2024 Tacoma TRD Pro Full Transmission Replacement After 342 Miles

[TacoFreak]

That article also mentioned long waits of 2-4 months.

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[bitflogger]

https://www.thedrive.com/news/2024-toyota-tacoma-owners-keep-reporting-transmission-failures

I'm wondering how many or if people writing and spreading that have actually looked at the NHTSA complaints I did knowing I was making a new model purchase. Not all of the now 13 complaints are powertrain and transmission. Some of the 13 are easily interpreted as gripes and possibly unfounded.

There are a few of the 13 total on the transmission. Some of the 37 TSB people are griping about on forums and Reddit actually apply to vehicles as old as 2005 or 2008.

This is not saying I have no belief there could be problems. As said, I did this sort of homework before my purchase 15 days ago. Also, it's not saying I'm without empathy for those with issues. In other posts I've expressed my industry-wide frustrations with parts availability and Warranty performance.

BTW, this is where I looked. Same page lets you see the complaints, investigations, recalls and manufacturer communications. It is interesting to look up other vehicles in addition to the complaints. In a statistical sense, I had a fair amount of confidence to make this purchase.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2024/TOYOTA/TACOMA/PU%252FEC/4WD#complaints

Maybe my turn for unfortunate adventure will occur tomorrow LOL??? I have to do a trip that will probably have me at 1000 mi by Monday.

Good luck and best wishes all!

 

[TacoFreak]

I am a hard core Toyota guy and I have thought about 4th gen reliability, particularly of the transmission. If I am worried Toyota should be too.

But no way can I not get the Pro I worked so hard for, even if there are a few issues here and there. It is still my number one pick for a truck and it is already built and sitting in Mexico.

Even if you are one of the very small number of people who have this problem, Toyota will take care of you. Hopefully they will figure out what is going here soon and have a fix. Good luck to all!

 

[Sner]

I’m surprised this article from The Drive hasn’t been posted here yet. Not sure what relationship Tim Esterdahl has with the Drive but it seems like some good ol’ back scratching for popularity. Not much use for Tim as he often whines about non issue stuff and contradicts himself in his videos.

 

[TacoFreak]

I’m surprised this article from The Drive hasn’t been posted here yet.

@AZ-Jayhawk posted a link to that article yesterday (post #92).

 

[Sner]

@AZ-Jayhawk posted a link to that article yesterday (post #92).

Damn I missed it just a few posts above mine - thanks! Knew it must have been somewhere, this thread is so long…. and theres a few transmission posts on the forum.

 

[TacoFreak]

@Sner Yeah - I lose stuff in long threads all the time.

 

[dmpplantz]

Although I have my deposit down on a TRD OR premium just 5 weeks out, I'm starting to Google ZR2's.

Guys this is awful. No one with a new $50k+ vehicle should feel worry or doubt when driving. We're dropping this kind of money on a brand new vehicle for the peace of mind knowing we are the first owner it should be worry-free hassle-free for the first couple years at least.
The first gen run of a vehicle definitely is going to have some rough edges but not full transmission fails.
And like one person mentioned before, everybody was skeptical of the engine but it seems like it's actually been pretty rock solid and reliable so far.

If you recall the manual transmission needed some detuning to the engine because wasn't it the transmission wasn't strong enough to handle the power? And here we are with failing transmissions.
I know the engine isn't ground up built, was adopted from 1 or 2 vehicles currently using the it but is this a new transmission?

Again I'm incredibly sorry you folks are going through this! Are you just hosed for you car note while it's undrivable or does Toyota supplement that?

I dunno about a zr2. I'd rather have a truck that, if it's gonna fail, will fail early, with a widespread manufacturing issue, and the manufacturer will warranty and/or recall. I'm pretty insular, don't know a lot of people, live in a small town, and yet know of 3 Silverado half tons, two owners, that needed complete engine overhaul within a couple thousand miles of warranty expiring. Maybe it's just coincidence, but almost seems intentional. I don't think I could ever bring myself to buy a GM outside of an HD diesel

 

[Jcisco951]

Wanted to repost here from my TW post:

A true dream of a road trip turned out to be an absolute nightmare this past weekend. It’s a bit of a lengthy one but I’ll toss in a TLDR at the bottom.

Drove out from Arizona to Northern California to pick up my brand new TRD Pro in Ice Cap. I had been dreaming about this since they announced the new gen Tacoma and was elated when I knew the truck would finally arrive. So, let’s get into it.

To start the long story on a short note, I had planned the 11-hour road trip from AZ to nearly San Francisco since I was trading in my current vehicle (VW Golf R) at the dealer. So, flying out and picking up the truck wasn’t an option. Off we went at 3am on Friday to make sure we arrived early enough at the dealer to give some time to make some headway on the 2nd day of driving on Saturday.

We arrived at the dealer around 3pm on Friday and there she was, sitting out front, and the excitement truly set it. I was speechless, finally getting to see it in person and sit in the driver’s seat and get to say it really was mine. I know A LOT of people on here will hate on it and say it isn’t worth the money, but to me it was, and it still is. After all the fun events of purchasing the truck were complete, we were ready to go, taking a nice 4 ½ hour drive south down near Bakersfield to chill for the evening and wake up to finish our trip.

First impressions when starting off on this journey back home, one thing comes to mind. I saw someone else mention their description of driving the truck as “this thing floats” and there is no better way to describe it. This thing really does float, the seats are wonderful, no matter how much space they take away from the rear, I don’t care, they are so sick. I bought this thing for me, not to haul people around, I would’ve gotten a sedan if I wanted to do that. Nothing but rave reviews about this thing drove, even in awful California traffic, it was a dream. The interior is beautiful, and everything was exactly what I wanted and expected, if not better.

The next day after crashing out at the hotel for a few hours, we head out around 7am to make the last 7-hour trek back home. All was well, until about 30 minutes into the drive.

Heading up the 5 freeway in CA. Going around 70mph at the time. I was approaching a slow-moving vehicle in the far-right lane, so I merged into the middle lane, just before we started heading up the hill into the mountains. I began to accelerate up the hill, when all of a sudden, something sounded and felt like it popped in the middle to rear of the truck. All of a sudden, the truck redlined 3-4 times, like it was searching for a gear, I was able to slow down and it settled down around 50 mph. Christmas tree galore on the dash, I was able to get up to a pull off on the side of the freeway and turn the truck off for 15-20 minutes. After letting it rest for a bit, it started up just fine, the lights had subsided and the only thing that was coming up was a “Hybrid System Malfunction – Visit your Dealer” in the center of the dash. The hybrid system was active and “Ready” and it would move just fine under hybrid and engine power. We made the decision to go ahead and drive it down the 40 miles to the nearest dealer to see what’s going on. It drove just fine, shifted totally fine, Hybrid system would engage and re-engage just as it had before so I thought it may have just been a weird disconnect for the moment and just needed a quick once over.

We get down to the dealer. After about 2 hours I get a call to come back to where they proceeds to tell me that they can’t do much on the truck as Toyota Technical Support is not available on the weekend and would need to wait for Monday. But claimed the issue was either transmission or differential but would not provide me with what codes they may have found or how they came to that determination.

My fiancée and I then scrambled to determine how we should proceed, they were amazing. Offered 3-4 solutions, we went ahead with them covering the costs of a rental car and also transporting the truck back home to AZ. So, we end up going home in the rental and the rest of the day is history.


Sunday comes around and I am having issues with the transport company saying they won’t be able to pick up the truck until late in the week and wouldn’t give a solid day so the communication with the dealers was an absolute mess. I still also don’t have the work order from the service tech to show me what they had found or what the codes were so I am beyond annoyed at this point.

Cut to this morning. I went ahead and reached out to the Service Director at the dealer where the truck is currently at and explain my situation to him and he is already 100x more helpful than the tech. He went ahead and pulled up all the information and told me that the initial code that was found was for an Internal Transmission Solenoid issue. At first, I was somewhat relieved by this, as it seemed like it should be a fairly easy fix. But they still needed to contact Toyota Support and work with the Engineers to determine how they wanted to proceed with the situation. 2 hours goes by and I get the call. Toyota decided not to take any chances with anything else on the Transmission being faulty and opted for a full Transmission replacement.

So, here I am, 342 miles on my dream truck and it is stranded 400 miles away. They say it should take a week or so for the parts to arrive at the dealer and then a day or two for the install. Which then my dealer is covering the costs of flying out and bringing the truck home. Part of me is relieved that it’s going to be a full replacement, but the impatient part of me wishes they could just replace the solenoid and call it good.

But hey, if anyone else experiences the same thing, then at least this story is out there. Because I had nothing to reference and only anger and panic to work through.

Also, here's a pic of the beauty 45 minutes before her downfall.

TLDR; Bought a new ’24 TRD Pro, truck freaked out on the drive home. Threw Hybrid malfunction errors and now Toyota is replacing the Transmission on a 342 mile old truck.
[/QUOTE
Is your vin 3tm or 3ty. Mine is 3tm I wanna see if that has something to do with these transmissions failing.

 

[fostuhh]

@Jcisco951 mine is 3TY

 

[TacoFreak]

I have seen transmission failures from both plants, 3TY and 3TM.

All of the transmissions are made by Aisin at their plants, so I don't think the final assembly location has any impact on this. Aisin has plants in Texas and in North Carolina, but I think truck transmissions all come from the Texas plant.

 

[that_frenchman]

Just wanted to add that I'm right at 4k miles in my OR Hybrid and have encountered zero issues. I'm having so much fun with it that I rarely check into these forums anymore, so don't forget that for every post about a problem there are probably thousands out there issue free and enjoying their new Tacos.

 

[TacoFreak]

...so don't forget that for every post about a problem there are probably thousands out there issue free and enjoying their new Tacos.

Truth!

 

[Kdbradley85]

Out of curiosity... if you purchase a brand new vehicle such as the OP here and the entire transmission is replaced with a brand new one, what happens to the value of your brand new truck? One of the major selling points of Toyotas, especially Tacomas and 4Runners, is their resale value. Wouldn't something like a transmission replacement, or any serious mechanical repair (even if it's still a very low mileage vehicle), significantly reduce that vehicle's resale value, or am I wrong to assume this? I've never experienced something like this (knock on wood). I'm loving mine so far, and I tell myself that I plan on keeping it for a long time, but I also know myself pretty well lol. I can definitely envision myself looking for a '26 or '27 TRD Pro down the road, and I'd be pretty, pretty bummed out if an issue like this was to hurt my trade-in value or even turn away potential buyers in the private market. The Pro looks so damn good! I just wish it had a manual transmission... maybe in a few years? I read somewhere that Toyota was working on developing a MT for their hybrid powertrains, but now I'm off on a tangent.

 

[TacoFreak]

I don't think it will hurt the resale value much myself. The fact that some transmissions have failed will make people think about Tacoma reliability, but if Toyota figures out and fixes this problem that will be lessened.

Major accidents and body work definitely hurt resale value but any vehicle can need mechanical repairs. Plus changing a transmission is not major surgery and does not require significant work at the dealership. I guess only time would tell, but that would not worry me.

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