Quote:
Originally Posted by enlightened
I was just talking with my service manager at the local dealership about this today. There are three frame rusted/rotted out Tacomas in the back lot of the dealership. He says this buyback program for just the Tacomas nationwide is costing Toyota Corp. something like 1.8 BILLION $ dollars! He also said part of the problem was the undercoating/paintjob from the frame supplier in California (late nineties-2000), but more so that the Tacoma frame was fully BOXED the entire length of the truck (unlike the Tundra's which are C-Channel from the engine bay rearward), and that there were no weap holes in the boxed frame for water to escape, resulting in rust/rot from the inside out! He also said Toyota is trying to recover financial damages from the bad frame supplier. Guess it all depends on if the test engineers determine if the rotted/rusted frame on the 1st generation Tundras is also a safety issue as with the early Tacomas, or just normal wear and tear type rust common to most vehicles in the Northeast/Midwest.
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When I took my 2000 with 54,000 miles to the dealer a Toyota rep came out, took pictures, told our dealers service mananger the truck was unsafe and we could get a rental they'd pay for. He told him "unofficially" that Toyota would be buying it back and someone would contact me directly. The service manager said he had never seen anything like it, that it looked like it was "rusting from the inside out". Seven weeks later after checking with back with Toyota a number of times, I finally got a call from Toyota and they said that the Tundras were not part of Tacoma buyback program and that they would give me $2,000 toward a new Toyota. They did pay for the rental for the time I had it. I have since taken my truck home and sent of some letters of complaint.