Toyota fixing 600,000 Sienna doors, but it's not a recall mind you
Posted Oct 24th 2007 4:57PM by John Neff
The hits just keep coming for Toyota Motor Co. After a pair of new problems with its all-important Tundra pickup were brought to light this week, a reader sent us a link to this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that reveals the automaker will voluntarily fix the front doors on 600,000 units of its Sienna minivan (current model shown above) built between 2004 and 2006. Apparently there may be an issue with the door check mounting panel on both of the minivan's front doors. The door check mounting panel is the piece that keeps the door open, and if the part fails the door can swing freely and unexpectedly shut – obviously a concern for parents with kids. Toyota has traced the problem back to bad spot welds performed at the automaker's Princeton, Indiana factory.
Toyota will be sending out letters on Nov. 2nd to owners of said Siennas explaining the problem and offering to fix it. To do so, Toyota will offer what it calls a "warranty enhancement" to these vehicles, covering the cost of these door repairs on Siennas up to five years old with 100,000 miles or less. Though a bad spot weld on the door check mounting panel would normally be covered by the Sienna's standard warranty, that only lasts 3 years or 36,000 miles. Toyota has also said that it will reimburse owners who have already had the doors repaired on their own, in some cases at the cost of thousands of dollars.
Curiously, Toyota is not calling this a recall. Of course, what automaker wants to refer to a problem with one of its vehicles as a recall if it doesn't have to? As long as Toyota takes care of the Sienna door problem to the satisfaction of its customers, they can call it a Happy Happy, Joy Joy Service Encouragement Bulletin.
Toyota to cover defect
In mass mailing going out soon, company offers to pay for minivan doors with bad welds
By RICK BARRETT
rbarrett@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 23, 2007
Toyota Motor Co. said Tuesday it would cover the costs of repairing doors on up to 600,000 Sienna minivans, after learning from consumers that a part can fail, causing doors to shut unexpectedly.
Tom Osman of Wauwatosa isn't happy about the failure of the welds on his Toyota minivan driver's door. The problem causes the door to swing freely and close unexpectedly. Until now, Toyota had agreed to pay for only part of the repair.
Toyota had offered to pay 75% of the $2,000 bill to fix Osman's door flaw. Now Toyota will pay for the repair on his van and many more.
It's not a factory recall for the vehicles, made from 2004 through 2006, but the owners will receive a letter from Toyota explaining the problem and offering to take care of it at the company's expense.
The letters will be mailed Nov. 2, Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong told the Journal Sentinel.
In Wauwatosa, Tom Osman spent about six months trying to get Toyota, or his local dealership, to pay for the failed door mechanism on his 2005 Sienna.
At best, it was going to cover only 75% of the $2,000 repair bill, Osman said, leaving him to pay the $500 difference.
That was just for one door, on the driver's side, which must be replaced because the "door check mounting panel" failed.
"It's probably a matter of time before the passenger door fails too," Osman said.
The problem is with the front doors on the driver's and passenger's sides, rather than the van's sliding doors. When the door is open, it's supposed to be held in place by the door check mounting panel. When the part fails, the door swings freely.
With two children, ages 4 and 7, Osman said he worries that one of the doors will close on their hands while they're getting out of the vehicle.
Osman was angry that until Tuesday Toyota said it would not cover the full repair costs, because his van had 40,000 miles on the odometer and was out of warranty, even though it was less than three years old.
"This was a factory defect. It should have nothing to do with the warranty," Osman said.
Toyota had been handling the out-of-warranty complaints on a "case by case" basis, said Mary Doherty, customer relations manager at Wilde Toyota, in West Allis. Osman bought the vehicle used from Wilde.
If the vehicles were under Toyota's three-year, 36,000-mile warranty, the repairs were fully covered, she said.
It's difficult to say whether the Sienna door problem is widespread, partly because it might not surface for years on some vehicles.
But Toyota now says it will pay for the repairs on Siennas up to five years old with 100,000 or fewer miles on them.
"We are calling it a warranty enhancement," rather than a factory recall, Kwong said.
The defect was caused by bad spot welds. Siennas are built at the company's factory in Princeton, Ind. Toyota doesn't consider the defect a safety issue, although a door that closes unexpectedly could be hazardous to small children.
"Most of the time, people are just annoyed by a 'popping noise' they hear" when the welds are weak, Kwong said.
The faulty part is the latest in a string of problems that have raised doubts about whether Toyota can maintain quality standards amid booming sales.
Last week, Consumer Reports said Toyota had fallen so far in its annual vehicle reliability survey that it could no longer automatically recommend the company's new cars and trucks to readers.
Toyota slid from first place last year to fifth place in Consumer Reports' 2007 rankings. Honda replaced Toyota in the No. 1 spot.
In 2005, Toyota had 12 recalls totaling more than 2 million vehicles. One of those involved nearly a million vehicles built as far back as 1989. A recall of more than 768,000 involved trucks and sport utility vehicles no older than three years.
Toyota hasn't issued a factory recall for the Sienna door problem, perhaps because such notices generate a lot of negative publicity, said Joe Wiesenfelder with Cars.com, a Web site for car enthusiasts.
"It's probably on the cusp of being a recall, but maybe not," he said.
Still, Toyota is probably more sensitive to Sienna owners' complaints now, given the Consumer Reports rankings, according to Wiesenfelder.
"Anyone who pays the kind of money we're talking about here, especially with a company of Toyota's reputation, is justified in feeling outraged," he said.
Toyota is offering to reimburse consumers who have already paid up to several thousand dollars to have their Sienna doors fixed.
If the bad welds are broken or cracked, the entire door assembly has to be replaced at a cost of several thousand dollars.
"You don't have to be the vehicle's original owner. Anyone can bring the car in and it will be fixed," Kwong said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received a few complaints about the problem. Earlier this year, Toyota issued a service bulletin to its dealerships advising them of the necessary repairs.
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Originally Posted by DSMLVR
Do I DARE respond to this?
Thanks...I should have taken your advice and followed your example
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