While having a routine oil change my mechanic noticed serious frame rust making our truck unsafe to drive. No recall has been issued by Toyota and the dealer denies having heard of such problems, yet there are growing hordes of on-line testimonies from other Toyota Tundra owners with the same problem. There’s plenty of life left our truck north of the frame, only 100,000 miles on it. Does anyone know how to go about pressuring for a recall?
Contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA):
You’re a year out but you might read this.
There’s a lot of politics involved with recalls, campaigns, etc. and the fact that yours is an '01 and not in the time frame specified does not mean that your truck does not suffer the same problem.
About all you can do is contact Toyota’s regional headquarters for starters and see if they will step in on this. With the economic downturn and Toyota in the tank financially like everyone else, squeezing something out of them may not be easy.
Other than that about all you can do is file a complaint with the NHTSA as mentioned; and let corporate Toyota know in advance that you’re going to file.
Even if you file, this may get nowhere because the wheels turn very slowly on things like this.
Before you give up on the truck, take it to a good welding shop and see if they can do something to get the frame braced with new steel.
doing nothing (but waiting for a response from toyota) will let the frame keep rotting. real conundrum here. doing nothing will appear that you haven’t tried to fix it (you will get blamed for letting it go on too long) but doing something on your own may make toyota ‘off the hook’ since you modified the frame. however, i agree with the suggestion to take it to a welding shop. in these economic times it may well be the most reasonable thing to do.
don’t hold your breath waiting for a response from toyota.