Truck towed- 3rd time

Working on my letter to Toyota, so pulled up the service records. Here are the mileage intervals:
1st tow- 30,647 miles- Jan, 2019
2nd tow - 34,938 miles- April, 2019
3rd tow- 47,541 miles - Feb 2020
Yes, I drive a lot, thats why I have a Toyota. My elderly mother lives 600 miles away and I go there every couple months or more.
Wish me luck.... LOL

 

that's fine if you drive a lot. understand though . that if it is the same problem and it is that intermittent.
anyone is going to have a hard time trying to fix it. if someone puts a part on it they cant keep it from you for 8 months and 13000miles hoping it is not fixed, they have to assume what they put on it fixed the vehicle. maybe it is the crankshaft position sensor.

 

Yeah, there’s no method to the madness.... can’t go on a mileage interval nor a time interval..... very frustrating and for a 64yo female, scary.....

 

Have received notification from Toyota corp that I have been assigned a case manager and will be contacted by end of business day tomorrow. Will go from there.

 

My 18 has left me stranded 3 times and needed to be towed in twice. Once was able to swap battery and go to dealer. On 4th battery since I bought it in Aug 18. Had all weird electrical things as it was dying until it died. Toyo just replaced batteries, and couldn't find any issues as to why. Finally it works as intended. But took months to fix.

 

would you enlighten us as to the fix ?

 

Just new batteries and re-checked all connections. Didn't really have a fix since there weren't any codes. Said just to keep an eye on it. I've noticed if you don't have a constant CEL the dealer really wont do much even though they state there is some sort of issue.

 

Extremely similar to issues I had with my truck. Driving down the freeway and it just died. Was able to limp it off but the engine was just barely staying running. Towed to the dealer and they couldn’t find anything wrong even though there were check engine codes. Happened again a while later, had it towed again and they had it almost a week and couldn’t reproduce it so they said there was nothing they could do. After reading very similar stories on here I replaced the CPS myself and haven’t had a problem since.

 

Check Toyota owners, put your vin in and it will tell you if you have a recall or not.

 

I realize you now have a Toyota case manager, but if the CPS (Crankshaft Position Sensor) has not been replaced; insist they do so.

If they will not, because they think something else is at fault, pay the less than $100. and 10 minutes. This happened to me in 2016 and countless others. The CPS failure apparently does not throw a specific code, but rather a whole plethora of them. Hence the diagnosis being "difficult". And it IS intermittent due to the nature of how the CPS works.

I'm aware that this "screams" of "just throw parts at the problem in lieu of proper diagnosis". But the low cost, intermittent nature, and lack of sufficient diagnostic codes, particularly any that point in some different direction, make a practical course in this case. Especially when the result is an over 60, female customer, traveling hundreds of miles, needing to be towed.

Good luck with your case....

P.S. I do remember the Service Writer mentioning injector codes as ONE of those thrown. There were two or three others and as they cleared them they kept getting different ones. Being 2016, this problem was new and they did get corporate involved. Has run like a top since.

 

Talked to my caseworker yesterday. She basically verified my info, the info on my truck, my thoughts on the situation, and why I contacted them. She’s waiting to hear from the service dept I use and said I would hear back from her by Thurs....
Heading to my Moms tomorrow morning....... 600 miles away....

 

Have done that, no recalls and no previous issues....

 

Talked with my caseworker again. She called as I was driving down to my Moms. She said she had discussed my truck and all the past repairs with the service manager, and said he feels “confident “ I will not have a repeat of this problem. She said in order to gain my confidence, they will extend my Factory warranty 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first. Considering they didn’t have to do ANYTHING, I’ll take it. Drove about 600 miles today, in rain, and several stop and goes for a few miles due to accidents. Averaging almost 25mpg and engine always responding as needed..... gotta believe it will continue that way....

 

there you go , positive vibes !

 

Here's hoping the problem doesn't return.

 

Probably not related, but I had that start > surging > die pattern on my XJ a couple years back and it turned out to be a bad battery and the low voltage was futzing with the computer.

 

So what was the final thing they changed which seemed to resolve the issues?

 

Replaced the ECU.... second one in 9 months... have to believe the first one was defective...