When one buys a new vehicle as I did 9 years ago, one thinks of driving this one for many years and a couple hundred thousand miles, hopefully. You maintain your vehicle with the utmost care regularly. You do your due diligence, tires, oil, etc…whatever goes into basic maintenance and whatever needs to be repaired under the hood for example. But when you lose your steering completely and almost crash your vehicle, you start pondering the possibilities of being ignorant, especially when you have a family.
Our 2003 Toyota Tundra Access Cab V6 Steering Coupling Assembly failed the other day, with approximately 165,000 miles on the vehicle. The piece that busted did not break, the metal on the immediate interior portion of the female piece with inner threads was so warn down, that the male piece started becoming disengaged from the female piece temporarily, for a fraction of a second, during the time when one turns the wheel either left or right. There were times during driving that the assembly became completely disengaged, because we completely lost all steering capabilities for a couple seconds, then you would crank the wheel and it would re-engage, enabling the driver to then have control of steering again.
You’ll notice a “bumping sound” or “pop” in the steering wheel when this happens. If this happens, immediately stop your vehicle safely and call a tow truck. Luckily, when this was getting real bad and we were just about to leave on a move from San Diego to Ventura, CA, going over the hill north of Los Angeles mind you, we decided to have it checked out.
We took the truck to Ozzie’s Auto Repair in Ocean Beach, California on Sunset Cliffs Blvd. Our buddy Patrick there (owner) checked it out with his mechanics and they warned us that had we driven any further it most likely would have failed and I would have completely lost steering. The next thing that came to my mind was my dead family somewhere just south of Los Angeles and my parents left alone in their early 80’s with my dog Duke who would never see me again. Thank God for Ozzie’s Auto Repair, let me tell you. It was about time to get the vehicle tuned anyway but they told me that wasn’t necessary. The truck was running fine and all I needed was a new stereo. So Sunday we’re leaving instead, new tunes and new steering coupling assembly. Ozzie’s is one of the few auto repair shops left around that will actually say “no” to you if they believe you don’t need it. That my friends, is a rare bird.
Given the fact the truck has many miles on it, we decided to contact Toyota Customer Experience in Torrance, California, to advise them of this simply out of concern for other owners. We indicated to them the issues and they were extremely responsive. I spoke initially to Erika (sp?) then to Sparkle who created a case number, took notes, and treated me with the utmost respect. Not only did she let us know that they were very concerned about it, she advised us that there had been no previous recalls on this particular issue, and in addition, she advised me of recalls that were in effect for this vehicle including corrosion of the rear cross member in coal states, frame rust and a child restraint warning label that needed to be installed. The case information is being forwarded to their investigative team for further research.
Toyota also suggested we take some photos and send them in to their Torrance location with the case number attached. The photo you see here is of the female part of the assembly. See the threads on the inside? Your life is in their threads.
One last note: Even though the steering coupler assembly is an interior part and is supported by the frame of the vehicle and had failed, they did not rule out tampering from the outside with parts indirectly related that if tampered with could potentially cause wear over time.
Thanks for listening.
Graham
