How Often Does TOYOTA Produce a Lemon?

[ls1mike]

I never understand that list.

Buick does ok, but the Chevy and Cadillac are lower. Same drivetrains, same materials, same programing.

 

[Ed_T]

I had an early Tundra that ran great but always had a driveline thrumming sound at around 50 to 60 mph.

Then at about 40k miles, you could hear the piston slap on cold (winter) startups like crazy. Didn't seem to slap before that tho.

Traded at around 50k miles for a turbo Subie, another story unto itself.

 

[TmanP]

I have the same question... A Gm w-body, for example, is very close to its siblings. Same engine, same transmission, alternator, oftentimes same suspension components. The same failure points as well. But they tend to be reliable: but is the Buick better than the Pontiac??? I know somebody with 3 Impalas in the family. One of them (3.8) is at 340K. But they're all good cars.

 

[bluestream]

Originally Posted By: Silverado12
My 2012 Silverado has been flawless in the 4 years I have owned it. Can't do better than that.


Really? Its 4 years old, what possible problems can you have in that short time?

 

[ARCOgraphite]

2009 Silverado: FIRST year Tailights falling out, Throttle body working loose off the platic IM, pill-ess, open PCV sucking tons of oil vapor, Hydraulic clutch throwout going flat causing grinding shifts, piston slap, oil useage. Then doing an OCI, trying to get the oil past the front axle without spilling all over the driveway - I had to make a channel out of flashing to guide the oil drain away to the drain pan. This was a 4x4 W/T 4.3 % speed manual shortbox. Could have been a good truck when you work through the issues.

 

[100_Per_Kent]

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
2009 Silverado: FIRST year Tailights falling out, Throttle body working loose off the platic IM, pill-ess, open PCV sucking tons of oil vapor, Hydraulic clutch throwout going flat causing grinding shifts, piston slap, oil useage. Then doing an OCI, trying to get the oil past the front axle without spilling all over the driveway - I had to make a channel out of flashing to guide the oil drain away to the drain pan. This was a 4x4 W/T 4.3 % speed manual shortbox. Could have been a good truck when you work through the issues.

Both tail lights fell out? Was it used or a flood victim? If new, all this should have been covered under warranty... It seems GM would investigated this further.

 

[KrisZ]

Every time Mr. Toyoda sneezes. He closes his eye for a split second and that is their chance to slip a lemon out. I hear he's a sneezer.

 

[supton]

Lemon in design or lemon for a single example?

I'd say Toyota has plenty of stuff not capable of going the distance (1ZZ-FE oil burners, 2.4's that strip threads, and of course rust). That's design failure, or at least "not designed for the long haul."

Everyone has a build where the stars aligned and that example got a bad trans, a bad wire, and who knows what else. These days I think most of these examples come down to the dealership not being able to diagnose though. Which has probably always been true, but no one wants to go back multiple times to fix something.

 

[UNC017]

Originally Posted By: DrRoughneck
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: CT8
For a while they produced less lemons that other manufactures.


yeah 20 years

More like 40.


More like maybe 10, if that long (1985-1995ish)


There's nothing either magical or horrible about Toyota. They're just a big mass-market carmaker like all the others, with a better propaganda machine than most.

 

[Robenstein]

Toyota made their best cars in comparison to others in the 80's up through around 2000. They were still largely good cars until about 10 years ago in comparison.

I say when manufacturers started doing "genius" things like saying their transmissions had "lifetime fill" ATFs and removing dipsticks that things started to really come apart. The cost cutting after the 2008 economic crisis exacerbated things even more I believe. Not to mention that vehicles are slowly but surely becoming rolling Rube-Goldberg devices to meet the massive amount of regulations as well as people who insist on all the random bells and whistles. The more complicated a design the more points where you can have failures.

 

[Andrew1972]

My guess just like EVERY maker about 5-10% of time. The vast majority of all brands run flawlessly first 150k.

 

[fdcg27]

Things have changed for every manufacturer since the mid seventies.
Standards of durability and reliability have reached levels unimagined forty years ago.
For the record, we've done about two million miles total over the past thirty years and most of the cars we've had we've bought used.
We did buy five new cars over this period, an '86 Honda Civic Wagon, a '97 Ford Aerostar, a '99 Honda Accord LX, an '09 Subaru Forester and a '12 Honda Accord.
For the record, none of these vehicles went back to the dealer for any sort of warranty repair and none of them ever left us stranded. We've owned used Benzes, BMWs, Honda and Subarus as well as lone examples from Toyota and VW. Thee were all good machines and the only one that ever left us stranded was the Toyota, although the fix was easy, cheap and obvious.
Well designed and well built vehicles are hardly something exclusive to Toyota products.
They seem to be the norm for vehicles built since at least the mid nineties.
I still prefer Hondas, having owned eight of them, but I'd have little concern about buying any GM or Ford vehicle.

 

[cjcride]

Much less than other manufacturers do.

 

[dblshock]

Originally Posted By: madRiver
My guess just like EVERY maker about 5-10% of time. The vast majority of all brands run flawlessly first 150k.


the test should start at 150k to 300k, add up all parts & labor, Toyota's line-up would win that hands down.

 

[itguy08]

Originally Posted By: dblshock

the test should start at 150k to 300k, add up all parts & labor, Toyota's line-up would win that hands down.


Doubtful. Nothing special about Toyotas. For years most all cars have had a 150k design life. And there has been a race to cut costs and overbuilding so once you get into the high mileage things will go wrong regardless of make.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: dblshock
Originally Posted By: madRiver
My guess just like EVERY maker about 5-10% of time. The vast majority of all brands run flawlessly first 150k.


the test should start at 150k to 300k, add up all parts & labor, Toyota's line-up would win that hands down.


A gas Super Duty with a 6.8L, 5.4L or 4.6L backed with the 5R110 would be a bad combo to bet against. Same goes with a Vic/GM/Town Car.

The Modular engines in LEO/TAXI/LIMO service have by far the most miles on them of anything else gas in the last 15-20 years. I've personally seen multiple examples with over a million Km's on them, generally airport shuttle limousines.

 

[simple_gifts]

in 2003, my friend told me I should buy a TDI jetta instead of my !echo!; The jetta was $7K more; he said they were designed to go 300K miles.

Glad I didn't buy one of those.....lol

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: itguy08
Originally Posted By: dblshock

the test should start at 150k to 300k, add up all parts & labor, Toyota's line-up would win that hands down.


Doubtful. Nothing special about Toyotas. For years most all cars have had a 150k design life. And there has been a race to cut costs and overbuilding so once you get into the high mileage things will go wrong regardless of make.


I'd have to agree, plus for years domestics did the horrible thing of using the same part for seemingly decades. While boring, that made replacement parts dirt cheap. Imports though would cost more.

Today I think the prices have evened out, but I think OEM's are still aiming for 150k lifespan. Due to ever-increasing quality controls vehicles are walking past 200k with more ease--but as we all like to mope about, no one wants to do expensive repairs. Hence the first big repair (trans, HVAC, you name it) will like trash most things after 200k or so. Once the repair costs exceeds vehicle value, most people lose interest.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
A gas Super Duty with a 6.8L, 5.4L or 4.6L backed with the 5R110 would be a bad combo to bet against. Same goes with a Vic/GM/Town Car.

The Modular engines in LEO/TAXI/LIMO service have by far the most miles on them of anything else gas in the last 15-20 years. I've personally seen multiple examples with over a million Km's on them, generally airport shuttle limousines.


We have run GM trucks out past 500k miles without any repairs. My son had two different Town cars, one with 250k miles and another with over 300k miles. Both ran amazingly well.

Personally I think back in the 70's Toyota and Datsun were building their rep, the cars were amazingly durable and well built. Yet my friend's new Highlander seems to be in the shop weekly for niggling little stuff. Not what they used to be IMO.

And there is NO WAY the lemon rate is ten percent or even 5%, it would quickly bankrupt almost any car maker. Every single mass producer makes a few lemons, there will always be outliers on both ends of the quality spectrum. Those are what make headlines on the Net...

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted By: dblshock
Originally Posted By: madRiver
My guess just like EVERY maker about 5-10% of time. The vast majority of all brands run flawlessly first 150k.


the test should start at 150k to 300k, add up all parts & labor, Toyota's line-up would win that hands down.


Not 100% convinced on that unless you pick certain models of certain years. What gives, my parents have a "headgasket blowing" 2000 Subaru Forester with 190k that has required only starter, alternator and some wheel bearings. While there previous 1990 4runner required 3 headgaskets, radiator, lots of AC replacement and axle work all in 200k over same time period.