalled also.
I am now wondering is the steering causing the tires to go bald or is it the tires??? @4 years old car is worth $22,000. Not good; will not ever buy another!