My last Toyota (drive train vibration)

[SOSHeloPilot]

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To address an above comment on US production vs. Japanese production.

Yes, it is documented (via J.D.P. & Assoc.) that both Japanese & some German & Korean production lines do produce higher quality vehicles with less probelms.

Most Toyota dealers will tell you this off the record too.

SOS

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[pastorbrad]

Hmmm...this is very interesting. Just happened to see it. I had the rear spline on the driveshaft (connection from the aft half of the driveshaft into the rear diff, I presume this means) replaced on my 01 at 120K because it was worn. Symptoms had been a clunking / squeaking on shifting into gear and moving slowly in forward or reverse. Now I've got that intermittent vibration at highway speeds 55-65. Had assumed it was the wheel balance (I have 18s and they are wicked hard to balance precisely). Maybe I need to have the shop check the driveshaft alignment?

[SB_Sequoia]

Totally unrelated to your problem, but thought i's hare a story about toyota diagnostics and customer service -

I had a 1996 4runner with a TRD supercharger until it had 195K miles on it(sold it then for a sequoia.) Supercharger went on at 40k. Around 145Kmiles the supercharger started makes a terrible clanking noise all the time. It was till working fine. Took it to toyota who proceeded to tell me that, "These superchargers aften get louder and that the louder it is the better it works." I laughed at him and asked if he was serious. Mind you this was not a happy noise, this sounded like change in the dryer spinning at Mach1. I told them they were wrong and left on my own to look for help from TRD.

Didn't dig too deep with TRD, and about a month later the supercharger was getting VERY loud and one day it just stopped working altogether. I then brough it back to Toyota and proceeded to tell them, "i told you so." They then gave me two options, a)buying a new Supercharger and having it installed for over $5,000, or turning it back to stock for $1900. I didn't like either answer so i went back to digging around again on the internet.

I eventually got a phone number for Magnussen, the company that manufactures the TRD superchargers. The guy at magnussen said the shaft that is driven by the belt in the supercharger most likely broke on one end and was banging against the matal casing, then it eventually broke off. He said if i get the supercharger taken off he will rebuild the entire thing for $500and ship it back to me. I ended up spending $500 on labor for toyota to take it off and put it back on after being fixed, as well as the $500 for the rebuild.

Long story short, Toyota was exteremely unhelpful and simply wanted me to buy the new supercharger, raping me for $5k. All this being said, my Sequoia (nor my 4runer) never goes/went to the dealership for anything. I have everything done at my local third party auto shops who do better work at a much lower price, IMHO.