Arbitration didn't go well..........

hey Newlife, I have not tried dropping it to neutral, but I have downshifted out of OD then into 3rd. No difference other than a slight increase in motor vibration. I just had the latest TSB installed in the truck and p/u on Friday. It now vibrates around 25 mph, feels like road strips at the side of the road.. And the vibe that started at 45mph has increased up to 50mph, which gets worse as the truck heads into a turn. the vibe at 70+ up to 85 mph is just as bad, and seems to be worse every time we take it on the freeway.. which is only to have it serviced :-( Oh, on emore thing.. while they were installing the TSB, they dented the driver side rear quarter.. it never ends

The vibration intense vibration at highway speed start to intensify around 70 or so, at 75 it's felt in the seats, backs, door panels, floorboards basically the whole cab.

I would be willing to head up your way, have you drive it and check this thing out.. let me know when you are available? Take you to lunch I will.

 

I realize it's a bit of a Saga, but I still have the truck with the vibrations. I mentioned trade it values from another Toyota dealer, that's all. It is still parked in my garage.. In fact, we have only driven it to the dealer, mechanics, drive line specialist, transmission shop, discount tire and back, oh, and to the convenience center (garbage run) on Saturdays. Totally worth the $450 + insurance payment every month..

 

Try dropping it into neutral you said it got worse (motor vibration dropping it into third and let me know how that goes. If that stops it then it isn't going to be driveshaft but more transmission and that will at least narrow down more of this conundrum

 

I'll give a try tomorrow. What I meant when dropping it to 4/3 was the revs increased but the underlying vibration remained. Since I've already tried a shiny one piece aluminum DS, we know that's not the cause. There was a difference in the 1 piece DS, that annoying bounce or reverberation over RR tracks or bumps was totally eliminated. when driving at low speeds, the truck drove so damn smooth compared to when the 2 piece DS was installed. But it still had the vibe on the freeway.

 

Sorry, I didn't think the arbitrator had ruled yet. Silly me. Last time OP chipped in on that he said he still had hoops to go through to get to the lemon law goal. In Canada, for example, it's fairly easy to sue for a multitude of torts if a product is below a reasonable buyers expectation. I don't doubt your experience, but I also have my own.

I'd hate to tell you but a signed affidavit that means something is a harder thing to get then it should be these days. The dealer could of signed a statement of truth saying the the vibration is within spec, then what good is the affidavit. The dealer can also stall and wait out the time till arbitration. Videos won't really capture a vibration well, and I've never seen and arbiter get into a truck to test the problem . Any third party would need to test the vibration with there own equipment, probably on multiple tacoma's, and that data would be subject to the same issues as anything else the OP brought in. It's all subjective, who knows maybe his vibrations really are within spec as scary as that thought is.

The next dealer who sees it may fix the issue, trade it with another related dealership, or sell it wholesale. You never know. There's no guarantee this issue is a problem worth fixing. If the tranny is mounted improperly or if the driveline is causing a tranny issue the fix may not be worth the cost. It's easier to sell a truck to a farm or business for commercial use that has a little vibe for a small profit as long as the dealer can make up the difference on the op's new purchase. As I said before, the op's painful yet probably easiest decision now is to get a shiny new frontier at the smallest loss he can negotiate.

 

Yeah, I'm not willing to take a $6K hit due to a manufacture defect. It is a big pain in the ass, but after close to $3k in payments, a down payment, paying off our trade in and a grand in parts (my bad) and countless hours and fuel costs.. I'm not paying any more $$ so Toyota keep this sale on the books.

 

Well hang in there, there are only so many things that rotate on a truck, I have always been able to find the source of a vibration, it just takes trial and error. Did you try the most obvious thing and rotate the wheels around the truck to see if the nature of the vibration changes? I've had some luck finding axle and drive shaft vibrations by zip tieing weights to them to see if the problem changes. If you happen to have a Go Pro, those things are great for helping spot things that resonate at certain RPMs also.

 

I have rotated the wheels/tires, several times. I went in a clockwise pattern, after each move I drove it out to the freeway (20 or so miles away) and after trying every possible variations.. no change. I am tempted to mount a couple (older Hero and newer Hero 3) gopro cameras under there.

Our neighbor is an aerospace engineer at Arnold AFB, he said it could me a frame chassis issue. Several components vibrating and resonating through the frame. I talked with the father of one of our patients, he is a retired aerospace engineer, worked at NASA most of his adult life. After explaining everything that has been done to the truck, he said it sounds like a frame/chassis issue as well. He said it might be lack of mass, how and where the components are attached to the frame and what frequencies the parts/components are oscillating at. He also said it's a lot more technical than the basic explanation given to me..

 

Dang Ken, I can't believe they have not found the vibe. Honestly, I would love to drive your truck to feel what you are talking about. I have never felt a vibe is any of my friends Tacoma's, unless they have a lift, which is their fault.

 

Can you get a good video of you driving and the vibration to share? Then another video of the same model on the same road? Put it up on YouTube and spread the word.

 

I agree with these guys about trying to get to the bottom of this issue yourself. It's obvious that trying to get Toyota and/or the stealership to fix it is a waste of time at this point. A qualified mechanic(who cares) should be able to get to the bottom of this, basically thru "trial n error". I'd put the 1-piece d/s back(since u have it), and go from there. I really doubt its a frame/chassis issue, but that could be checked too if needed. G/L!!

 

This guy has had an extremely sour experience with his truck. Something tells me that even if he or Toyota were to fix his "Lemon" there would still be a bad taste in his mouth, especially if anything else goes wrong.

 

you're probably right, just figured he could cut his losses without dumping the truck on someone else. Personally, i'd rather get my hands dirty fixing the damn thing, instead of arguing with d-bags day after day & getting no-where...

 

It's the pita. We had friends with them and they love their Tacoma's, that's a big part of why we bought one.

 

We just got back from doing just that.. I didn't shoot any video inside, but I used 2 cameras undernieth.. gotta figure out how to edit and rotate the screen/view 180 degrees. The video is aprox 6 miles of highway, 20 city. Haven't even viewed it yet.

 

I really don't know what else to try.. we have been referred to another driveline specialist in Nashville, just need to talk to him before taking off work and driving up there.

 

At this point, not sure if the truck can be fixed. Every time it's been touched, there is another vibration at another speed. The interior panel, drivers side access door is starting to rattle.. won't be too long and everything will be rattling.

 

I have tried so many things now, it just doesn't seem like it's worth it to continue throw parts, money and time at it. I work 50-60 hours a week and have spent way too much time dicking with this and getting nowhere, I mean zero progress.. fricking frustrating as hell. I'm not a bad with the spanners, so not being able to even make it a little better is a big let down for me. I need to go shoot the Glock for a while!

 

Newlife, just got back from another shake down run.. this time with 2 gopros capturing all the action, hopefully. I was going to get multiple angles, but ran out of mounts.. will pick up more tomorrow.

I did pop it into neutral while doing 80 mph or so, the vibration remained even as the speed decreased to 70mph.

 

Is it bad enough that you would be able to pick it out on a dirt road? If so you should try driving on dirt at the same speed in 4wd to load the front axles.