2024 Tacoma TRD Pro Full Transmission Replacement After 342 Miles

[WKTJR1]

Right from the saviors mouth...

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[Wutangz_Taco]

Another video showing this story on YouTube.

 

[soupy1234]

Oh joy! Now I will add a turkey baster, or syringe to add tranny fluid, along with the funnel. I think J may need to pop the hood again, then crawl around and look for a fill hole….. one motivation to change to fluid frequently, is that by draining the fluid-then refilling, is that I will know it is topped off consistently… how about that for a run on sentence!!! I will plan on frequent trans fluid replacement intervals.

If it's like the sealed transmissions I've had in the past, there is a very specific procedure for checking the fluid level. Vehicle has to be level, trans oil temperature has to be within a certain range (if it gets too warm while you're mucking about, you get to wait for it to cool and start over), then you open the filler plug and it should just weep out. Maybe it's simpler now, but I'd want to check the service manual before I tried it.

I've always looked at the instructions and said, "you know, sometimes it's ok to pay somebody else to do this cr*p".

 

[TacoFreak]

I've always looked at the instructions and said, "you know, sometimes it's ok to pay somebody else to do this cr*p".

Same here. I do a lot of my own maintenance, but once I read a procedure like that I thought, no way, I'll let the dealer do that one.

 

[Jcisco951]

Another video showing this story on YouTube.

Wow he talked about my truck. The 5000 miles one. I reported it to the national safety thing. I just got it back today after almost 4 weeks. New trans and torgue converter. Drives smooth and shift smoothly. Hope this was the fix.

 

[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.

Sorry this happened to you. I just got mine back today after almost 4 weeks. New trans and torgue converter. Let’s see what happens now I guess.

 

[fostuhh]

Sorry this happened to you. I just got mine back today after almost 4 weeks. New trans and torgue converter. Let’s see what happens now I guess.

I'm on week #3 now. Praying it's done sometime next week. Parts window is still the 9th - 21st. What kind of window did they give and when did it show up?

 

[SonoranSurvivalist]

@Jcisco951 4 weeks? Maaaaan... it's going to be 2 months by the time I get mine back. They ordered the transmission, not the torque converter and then when they were putting in the transmission toyota called them and said that they also needed a new torque converter. unbelievable.

 

[fostuhh]

@Jcisco951 4 weeks? Maaaaan... it's going to be 2 months by the time I get mine back. They ordered the transmission, not the torque converter and then when they were putting in the transmission toyota called them and said that they also needed a new torque converter. unbelievable.

Yeah apparently the point of failure is the torque converters, which then ruins the solenoid. Guess it makes sense as mine happened when it started to accelerate.

 

[SonoranSurvivalist]

My dealer said they don't know if the new torque converter is an updated part or just a replacement of the same. Do you have an answer? Is Toyota sending an updated part?

 

[Jcisco951]

I'm on week #3 now. Praying it's done sometime next week. Parts window is still the 9th - 21st. What kind of window did they give and when did it show up?

They had eta almost 2 months. Can I’m at 3weeks.

 

[TacoFreak]

@SonoranSurvivalist Good question. I see two possibilities.

There could have been a design error and the replacement torque converters are a new design which won't grenade and take out the transmission. That would show up as a new part number.

I think more likely there was a production problem that is causing the torque converters to fail. That is what they eventually found with the Tundra engines. Machining debris was left in those engines which eventually caused the main bearings to fail.

Either way Toyota needs to tell you what is going on, so you know that they are not just shipping out new parts and hoping. The Tundra's engine failures was on Toyota, but the transmissions are built by Aisin, which is a huge company that builds transmissions for a lot of vehicles.

Either way Toyota is under the gun to be more open with us, particularly buyers like you who want to know both when their truck will be fixed and if something was done so it doesn't happen again. I'm sure @fostuhh, @Jcisco951 and a lot of us really want to know the answer to that.

So far nothing from Toyota which is making them look really bad at this point. My Pro is sitting in Mexico and will I feel like I can trust it when it arrives? Until Toyota opens up that is going to be hard for me to do.

 

[Jcisco951]

My dealer said they don't know if the new torque converter is an updated part or just a replacement of the same. Do you have an answer? Is Toyota sending an updated part?

Not sure. I will be contacting Toyota corporate for answers

 

[Jcisco951]

@SonoranSurvivalist Good question. I see two possibilities.

There could have been a design error and the replacement torque converters are a new design which won't grenade and take out the transmission. That would show up as a new part number.

I think more likely there was a production problem that is causing the torque converters to fail. That is what they eventually found with the Tundra engines. Machining debris was left in those engines which eventually caused the main bearings to fail.

Either way Toyota needs to tell you what is going on, so you know that they are not just shipping out new parts and hoping. The Tundra's engine failures was on Toyota, but the transmissions are built by Aisin, which is a huge company that builds transmissions for a lot of vehicles.

Either way Toyota is under the gun to be more open with us, particularly buyers like you who want to know both when their truck will be fixed and if something was done so it doesn't happen again. I'm sure @fostuhh, @Jcisco951 and a lot of us really want to know the answer to that.

So far nothing from Toyota which is making them look really bad at this point. My Pro is sitting in Mexico and will I feel like I can trust it when it arrives? Until Toyota opens up that is going to be hard for me to do.

Toyota replaced trans and torque converter with same part numbers

 

[TacoFreak]

@dissapointed I'm surprised they can't replace a driveshaft quicker than that. I wonder if that is why my Pro is just sitting at Guanajuato while they figure out what to do. I would rather wait than get a truck that breaks right away like yours did.

I am finally at the point where I am starting to wonder if I even want my dream truck. I have owned a lot of Toyota products and this is the first time I have wondered if it would be reliable right out of the box. Some better communications from Toyota would go a long way to make us all feel better.

Good luck!

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