2015 Tacoma steering issue found

So I am looking for some opinions here. I bought my Tacoma back in Febuary and while I was test driving the vehicle it felt as if the tires needed balancing so they put the truck on the rack balanced them and everything was good. I went in for my 5k mile service and they rotated the tires and the same exact thing happened again. So, I took it back and they checked the balance again on the tires and of course they were out of whack again.

For about a month now I have been noticing some excessive play in the steering of the vehicle. I believe people call it bump steering. So, then I thought well maybe its the alignment! Took it back to the dealer and rode with one of the mechanics and see said it was normal. BS. So, they put another mechanic in the car and he said the same thing. BS. I then insisted on them putting it up on the alignment rack and low and behold the alignment (caster) was WAY OFF!

So, they decided to align the truck back to specs and they struggled for about an hour to get the caster right. After the hour they gave up and told me they had to install new lower control arms on both sides of the vehicle and that they were bent. Luckily this is all under warranty.

So now I am wondering. How did this happen? I don't offroad and all i do is highway driving. could it have been like this from the beginning? Maybe when they strap these trucks down when shipping could cause this? Your thoughts?

 

BS. You don't just bend LCA's.

 

umm, no, there is no way in hell strapping a vehicle down on tie points damages anything

someone between the factory and you, took that for a joyride, , and slammed it hard into or onto a curb or something

 

That doesn't sound right, I'm pretty sure it takes a LOT to bang up a control arm that bad.

 

Never seen 1 bent LCA (seen a few broken ones), but you had 2 on a new truck?

 

well. Ill definelty be asking for an alignment summary and will check to see if the actual LCA's are replaced. There seems to be something fishy here and thankfully i took a picture of the readings from the alignment machine before they messed with it. I can easily put this in toyotas court if the dealer cant get it aligned!

 

maybe they drove the truck off the car carrier w/o the ramps ??

 

well... the dealer says it found a problem. I'd let them change the arms, re align and see what happens. Also be sure there is a notation on the repair slip that says that these were bent. If still not not fixed - I'd try another dealer then look up the lemon law in your state

 

Let them replace the arms if they choose too. It's not costing anything but time and a loaner car. Remember to stand your ground but politely. No point in getting angry with them and shouting and such. That gets people nowhere. I don't see how anyone could bend them but it could have been a bad production run. We will never know.

 

Yes definelty. Cooperation is key. I will keep you all posted on what happens here!

 

Toyota has really bottomed out on quality. After this truck I will not be buying another one. Dodge or Chevy.

 

Honestly I think they all have bottomed out. Your probably better off buying less popular vehicles like Mitsubishi Isuzu or Subaru. The demand is just too high these days and cost cutting is making it worse. Just like my moms old dryer working for 15 years and her new one kicking the bucket after 6 mos. there is no pride in anything anymore. We buy for the NOW and they all know it.

Apart from that. Went to the dealer today and they were missing some bolts out of the order. Go figure. They put me in a Prius and told me they would have it done by tomorrow.

I'll keep you updated and yes it really does feel like a boat. I'll call mine the USS Taco. If all else fails I'll be going back to American.

 

I wouldn't exactly consider Subaru less popular as I would consider it a better manufacturer.

 

Ok ok. Just picked up the truck and it's driving great! Here is what happened.

1. The alignment machine at Toyota does not have the software update for 2015 models
2. So when they scanned the upc on the inside of the door the software on the alignment machine will automatically pull up information for the year prior. Not only that. It will only pull up the specs for the base model Tacoma.
3. Unfortunately the technician did not verify that the correct model was pulled up so he started trying to align my prerunner to the specs on the base non prerunner model
4. With that said They were able to determine that my trucks caster and camber were way off to the specs that the computer was supposed to show.
5. In a nutshell. They were very apologetic and detailed my truck for me. They manually had to enter in the specs for the vehicle in the computer

 

Ok ok. Just picked up the truck and it's driving great! Here is what happened.

1. The alignment machine at Toyota does not have the software update for 2015 models
2. So when they scanned the upc on the inside of the door the software on the alignment machine will automatically pull up information for the year prior. Not only that. It will only pull up the specs for the base model Tacoma.
3. Unfortunately the technician did not verify that the correct model was pulled up so he started trying to align my prerunner to the specs on the base non prerunner model
4. With that said They were able to determine that my trucks caster and camber were way off to the specs that the computer was supposed to show.
5. In a nutshell. They were very apologetic and detailed my truck for me. They manually had to enter in the specs for the vehicle in the computer

 

My truck vibrates before every 5k mike service.

It has never seen dirt. I'm getting tired honestly. It's gotten aligned and balanced at each service.


Yay

 

Glad yours is figured out. This is mg last dealer service then going to my own alignment guy.

 

If it's vibrating it's probably the weights on the rims. Do you have the 16 or 17 inch wheels. Are they using stick on weights