Overheating at Highway Speeds with A/C On

It all started this past Sunday morning when it was nice and cool (40 degrees) outside. I started the truck and let it warm up a bit before making the 260 miles drive south toward home and I noticed it shaking pretty bad. As the truck warmed up the idle smoothed out and I thought nothing more of it until...

About 45 minutes from home, I had gotten far enough south and the outside temps had warmed enough to require the air conditioner. I turned the a/c on and set the temp to 65. About 15 minutes later I noticed the temp gauge on the instrument cluster creeping up toward the red. Fast forward 5 minutes and it's in the red. I quickly pulled over, turned the A/C off and watched the temp gauge return to normal. I carried on toward home without any further issues.

Monday and Tuesday the shaking became worse so I took it in to the dealer on Wednesday morning and dropped it off. The truck has 14k on the odometer. I showed them the cell phone video I had taken of the truck overheating and they told me that they would need to duplicate the situation. I advised them of every little detail. 70mph, cruise on, A/C on 65. They were unable to duplicate. I asked if they had gotten it to highway speeds and they admitted that they only drove it for 5 minutes and never got above 40mph. I talked the tech in to going for a ride with me and I was able to get it to overheat within 10 minutes.

The truck has been in the hands of Toyota since 0700 on Wednesday and so far they have only changed the fan clutch which did nothing. It's still overheating. I asked them to check the thermostat, water pump, and radiator. They told me they can't do anything further until a component actually fails. I contacted Toyota corporate and there is now a case file open and the dealership is now "allowed" to start troubleshooting since they can't seem to figure out why it's overheating.

Anyone else experience these issues with their 16 or 17?

 

bummer.

 

The component that's actually going to fail is is your motor from overheating. I can't believe a dealer with a truck under warranty would tell u there is nothing they can do about a problem u are obviously having.

 

If I had to guess, it would seem like the thermostat isn't popping open.

 

are there electric fans on it? and are they working?

 

Seems like the problem is with toyota, not your truck. How can they need to get approval to troubleshoot things? Seems like they don't know how to fix an issue at this dealer.

 

Try another dealership. It makes no sense to drive a car that overheats, you'll ruin the engine.

 

This isn't the hardest thing to troubleshoot. If your dealer can't figure it out. Another dealer should be able too.

 

We have mechanical fans and at highway speeds there should be more than enough airflow.

 

Unfortunately my experience with many dealers, spanning 50+ years now, makes this quite believable--the BIG high volume dealers are the worst...

 

14K on a third gen. Well you're just getting into the FUN

 

Thermostat......!! Change it yourself... don't let those fools touch your truck again..!!

 

No surprise here, the 2016 Tacoma is returning "much worse than average" reliability according to consumer reports. But all those owners are idiots and CR is full of Tacoma haters.

 

Fans are working. They even replaced the fan clutch that wasn't broken.

 

for those saying it's the thermostat...

what's with the shaking preceding the temp rise?

 

They actually told me that if it's not throwing a code or has an obvious failed item they don't know what to fix. I specifically asked about checking each component of the cooling system and was told that they (Toyota) cannot do that because it's not how the warranty process works.

 

I have the spare thermostat. I'm just waiting to see what else they say.

 

Id be torqued...brand new vehicle overheating? They would need to fix it asap

 

3 days at the dealership now and they've only replaced a fan clutch that wasn't broken. They won't even give the thermostat or radiator at look.