Frustration with 2014 Toyota RAV4 quality

Our radio stopped working shortly after the warranty expired. The CD player worked for a couple days after but now has a CD that won’t eject. The only thing that works is the backup camera. I contacted Toyota when it quit working and the only response was that the warranty was expired and offered no assistance. It has been a few years since it quit but saw this sited and thought I should warn others about Toyota. We also got the Toyota with the torque converter problem which was repaired but don’t like the way the transmission works now.We have owned several Toyotas and this is probably our last. Toyota quality is not what it used to be.

You folks that buy Toyotas and expect them to run forever without anything failing, have sadly inflated expectations.

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That will be the response of any brand after the warranty period . Why did you not just go to a stereo shop and have one put in ? If you did nothing for a few years then this was not a major problem for you. Things break - it is just that simple.

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Well, now you can get top Dollar for your RAV if you want to switch.
You can put a nice radio in from Crutchfield for couple hundred dollars. New cars don’t even have CD players anyway. Gone the way of cassettes.
What brand are you thinking of buying though? They all have issues.

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A refurbished HU is <$200 online. Might be best way to go.

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Yeah well, Toyota doesn’t make radios either, they buy them. Just find out who the authorized repair shop is and take it there and they will fix it right up. I had trouble with my Riviera radio and took it to the authorized Delco shop in St. Paul. A few days later all done with a new FM board for about $100. They had radios everywhere being repaired. Buick doesn’t make radios either. OTOH, Toyota just has never been on my shopping list though. I just don’t like them.

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The biggest annoyance with modern cars is that most of them have moved away from the DIN standard. That means it can sometimes be hard to just go to Crutchfield and buy a radio. I remember when I had a 2007 Acura, I looked up Crutchfield’s report on how to swap out the stereo, and the summary was, I am not making this up, “Don’t.”

Of course, moving away from the DIN standard also means people aren’t stealing car stereos as much any more because it’s harder to get them out, and harder to sell them when you do, so it’s not all bad.

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Back in the day, you could switch out the head unit with a wiring diagram and a six pack. Now, the “infotainment system” takes up the entirety of the center dash! Quite a bit more intimidating. Backup cameras are nice, though.

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Google was not much help, what is a DIN standard?

D eutsches I nstitut fur N ormung) The German national standards institute

Remember when cars came with radios that all looked like this one’s shape?

That’s the DIN standard.

Then a lot went to “double DIN” (I think is the term they used). Which is about twice as tall, same width. Then they just went nuts and decided to make the whole center of the dash a radio/touchscreen/monitor/margarita maker device!

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Yep. If I remember, GM even had a wonky 1.5-DIN setup.

And a lot of the single-DIN cars had a second DIN-sized pocket under or above the radio. If you removed that pocket, you could put a double-DIN in there, which is handy these days because now you can get head units that have backup camera inputs.

You should upgrade to Jaguar. They get rid of the in-dash margarita machine and replace it with a cognac dispenser. :wink:

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I have a 2015 RaV 4 with 72.5K miles. So far, nothing has broken. I have an extended warranty for 100K or 7 years (which will go in 2022 first). maybe changing my trans fluid about 12X and one filter change has kept the trans working. My 2 1994 camrys lasted just over 200K before giving one away and trading one it. I’m a toyota man. Our Kia Optima isn’t bad either.