US Tacoma with Rusty frame in Canada. Toyota wants nothing to do with me now

^^^This

 

All might not be lost if it is just there. Talk to a frame guy.

 

That was stainless steel aluminum must be painted or sealed or it oxidizes in the air.

 

How many people do you know that have never heard of a topic you're discussing?

I've known about frame issues because of my interest in owning a Toyota truck. I've owned three total. '90, '91, and an '02.

There are many people who don't know about the frame issues and the number of vehicles it has impacted. The first gen. issue was almost a million trucks. Just a thought.

 

With the invention of the internet there is no excuse for not knowing about the vehicle you are driving, google, forums, auto mechanics, anything you could want is at your fingertips. If the OP couldn’t take time to find out about an issue that has been 15 years in the making then that’s all on him. You can type in Toyota Tacoma problems on google and frame issues will pop up. Yeah it sucks the OP has a rusty frame but that rust didn’t pop up overnight.

 

I feel for you O.P.,but your mom had the truck over 10 years,every vehicle needs to be examined regularly by their owner over the course of ownership.

 

So this isn't quite the same scenerio but very similar to a case where dealer refused to fix a issue that is known to be a problem and after calling corporate directly i was able to get them to acknowledge the problem and it forced the dealer who refused to fix the issue initially.

It was my attempt to having the transmission rebuilt on my 2003 subaru wrx that was known to have issues with teeth shearing on 3rd gear... Shop manager accused me of driver error and was stating that issue occured at my own hands mainly due to my age and that it was a popular car with the tuners of at the time. Regardless he was being stereotypical, instead of actually going through the motions of actually dealing with subaru of america on the issue... So instead i circumvented the dealer and called corporate's 1-800 number, it took some convincing but i definitely pointed out the dealers poor customer service and that it was damaging to subaru's image being treated this way by a dealer selling their product. Within a few days i got a call from dealer that they would finally service my car.

 

Maybe your mother got the notifications, and didn't pass it on to you?

 

I couldn’t agree with you more. Yeah shit does happen like snapped timing belts and tires that blow out. But it is all fixable. My wife snapped her timing belt in her old civic. It happens. But I didn’t go to Honda and bitch about it. Lack of maintenance, my fault for not replacing it as soon as she bought the car used. 1 eBay long block and 700 bucks later I had a running car again. If somebody doesn’t know jack shit about cars, then they have these things called autoshops. I don’t know shit about veterinarian medicine, so I pay a vet to take care of my dogs. Same principal.

 

tomwil My mother never received a single letter from Toyota. I called ToyotaUSA and they still had the original owner on file.

 

Maintenance has nothing to do with all these years of Toyota pumping out inferior frames.

Toyota investigated these seemingly endless reports and determined that the frames in some vehicles may not be corrosion resistant protection sufficient for use in certain areas.

This combined with prolonged exposure to road salts and other environmental factors, may contribute to the development of more than normal rust in the frame of some vehicles.
"More than normal" These are their words.

They got sued so they agreed to this "warranty enhancement" settlement TWICE now because the "enhancement programs" expire and they also save boat loads of money as opposed to an actual recall which would properly settle the admitted issue. They almost try to make it look like they are going above and beyond for their customers with enhancement. The lawyers are happy because they made a killing and so is Toyota because they skipped a recall. As a customer, I see this as a safety issue and want a recall as this creates unsafe issues with my truck. Recalls don't expire.

I wonder how many people are on the road with these frames in this condition where they may possibly kill themselves and/or others as well? I would imagine lots. I have no softspot or sympathy for a $183 billion dollar corporation, even though I may love their product.

 

I think Toyota finds you by where your truck is registered. My 98 truck was bought in a non rust state
and then I moved to a rust state and I received the letter in the mail.

 

Jemm63
According to consumer reports, "Cars today are manufactured with corrosion protection, which makes this added treatment unnecessary, though it is profitable for car dealerships. Consumer Reports recommends that car buyers skip the undercoating and several other pricey add-ons, including VIN etching, fabric protection, and extended warranties."

You mentioned car bodies rusting out after 6 or so years. That is TERRIBLE, but at the end of the day, that's just cosmetic and no one dies from a rusty wheel well. I posted a pic of my truck here. There isn't a spot of rust or corrosion on it after all this time, except for the frame, which did not have adequate corrosion protection applied to it for Ontario.

 

Who would listen to this BS from consumer reports? So add-ons like mudflaps, oil undercoating, hood deflectors, box covers that protect your vehicle from the elements are just pricey add-ons?? Maybe you should contact them and ask if this is still true.

 

Proper Maintenance would have showed an issue. If you took the truck in for regular service, somebody would’ve noticed your Swiss cheesed frame and informed you. Sounds like this truck was ran hard and put away wet for the last 15 years if you let the rusty frame go this long without knowing

 

If you decide to not fix I'd be interested in buying truck for parts

 

Hell, I’ll buy it and swap the frame myself

 

Tough crowd here... Honestly, I agree with you OP. They don't salt the roads where I'm from, so I don't think I have ever checked one of my vehicles for frame rust until I bought my Tacoma and found out about the frame issues. I do all my own maintenance, and it isn't proper/standard maintenance to spray a frame unless you live in the rust belt (maybe folks in Ontario should know better, I dunno). I would definitely notice the holes in that frame because I'm under my truck all the time, but I wouldn't expect the average person like your 63 year-old mom to be thinking about something like that. There are a lot of folks who were blindsided by this because it isn't normal. Toyota wouldn't have lost a lawsuit and be legally compelled to fix the problem if this was normal, get real people... But to their credit, it isn't reasonable to assume that they would fix rusty vehicles indefinitely, so you missed the allotted 12 year time frame (pun intended) and now you're SOL.

I would be trying to find out why your mom never got the notices. It sounds like someone from Toyota already told you they were going to the old owner in the US? That doesn't seem right. I'm not the original owner of mine and I still got the notices, so did hundreds of thousands of other folks, presumably. That's the avenue I would be pursuing with Toyota corporate. If you can prove they never informed you guys of the problem then you might have some leverage. Regardless, you aren't going to walk into a dealership and get it resolved at this point.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vt4b5FYgRk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQ7VrSSPd0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taZLBK7cWhE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP3HQKY_JFg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-xYUcU1qTA