Tacoma Tie Rod issues

I currently have a 2003 Tacoma 4cyc 4X4 with 170,000 miles on it. It has been a good truck which I have owned this whole time. One event could have been life threatening and I wanted to see if any of you have had this happen to your Tacomas. At around 70,000 while driving home from work I stopped at gas station and when I went to leave I lost my steering cause inner tie rod pulled out. Had it towed to mechanic and they replaced both rods. I did inform Toyota about this in which they agreed to pay for the bad one but not the other one cause they said how do we know if its bad. They should of replaced both! The bad rod came apart because the threaded end was so corroded that the threads would not hold in place. Bad metal! Luckily it didn't happen while on interstate or I could be seriously hurt or dead. This is something Ive never heard of happening on Toyotas so hopefully its a fluke. But extremely unacceptable from a company like Toyota.

 

You live in PA, lots of salt on the roads, probably the bellows became compromised and salt water got in causing the damage, a visual inspection should have caught it...do you do your own maintenance? stuff like oil changes, tire rotations, I ask only because I do that kind of stuff and inspect all boots, tie rods and ball joints, also grease the driveshaft every time I am under the truck....that said, judging from the three posts you have made since joining, I would say you got somewhat of a lemon, engine knocking, the frame replacement is almost a given if you have driven it in a winter salt environment all its life...

if you took the truck in for regular maintenance, it should have been inspected by whomever did the work...Toyota makes a really good product, I have 284,000 miles on mine, have had to replace stuff that wore out front end wise just from normal wear and tear....struts, inner and outer tie-rods, steering box bushings, sway bar bushings, stuff like that...