Toyota Tundras frames rusting, guess they need to made from real steel.

[HemiEd]

This happened on the T-100 also.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/inve...50/detail.html



Team 5 Discovers More Rusted-Out Frames On Toyotas
Owners Said Trucks Can't Be Repaired Or Resold
POSTED: 10:47 am EDT April 26, 2009
UPDATED: 8:24 am EDT April 27, 2009


BOSTON -- Toyota is hearing from truck owners about frames so badly rusted they can't be repaired nor replaced.

It's a problem Team 5 Investigates first uncovered last year with Tacomas. And now it appears to involve larger model Tundras as well.

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"The frame is cracked," said Tim Gatzke, owner of a 2000 Toyota Tundra. "And down in the back here, the leaf springs on this side are so corroded that they're broken."



Tim Gatzke

He said the frame on his truck is being eaten away by rust. Driven only 89,000 miles, it no longer holds power steering fluid.

"In order to fix it, you need a power steering rack," Gatzke said. "But the corrosion is so bad, there is nothing for it to get welded back onto the frame."

Watch Report

Gatzke has pretty much stopped driving his truck.



Bob Malone

"It's aggressive corrosion that essentially makes the truck unsafe," he said. "I mean, the power steering rack at 70 mph. --- if that were to let go, that could be a really bad accident."

Bob Malone is another Tundra owner with the same complaint.

"You can see the frame rail is just orange with rust," he said.

Malone's 2000 Tundra -- driven just 72,000 -- essentially fell apart going through the car wash.

"I could literally just hear the metal chips flying off," he said, holding a rusted sheet in his hand. "This is the biggest piece I found out of the pile."



Tim Gatzke

Team 5 Investigates discovered more than two dozen complaints about 2000 and 2001 Tundras filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Drivers wrote, "Metal shearing off in large sheets"; "The rot caused the frame to break in half.".... (and) "Poked my finger right through the cross member."

Frustrated Tundra owners told NHTSA: "My truck is undriveable and unfixable." ... "It will not pass the next inspection." ... (and) "I cannot drive my car or even sell it as is."

"What needs to happen is, Toyota needs to recall these trucks," said Sean Kane, a national safety expert who believes the rust problem with older Tundras may be the same one plaguing more than 800,000 Tacoma trucks built between 1995 and 2000. As Team 5 Investigates first reported last year, those model years did not have adequate corrosion protection, causing the frames to disintegrate from rust.



Bob Malone

Toyota agreed --- and offered buyback deals for one-and-a-half times the vehicle's Blue Book value.

"Toyota really does need to step up here and extend that warranty beyond the vehicles that they've already covered to include any vehicles of theirs that has this kind of problem," Kane said.

In a written statement, Toyota told Team 5 Investigates that they've had only a small number of complaints and are investigating each one. They said, "using the information obtained from the Tacoma, we pro-actively investigate other vehicles of similar design and production elements." The company added, it "takes great pride in the durability and quality of our products."

Toyota wouldn't disclose how many rusted Tundras they've heard about or what they're doing for the owners.

"I'm pretty incensed," Malone said. "If you call them up, they just ignore you and hope you'll go away. I don't know what it's going to take."

[Fish]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Wouldn't it suck to stop in for an oil change, and have this happen?

Wow..............

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Wouldn't it suck to stop in for an oil change, and have this happen?

Wow. "Suck" is putting it mildly.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

I just thought it was an odd statement to make.
American steel is highly sought after for all forms of fabrication and construction.
Anecdotal story: Welding Buddy worked for a local manufacturer that was making big industrial radiators. They bought some Chinese steel because the American stuff was so expensive but the first tube they tried to bend exploded in the bender. So they shipped it all back and waited until they had American steel to fill their order.

Damn, that would be a dissapointment. We had a Chinese company win a contract (plastic) that we were bidding on. They got the stuff all qualified, engineer blessing etc. Then when the two production containers showed up, it was totally different material. Customer lost several months of eval time.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Wouldn't it suck to stop in for an oil change, and have this happen?

Holy shit.

That's certainly never happened with any of my American cars. A couple of them may have fallen apart, but not in separate chunks.

[Brock]

Does this mean american cars have stopped being second rate or something?

[wild1]

What model years does this affect, and how common is it?

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by wild1

What model years does this affect, and how common is it?

Welder Buddy's was an '85 and I've seen it happen to late '80's and early 90's trucks, the article is talking mostly 00 and later models so I'd say it's a problem that has existed for quite a while.

[MagicHef]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

I just thought it was an odd statement to make.
American steel is highly sought after for all forms of fabrication and construction.
Anecdotal story: Welding Buddy worked for a local manufacturer that was making big industrial radiators. They bought some Chinese steel because the American stuff was so expensive but the first tube they tried to bend exploded in the bender. So they shipped it all back and waited until they had American steel to fill their order.

When was this? Nowadays, there are very specific lists as to where materials can come from, and typically China is a no-go. On one project I worked on, there was an American stainless shortage, and we had to go through all sorts of hoops to try to get stainless from Switzerland approved by the client.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by LaChapelle

The import snobs don't care. If it says Toyota or Honda on it They'll pay out the nose for one of those brands even with 315,000+ miles. Just cause it says Toyota or Honda. People are idjits.

Which car companies are going under again?? It aint Honda or Toyota.

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by MagicHef

When was this? Nowadays, there are very specific lists as to where materials can come from, and typically China is a no-go. On one project I worked on, there was an American stainless shortage, and we had to go through all sorts of hoops to try to get stainless from Switzerland approved by the client.

This was when there was a steel shortage here because it was being bought up by China when they had all that new construction going on during their economic boom.
IIRC they got approval from the customer because of the long wait for American steel.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

Welder Buddy's was an '85 and I've seen it happen to late '80's and early 90's trucks, the article is talking mostly 00 and later models so I'd say it's a problem that has existed for quite a while.

i have seen this on the older models, we racked a water patrol man's toyota and when it started coming off the ground the gap between the bed and cab just kept growing, so we stopped lifting it and looked the frame was just bending. needless to say we put that ****er down and told the guy it wasnt safe to drive. he was in for a missouri state inspection, the guy actually ASKED me if it would still pass

[wild1]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

Which car companies are going under again?? It aint Honda or Toyota.

If the frame rusts out and the car is useless at 100,000 miles it's right on par with what Detroit was producing in the 80s... so they still have some catching up to do...

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

i have seen this on the older models, we racked a water patrol man's toyota and when it started coming off the ground the gap between the bed and cab just kept growing, so we stopped lifting it and looked the frame was just bending. needless to say we put that ****er down and told the guy it wasnt safe to drive. he was in for a missouri state inspection, the guy actually ASKED me if it would still pass

When Welder Buddy's spring mount for the passenger side rear leave tore away from the frame, taking a decent sized piece of frame with it, he looked around and found that the drivers side spring mount wasn't far behind it. The frame was rusted paper thin in both locations. It's a miracle he hadn't torn the frame before, particularly the way he beat on it.
He kicked around the idea of back halving it and building a custom frame for a 4 link suspension but midway through the tear down for that project we found that the front half of the frame was in almost as bad shape as the rear half so he basically scrapped the whole thing.
It would've made a cool "truggy" but there just wasn't enough frame left to build onto.

[Brock]

Originally Posted by LaChapelle

The import snobs don't care. If it says Toyota or Honda on it They'll pay out the nose for one of those brands even with 315,000+ miles. Just cause it says Toyota or Honda. People are idjits.

Yeah, just because people don't want a car that's worth 25 percent less the minute they drive it off the lot, they're idjits. I wish I could seriously consider buying an american car, but let's face the facts. Hondas and Toyotas on average last longer, hold their value better, and perform better over the life of the vehicle than any american car. My 91 accord still has the original freon in it, for pete's sake. The saddest part of all of this is it doesn't have to be this way. There isn't anything magical about the way those companies operate. Detroits dollars per pound method of designing a car isn't and hasn't been working for quite some time.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

When Welder Buddy's spring mount for the passenger side rear leave tore away from the frame, taking a decent sized piece of frame with it, he looked around and found that the drivers side spring mount wasn't far behind it. The frame was rusted paper thin in both locations. It's a miracle he hadn't torn the frame before, particularly the way he beat on it.
He kicked around the idea of back halving it and building a custom frame for a 4 link suspension but midway through the tear down for that project we found that the front half of the frame was in almost as bad shape as the rear half so he basically scrapped the whole thing.
It would've made a cool "truggy" but there just wasn't enough frame left to build onto.

his was the exact same way