Toyota Tacoma Frame Rust

Wow, long since I’ve posted here and lots of changes to the site!

I did some research on this issue awhile back since I have an '02 Tacoma which that recall was extended to. From what I’ve read, you may have missed the cutoff date for the inspection needed to get the warranty extended. This applied to approximately 20 states where this frame rust issue has been noted… Check out the link below which will include the warranty letter and numerous postings from folks who are having severe frame rust problems. Also, you may get a second or even third opinion from other dealers- results have differed widely depending on the dealership.

Good Luck!

Note that the rust issue is not really a Recall; it’s a campaign. A campaign is a voluntary action with time and mileage limits and usually issued if the automaker feels they’re between a rock and hard place. In a nutshell, they’re trying to head off Federal intervention.

“My records (Carfax report when I bought the truck) indicated the truck was first registered July 7, 1997”.
Carfax is more often than not in error, inaccurate, and/or incomplete. They bear absolutely no weight in any official venue. Never rely on Carfax. Ever.

15 years is perfectly acceptable, even commendable, service in any vehicle. Unfortunately, even though you had planned to drive the truck for many more years, it had reached its lifespan successfully and then some. At this point you should be very happy with the service you got from it. Kudos for trying to piggyback on the frame warranty that Toyota offered, but sometimes we have to accept that the cards don’t fall in our favor.

In short, your attempt to tag onto the Toyota frame warranty was a good attempt, the letter well written and containing proper details, however the expectation that Toyota owes you a new frame because they dave others new frames is, IMHO, unrealistic. You took a shot at it, Toyota won’t buy a frame. Time to go shopping.

As for date discrepancy, couldn’t you contact your DMV and see when you first registered/took title to the truck? Seems to me that would be the most accurate, dependable, and legal record of it. As for your not driving the truck that much it would make little difference. Once rust has started it doesn’t stop until it’s removed or somehow neutralized. (or has rusted through)

+1 on looking for a less thorough inspection station.

As an aside, depending on where the damage to the frame is you can have a plate welded over the hole, and keep on trucking. This does not work if the rust is near suspention parts, body mounts, etc… But if its just a hole in the side of the frame I say fix it and keep on trucking.

Gsrag, the way these frames rot does not lend itself to gusset plates. They rot on both sides and below, just aft of the front bed mounts, and along a stretch significant enough that material to weld to is virtually nonexistant.
A tubular, transverse frame member that traverses over the differential also rots out, and that’s curved and pretty much inpossible to weld to without major disassembly due to its location. The only real solution there is to remove much of the undercarriage in that area, pull the bed, and replace the member…the replacement of which owuld have to be custom fabricated.

O I C mountain… Well that just stinks… I wonder how bad can it be for the OP who had no issues the year before?? How much could it rust in one year??

To the OP, ok cheap fix number two. Find a truck from the south with a bad motor and swap it with yours??

Yeah, it does stink.

My '79 Toyota rotted right through on both sides and the only thing holding the front and back together was the bed. The whole thing bent like a hinge and the front top of the bed would bang against the back of the cab. There was nothing meanigful left to weld to. At that point I’d abused the crap out of it for 11 years, so I just had the local yard owner haul it off. He put some 2x4s and lag bolts between the cab and the bed and used it for a yard truck. The engine still ran great. He’s probably still using the thing.

I like your solution.

I dunno, a 15 year warranty is pretty hard to fault. For many years you knew there was a frame problem, plus live in a state where inspections could shut you down. Plans change all the time so seems to me maybe 5 years ago you should have gotten rid of it while everything was fine. Now, depending on the severity of the rust you can weld in plates, sell it in a non-inspection state for peanuts, or sell it now for peanuts. 15 years is still pretty good.

Thanks for the good comments. Believe me most of these thoughts had gone through my mind before I wrote the letter to Toyota. I hope that my experience can be used as a lesson for others with this or similar problems. Just a few recommendations based on my experience.

  1. Find out when the manufacturer says your warranty starts and ends, particularly if you bought the vehicle used. Ask your dealer or contact the manufacturer to verify the dates.

  2. When a problem is identified, don’t wait to take it to an authorized dealer to get it resolved. Then take it back annually for an inspection until the warranty expires. Ask specifically for the warranted item to be inspected.

  3. Since the manufacturer has financial motivation to not fix a problem under warranty, it might not be a bad idea to also have an inspection done by an independent garage before the warranty expires. If the manufacturer or their reps can let it slip by, perhaps they will.

Also a couple notes to answer some questions in the comments.

@ Caddyman – The truck has not spent 15 years in New York. It was originally titled in Maryland. I don’t think they are nearly as free with the salt as NY.

@ the same mountainbike – 15 years may be commendable but when the engine is strong, the tranny is sound, the body is good, essentially all the oily bits that can easily be replaced are good it should not be assumed to be at the end of its service life. The frame is the only reason I am considering scrapping it. Toyota acknowledged that the frame did not have adequate corrosion-resistant protection and did nothing to correct the problem until it was too late. Did I mention that Toyota announced a limited service campaign to apply corrosion resistant compound to the frame? I received notice of this 4 days after they told me the frame was rusted out and my warranty had expired.

@ ok4450 and gsragtop – I don’t know what car dealer’s practices are pertaining to “first service”. If they consider a test drive in a new vehicle “first service” then a lot of new vehicles have less warranty than the owner thinks they have. That is all the more reason why you should check with the manufacturer on the expiration date.

Just one other thing …. Anyone want a 1997 Tacoma for parts?

My point about the truck possibly being a demo is this. If you bought the truck and it only had 3 or 4 miles on it then it was a brand new vehicle and the warranty started on the day you drove off with it.
If the truck had 50, 100, or 200 miles on it, etc then it was a dealer demostrator and is technically a used car, not a new one. The warranty period started on the day that it was first put into service as a demo, not the day you bought it.
Many people learn the difference the hard way and no, I don’t want or need the truck. I’ve got enough projects going now to keep me busy for a lifetime. :slight_smile:

I understand your point. I faced exactly the same dilemma. The oily bits on my '79 were still working great, but the frame had broken (rusted) in half. Toyota corrected the problem for awhile. When my '89 Toyota pickup got totalled just a few years ago, the frame was still solid. But, alas, a few years after that they apparently regressed. Frame rot became a problem again.

largren, OK is 1/2 right… A warranty starts when the dealer reports the car sold to the manufacturer… In the Biz we call it burning a car. This has NOTHING to do with the regestratoin with the DMV, and this is what CARFAX reports. In some cases, although not many a demo is reported sold becasue there is money on the line for the dealer to do so. Other times it is just driven and reported sold with 200 miles as a for example. This is not what we are talking about in this case… So in your case what I think happened is the dealer had to hit a number of units sold by the end of december to get a $$$ bonus from Toyota. So they reported the truck sold to Toyota in December, OR it was sold but the deal feel thrugh and the dealer did not “unwind” the sale with Toyota so they could hit there goal. The Truck may not have been actually sold untill July, which is when the warranty actually should have started…

IN any case how bad is the rust in your case??

Maybe the OP needs to clarify a few things about how many miles on the truck when purchaed and what date it was actually purchased on.

There’s still some murkiness on this and unless I’m reading it wrong, why run a Carfax report on an allegedly brand new vehicle as stated in the original post? That makes zero sense to me.

Can you imagine the Toyota mechanic who is given the job of replacing the frame on a rusted-out 15 year old vehicle??? Every nut and bolt rusted and seized up…The brake lines, gas lines, wiring, steering and suspension, …I would be heading for the time clock…

Oil and or grease liberally applied always does wonders for rust prevention. The problem with frames is getting that stuff to the appropriate place. Closed box framed trucks may be stronger, but C Channels lend them selves to drainage and rust preventative applications. In their attempt to strengthen the frames, making Tacomas excellent off roaders, they create more areas that don’t drain properly and cannot be serviced as easily.

Had 6 Toyota PUs and hated to deal with every one when body oiling time came around and half of it would fall on me while spraying on and inside the box frame. But, if you can and are willing, treatments like this stop rust in it’s tracks. It isn’t for the faint of heart and may be the grungiest maintenance you every do to a vehicle. Toyota of late is going to more C Channels…you can’t win for loosing. Now we can complain about too much frame flex as a trade off to less frame rust.

Toyota’s recommendation to dealers in 2008 was to tell the customers to wash off the underside occasionally. They said “Customers who live in areas where road salts are prevalent may wash the undercarriage of the vehicles periodically. This may assist in preventing this condition.” They had this to say about rust treatment procedures, “Given the age, differences in driving environment and actual condition of each vehicle, its is extremely difficult to determine if a specific aftermarket chemical will be effective at this time.” Three years later, after the warranty runs out they decide that there might be something they could have done. They have initiated a second limited service campaign which ends March 31, 2012 for vehicles covered by the 2008 campaign. I guess they have decided now that the frames have had 3 more years to corrode that rust preventive treatments might work.

Here is a link to a website that has the original service campaign letters.

http://tacoma-upgrade.com/2009/06/info-on-the-19955-through-2004-toyota-tacoma-frame-recall-for-rust.html

@ ok4450 You said, “Maybe the OP needs to clarify a few things about how many miles on the truck when purchaed and what date it was actually purchased on.”

I just realized I’m the “OP”.

I purchased the truck in July, 2001. At that time it had about 69K miles. Here’s the vehicle history as reported by CARFAX.

On 07/07/1997 a title was registered in Maryland and it was registered as a private vehicle. There was no listing for the odometer reading.

On 8/18/1999 it was offered for sale at a dealership in Maryland. The registered odometer reading was 45,072.

On 11/01/1999 with 45145 miles it was registered in Maryland.

On 07/31/2000 it was registered as a leased vehicle in Maryland with odometer reading at 63446.

On 08/29/2000 it was registered in Pennsylvania and on 10/19/2000 with 63564 miles another title was registered in PA.

I purchased the vehicle in July, 2001 with 69358 miles and registered it in PA.

I moved to NY in 2006 and registered it in NY with about 148K miles.

This is probably more info than anybody wants but I hope it clears up the murkiness.

I’m inclined to think this truck was a dealer demonstrator and the date it became a demonstrator is the date when the warranty starts. That doesn’t make it less palatable for you though.

For what it’s worth anyway, I work with a lot of antique motorcycle part that are rusted in one degree or the other. When it comes to chemicals to convert rust, etc. that’s a mixed bag. Some of those chemicals help prevent or hold down rust after it’s been removed from the part but won’t do much for a severely rusted part.
If the frame is rusted to the point that there are holes or very deep pitting I don’t see a chemical as being of much help. The frame would still be unsafe and application of a chemical would be like putting lipstick on a warthog. It might help a bit on the surface but it’s still dangerous.

I’m afraid I have no answer for your problem seeing as how corporate Toyota has denied you. If this problem was a Recall then it would be a slam dunk for you but it’s a Campaign and those always have limits.
Even the thought of a full frame swap is an iffy procedure because as Caddyman mentioned, there are going to be rust issues with suspension components, brake lines, etc, etc.