Think I might have a lemon

So for the 3rd time since buying it brand new on 3/2013 with 4 mile on the clock my taco left me dead in the water.

Give ya quick run down it would die on me while driving or sitting it would crank and not start. First time at the dealer they couldnt duplicate it so of course they said it must have been bad gas or something because it started up and ran fine after being towed and not starting for them after trying for an hr and if it does it again bring it back.. A week or 2 later coming home from work it cut off on me, so i pulled over and it started back up. Called the service manager and let him know. Couple more weeks go by and at work and its lunch time and I go to get in and she just cranks over. Keep in mind Im a Tech and do my own work but I didnt pay 30K to fix brand new truck, so i scan it and check for codes and it doesnt have any. I call up a tow truck and let the service mgr know that it happen again and its coming his way.. They had it for about 4 days and flew in a toyota rep to help figure it out and said that they found a bad connection in some wires.

Some time goes by and now it May 2014. I'm a fishaholic and was putting my boat in the storage unit before I went on vacation, as I was leaving the it randomly cut of while sitting at he exit gate. I thought maybe I need gas cause because I was at an angle and I was E with the light on. a couple of cranks and it fired up off to the gas station I go and off to the beach for vacation. While at the beach I didnt drive it for 3 days but on the last day I cranked it up while packing stuff up to let it warm up cause I hate hopping in a car/truck and driving off on a cold motor. As its warming up It cut off but starts back up. Call the service and tell him once again this is whats going on.

6/2/14- No better way to start out a monday then driving to work in morning traffic and having your truck cut off once again while getting on the Hwy. I pull over and crank it over after sitting for 10 mins and she fires up and I make my way to work. Mean my fiance calls telling me our dog bots out the door chasing another dog for 2 block which I thought was pretty funny picturing her chasing after him at 7 in the morning. Well its lunch time I go to fire her up and nothing! I call the tow company and service guy and say its on the way, I dont want it back till its fixed 100%!!!!! Of course I scan it and this time its throwing all 6 coil codes like the ecu took a dump saying that they were unplugged.

6/3/14 Well I got it back today and again they said they found a loose connector Hmmmmmm??? First thing I notice the ticking at idle my truck has always had is gone, it more responsive while driving now.

To all the guys out there that bleed Toyota what in the heck would cause the codes?? I love the truck and have a 6" lift ready to go on along with a stereo system but now I have a case with toyota open about buying it back and if they do I dont wanna install all these items and waste my money.

 

This...tell them that you want something in writing stating that the vehicle is operating normally. Like a work order where the tech states the condition is normal. Just mention your lawyer advised you to do so for any future incidents. That should get it looked at a little better.

 

Not normal. Not cool. Quality control is KILLING Toyota!

 

It seems like more and more are having trouble with their new trucks.

 

More and more people post on the internet on forums like this about truck issues

 

It does obviously show that there is a problem here. It will require some serious attention and needs to be looked at. I don't think you bought a "lemon", just a vehicle that seems to have a problem that is difficult to pin down. You said you are a tech? Then you should know that sometimes we get vehicles in that you just can't seem to duplicate. You said yourself that this does not occur on a solid, regular basis, and that sometimes there is a good WEEK or even longer before it may reoccur, and then it starts right up. That is for SURE a very challenging issue to locate, as I have ran into these kinds of random, non-consistent failures. It will take a very lucky tech to get the failure to occur often enough to run a proper diagnosis and find the root cause. So far your post shows they have made 2 repair attempts, citing a loose or bad connection. One more solid repair attempt and at that point you have the foot well into the door to ask for a lemon law return. I am going to go out on a limb here without looking at the truck and bet that there is either a bad ECU here, or a ground for the ECU that is failing (due to corrosion, loose terminal, or simply a bad connection) Of course I could be wrong.
You comment on the date of 6/3 says that it is running fine now after their second repair attempt. It will have to fail again to make it a third time. Perhaps you are lucky, and this will have it fixed.
I will say this, and I say it all of the time: I don't care if it is Toyota, Ford, GM, Dodge, Subaru, Honda.....whatever company. When you mass produce a vehicle like all of these manufacturers do, there will be some problems. Walk into ANY major dealership service department. You won't see techs typically standing around doing nothing every day. Yes, Toyota builds them better than most all the others, but face it, mass production means that there WILL be failures. There was a post a while back that showed the different manufacturing companies, and how many vehicles per 100 returned to be repaired while under warranty for major problems. While Toyota was I think at the top, they STILL had something like 15 or 20% failure rate in SOME component or another. So go drive through the lot of the dealership. 15-20 of EVERY 100 vehicles on that lot will return for a major repair during it's warranty period. Assuming Toyota manufactures say 250,000 Tacoma trucks in 2014, that means that around 12,000 will suffer a major problem. Sure Toyota is near the top, but they still break.

 

I feel your frustration as I'm waiting for my replacement Tacoma for my lemon 2013.

Lemon law says that your vehicle has to be out of service for 30 days OR in the shop for the same issue 3 times in one year, mine was both. Save all of your repair records, if it comes to making a claim you will need them.

Toyota is different than Ford, Chevy and a few others, lemon HAS TO BE run through them first for resolution. Ford and Chevy have agreements with BBB that is supposed to make it easier to do. Personally I had no problem lemoning mine through Toyota although I have nothing good to say about the treatment that I got from the woman on my case from Mon-Atlantic Toyota.

FYI, the lemon process is as follows. Satisfy the 3 trips or 30 days, file a claim with Toyota, they review it and respond. If you're not satisfied you have the option of arbitration, if that's no good you can hire a lawyer. In each of these cases, the results are binding for Toyota but not you. In other words if arbitration says for Toyota to give you a $5000 refund, they are bound by that but you can refuse and still go to the next step to try and get a better result. In my case I was offered a full refund plus taxes and fees OR an identical replacement vehicle. If you choose refund you are responsible for .10/mile for whatever you drove. My replacement truck will be a 2014 built to the numbers of my 2013, no mileage charge. The process has taken about 12 weeks to date and I'm told that my new truck in in transit.

I feel your pain, its not a fun situation, I hope they figure out the issue. They never figured mine out, and even if they would have I would have probably have lemoned it anyway. They replaced the front of my engine and later replaced the short block, a month later the A/C quit. Prime example of why I wanted rid of it, it could have ongoing issues having been apart and the engine out... not what I expected from a $34,000 truck.

 

What 6 codes did you get ?

 

Very well said.. I have 4000 miles on my 2014 so far my truck has been a beast..

OP I hope you get yours resolved quickly as I know I would be pissed as well..

 

P0351 - p0356 all 6 coils/ circuits

 

Im not bashing toyota, I love this truck. I had a 02 dbl cab and never game me 1 problem while putting 178,000 miles on it.. Being a tech I do understand cars are man made and if it man made it can and will break at some point just not so soon.

It has failed 3 times, them having it for a day for not starting, then out of the blue it cranks up was their way of saying we dont wanna bother with it so we cant duplicate it, cause I was on the dealers butt about the driveline tsb and them installing the wrong leaf pack on my truck but thats a whole different story.

 

With the specific codes you have cited, I stand by either a bad ECU, a bad ground for the ECU, or a chaffed wiring harness affecting IGF1 Circuit.

 

One thing you might check is that the fuel pump is good. I had a fuel pump go bad in a Subaru that would do the same thing and would throw lean codes. It would run fine for days then once the fuel pump got to a certain temp or load it would leave me stranded. The first time I had it towed to the dealership and left overnight. The next morning the tech (who was a friend of mine) called me and was like "So WTF is wrong with your car?" I told him, "Oh, it won't start so I had it towed in." He kind of laughed and said "Oh it won't start eh? I just started it up and drove it into the shop." He checked it out, couldn't find anything wrong other than a lean code and sent me on my way. Well a couple days went by and it did the same thing. To make a long story short.... It ended up being a bad fuel pump. Simple replacement.

 

The lights on my first gen would occasionally flicker. I had it in several times and they could never figure out what the problem was. One day, I was under the dash looking at an unrelated issue, and I noticed that there was a wire pinched between the sheet metal behind the kick panel and a metal bracket. I pulled the wire out and repaired it and the problem with the light never happened again. I'm sure is was like that from the day it was made...

 

Literally.

http://employeewellnessnetwork.com/2013/02/17/karoshi-death-by-overwork-in-japan/

 

Thats in japan, it would never happen in the usa. Lol.

 

My truck was made 30 mins from me here in Texas, but I think they hired these young kids who really dont care and just want the pay check.