Bug fixes during current assembly?

For anyone who has bought a new Tacoma or even a new Toyota before... has anyone experienced a situation where they had known issues in the current model (like the hood adhesion in the 2016) and fixed the issue with 2016's that have not been built yet? Or does the last 2016 Tacoma made look exactly like the first one...?

I've been waiting for my Tacoma for over a month and I've been told it will be at least one more month and probably more (Double Cab Long Bed Off Road Premium w JBL) ... I'm hoping that in trade for my wait they address some of these smaller issues and make at least some changes on the assembly line.

 

My build date was yesterday Dec. 4 (Ordered Oct 5th) and I am in the same boat ,hoping that all the issues posted on this site have some how gotten back to Toyota and have been addressed by the time it gets to the dealer ship

 

It depends on the issue, but many things will get a factory fix as soon as possible depending on the seriousness. It is to their advantage to fix it there rather than a bunch more complaints and TSBs.

There is going to be some delay depending on how serious the issues are and potential fixes, but I would be shocked if they haven't already gone back and investigated the glue problem. It could have been faulty application or product and may or may not have been isolated to a build period, but they will be addressing it on the factory floor as soon a feasible rather than making all of the rest of the 16s that way.

 

Just wondering? Do you know any thing about the build process, Mine was yesterday Dec. 4th

 

My truck was built a couple of weeks ago and was delayed a week in Port...so far it hasn't exhibited any of the common complaints here. It couldn't be more perfect. And it's lightyears ahead of the brand new 2015 TRD OR that I test drove two weeks before ordering my build.

 

Nope. Just mfg in general. Somebody on here toured one of the plants, maybe search for factory tour or something like that. I do know they are built/assembled in some unbelievably short time, like minutes. Of course years go into R&D and tooling etc. beforehand.

 

This makes the most sense for sure...I will keep my fingers crossed as well.

 

Even Civics take hours to build, and they come down the line sideways to increase production speed. Tacomas (being body-on frame) take a bit longer to build.

 

Just repeating what was said by the tour person...

Probably referring to plant-wide. One built every so many minutes. At 200,000 (plant production-San Antonio) units per year, that's ~20/hour working 24/7 365 days a year.

 

Just as 3DB said, You can be rest assured that Toyota probably already addressed the hood adhesion issue on the new Tacoma. However some other issues will take longer to hit production lines. Something like a wind noise issue due to a mirror design they may have to redesign something of a simple engineering solution can not permanently fix the issue. However they will not hold production to fix an issue unless it's a safety concern (recall) they will use the parts they have, and if something is defective or needs revised it will fall under a TSB for dealers to fix. They lose a lot more money when they hault or slow down production then they do having a dealer submit a warranty claim (atleast most of the time)

 

As you can imagine, the answer is "it depends". Defect reports have to filter their way up from the dealers to Toyota. If the defect rate is higher than usual, they will investigate. Take the hood adhesion issue as a example: Hypothetically, if the problem is found to be caused by something like a clogged adhesive injection nozzle or insufficient UV cure time, they can fix it relatively quickly. If the problem is found to be a design deficiency, e.g. the type of adhesive is found to be not as durable as previously thought, Toyota would have to test and qualify an improved adhesive, negotiate with vendors, have it ordered, etc. The whole process could take a couple of years.

 

My build date is 7 days away AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH will it be fixed by then?

 

If it takes them years to fix the hood issue, nobody should be buying Tacoma, or any Toyota in fact.

 

^We'll see. The difference between Toyota and GM, Chrysler, etc. is that Toyota does fix these issues, eventually, but it is akin to steering a supertanker. Just changing the wording on a label can have lead times of over a year. As another example, there's a TSB published in 2011 for chrome bumper rust, affecting 2008-2012 vehicles. i.e. even as they published the TSB, there were still bumpers being made to the old specification, simply due to the supply chain "inertia".

 

Be careful, I said they, are likely already addressing it and will almost surely be fixing it rather than running the rest of the 16s. If it is found to be a bad batch, there will be little delay at all and they will address the bad batch that got out via TSB. If it is poor procedure (i.e. cure time/temp), they will be able to address it via process which can be relatively quick, but still on the order of weeks for anything non-critical to make the change.

It does seem like there have been enough incidents with this issue though that some engineer is on the floor getting to the bottom of it. It really depends on what the issue is whether the currently built trucks are affected or whether it will be some weeks/month time frame before they have the fix rolled out.

I honestly wouldn't stress about it and if it separates, take it in for the fix.

 

It's probably closer to 50-60/hr with 230-235ish working days 16 hours per day over two shifts.

 

Yeah, I think the tour guy said about 1 per minute so that is probably spot on, but I did the math showing that it couldn't be less than 3 per minute even if you worked nonstop.

yup. Truck per minute

also interesting. Apparently "All the taco motors are made in Japan and shipped..."

 

It would be dumb for toyota not to fix any issues on the line when they can. It cost them much more money if the dealership has to fix them. Keep in mind warranty still pays dealer hourly to repair warranty problems.

 

You guys gotta remember most parts are made by a supplier. It could be as simple as a defective batch. That would effect a certain amount but not a huge amount and those would of been produced one after another. If it's something design related which is doubtful in this case, or if Pablo and Chen was poorly trained and forgot to solder something correctly of done by hand then it could effect more units. Either way any issue like this will become a tsb if there are a bunch is issues. Seems to be there are already a few just on here, so globally this could be an issue enough to want a service bulletin

 

My truck is at the dealer right now getting a few toys added. They said they dont know anything about the hood adhesion issue and would not even know what to do about it.