Toytec Boss 2.0 Aluma Series Coilover Catastrophic Failure-Safety Warning!

Warning concerning Toytec Boss 2.0 Aluma Series Coilovers! These pictures are from my 2006 Tundra dbl cab. The coilovers are less than two years old and have never been abused. 97% pavement and about 3% gravel roads. Toytec would not open an investigation and didn't even want to see the broken parts. There should be a recall. I would remove them from my truck immediately if you have them! Broke while driving 20mph(thank god!) on the pavement.

 

sheesh. glad everyone is ok at least. I know the 2.5s are actually made by Elka for Toytec, so I would assume the same for the 2.0s but not 100% on that

 

Yes, very scary. We had just finished driving up the Million dollar highway when it broke in Silverton, Co. Brake caliper and driveshaft were destroyed.

 

I would contact Elka to see what they say.

 

I sent an email to Elka two days ago, no response yet. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

mother of god!! I smell a law suit.

 

Are you sure you weren't trying to do this?

 

Ha, you would think so! Nope, we do hike a lot of 14nrs out here in Colorado so drive some 4x4 rds to trailheads but haven't had it airborne yet.

 

Any news from Elka? Also, I assume you meant axle shaft, not driveshaft...

 

Elka has been silent. Yes, I meant the axle shaft.

 

I wonder if you give a call to Hugo at R4T in Denver CO and see if he can give a friendly/free advice what to do in this situation? He would know how warranty works for Toytec products.

 

Ive spoken directly with the manager at Toytec. They did comp a set of lessor Ulitma coilovers which i don't like performance wise. The real sad part is that they didn't want to open an investigation with Elka or even see the broken parts which I offered to drop off. They are claiming to have never heard of this before which is crazy.

 

I just had the same issue on my 18 4Runner! They were installed 45,000 miles ago and my driver side front coilover broke in the same exact spot. I was driving on a smooth dirt road when it broke. My truck has no trail hustory. When I removed both the passenger and driver sides the bushings in both were trashed. I was told that the life expectancy for these are only 4 years by Toytec! A horrible product!

 

Wow. Thanks for the heads up on ToyTec.

I wonder if they're all bad, or maybe just a bad batch of raw materials from the supply side.

Surprised they won't immediately look into this. Maybe they are too afraid of the results and hope to fix the problem quietly.

 

i would never buy Toytec again if that happened to me. Yikes!

 

Agree. Because of this thread, I've already counted them out for potential future upgrades to my upcoming 6th gen rig.

 

I’ve already decided against them on this basis.

Bilstein, OME, or Eibach have too much at stake to Mickey Mouse it like they are.

 

That’s pretty crazy. You can see that it had a crack or pitting going on for a while. You can see the 3 different parts of the failure, red where there was the initial crack or corrosion pit, can see that it is dirty. Then the next part in yellow, can’t remember the term and final the blue which is when the force was too much and the rest fractured.
I’ll try and look up the names of it but you can see similar things when the NTSB investigates accidents.

 

agreed, thst why I ran Bilstein on my 3, 4runners

 

The destroyed bearing is a known issue with Elkas. Buddy in my off-road club had it happen to him, gouged the end fitting too. Had to have the shaft replaced because Elka changed the end fitting design (wonder why? ), and the old shaft didn't fit the new end fitting. Now he replaces the bearings on his Elkas every second oil change as preventative maintenance.

 

Too much work imo

 

They are a garbage product! I will never purchase Toytec again. A waste of money.

 

Sadly, this just happened to me on my GX460. Luckily, I was only going a few mph turning into a parking area and slowly limped to a parking spot. Looks like it destroyed my CV boot. Hopefully nothing else.
It is trapped between the CV and the tie rod. I'm hoping that after work, I can just removed the tie rod, slide this out, and limp home (2miles) on the bump stop.

I really hope since I only drove a few hundreds yards after it happened, that only the CV boot is damaged and not the whole assembly.

I don't need anything fancy. Think I'll just use the OME basic lift. I'll need to add the top hat, but honestly, I fell this will ride better. Never liked the Toytec ride. Plus, it clanked all the time. Bushings suck.

https://mudify.com/products/omegx-1022-2-ass

 

What's your opinion on this? The jounce bumper is split.

 

Bruh yall are making me nervous. Ive had mine - 90k miles/3.5 years - with no issues

 

Mine posted above are on my Tundra...55K miles.

 

I called toytec.. their sme said there was an manufacturing defect for alumaseries shocks with serial numbers that start with 18. 19. or 20. He said that there was a recall for them. The issue was the bore wasnt deep enough for the shaft and that this was exposing threads and that is where it would break.

He said this issue was fixed in late 20. and 21. models

 

Was his name Hugo?
If so he is a very nice guy. Home things go to your favor.

 

I have seen many failures in the labs and this one is a classic. Failure began at the root of the threaded section. You can see cracking (roughly 7 o’clock in the second image) where the failure initiates. Then as the rod continues to bend there’s a section in the middle we would call propagation as load cycles on the piston shaft. Once the load surpasses the remaining shaft strength you get a rupture where it’s seen as the smoother surface feature leading up to 2 o’clock.

This is a mechanical failure due to the way the threaded section was formed.

I am very glad everyone is okay!

 

Its well documented on TW too. They stopped selling their Boss Products (the good old shit) & switched to the Aluma Elka crap. I do know Elka is a Canadian company, but I do believe its Chinese made but assembled in Canada. I have not bought anything from Toytec since then. When the higher ups @ Toytec made these monetary decisions, lots of ppl left the company & they lost a lot of customers. Hell Hugo left when they had major money problems and then came back. That tells you a lot right there.

I'd file a complaint @ Colorado BBB ASAP.
https://www.bbb.org/us/co


I'd do a Google Review & post pictures. Sadly, its full of bad reviews. Toytec is no longer reliable & trustworthy.
https://www.google.com/search?sca_e...QIHXHnFaUQ0bkNegQIMRAE&biw=1440&bih=779&dpr=2



HOLY SHIT - They have hundreds of bad reviews....yikes........