Toyota 3.4L TT recall

That’s nuts!

My Tundra is on the recall and I’ve driven 47k miles so far. I’m waiting out for as long as possible. I suspect his caught fire from a crappy short block switch. Yeeesh.

 

That would have been a nightmare with kids in the car. They are lucky they didn’t get hurt jumping out of a moving vehicle. This is why I hate the electric parking brake on new vehicles. It’s useless in an emergency. The guy mentioned they lost about $20K in this ordeal. I hope they lawyer up and sue. This is unacceptable by any auto manufacturer.

 

I saw a video a while back, on the less clear parts of the web, a family was riding along in a mini-van and it spontaneously combusted. I dont know the make or model because it was dash cam footage from a car behind i saw. Man and woman jumped out while the vehicle was still rolling but couldnt get the back doors open and both sat screaming while their kid/kids in the back burned. Pretty horrific.

 

OMG..

I have this glass breaker + seat belt cutter thing in my pocket. Hope these things work if needed.

 

I have had decent luck with the foot operated parking brake on Toyotas but I will always miss the hand pulled versions, you can just lock the vehicle down with the mechanical leverage of the lever.

But a lot of people including on here can't even properly use the foot operated version and thus celebrate the demise of another manual device on the vehicle.

 

You have to wonder, for a company that sells 10mil vehicles annually across the planet, at what point is just selling 100,000 or so Tundras a year not worth the enormous financial costs and loss of reputation to the Toyota brand. Nobody even remembers the Titan…

Or preferably, how much pressure must they feel until it’s worth it to just re-install the 5.7 and make 95% of this garbage go away.

 

the problem is the motor is not just in the US market Tundra, the 3.4TT is used in all their flagship SUVs between the J300/LX600/LX700H, the Sequoia, the Prado/GX, and in effect the only motor used in their San Antonio plant. Their back is against an ICE Wall here.

Their only likely way forward is to revise the 3.4TT and admit no fault. Not what I would like to see but knowing Toyota, they are not going to look weak and backtrack.

 

Nissan is looking to part out resources for other companies….maybe Toyota should kick the tires on the Armada’s excellent 3.5TT.

 

Can confirm they WERE looking into different remanufacturers in the US but recently, I personally heard one of their execs say "If we can't do it right, we're not going to have anyone else try"

They've broke contact since.

To me, this means a lot. More than I can say for Ford, GM, Chrysler, Subaru, Nissan, Volvo... etc.

 

Chrysler was at least smart enough to keep the 5.7 Hemi in production in case things didn't work out with their previous strategy. Ford's 2.7 and 3.5 EB engines are at this point more trusted than Tundras. Words are empty, what consumers can buy is real.

 

Owning the failure is uncommon in this business. Typically they'll just contract a remanufacturer. Nearly 10 years in the industry and I've never seen that happen. Tours, commitment contracts, plant upgrades happening to accommodate their program... Then ghosted. Someone high up changed their mind overnight.

 

It would be fun to see they offer 5th gen engine for some trims of Toyota and Lexus came with 3.4TT. Could be a possibility since Toyota till date use the same 4L V6 in big Land cruiser 300 and the work horse Land cruiser 70 series.

 

I’d love to see what the 5.7 paired to a modern transmission could do for mpgs.

 

MPGs of engines that size at freeway speed seems to be topped out at around 22-23mpg, there is only so much they could do to squeeze more miles out of a gallon of gas by playing with gear ratios at the upper end. The more closely spaced gears will of course help a lot with combined driving, Ram 1500 owners with the Hemi and 8 speed seem to be able to get 16mpg or more in day to day driving, where as my old 1500 with the Hemi and the older 5 speed struggled to break 13-14 in around town and some highway. So I figure 10% better highway and 15% better combined if the 3UR were to get an 8 speed.

 

That would be the smart play since the 1GR is still in production unlike the 3UR and 1UR, so there won't be any cost associated with restarting the supply chain and production line, or any scrap rate in the initial batches.

But Toyota is far too stubborn to do that for the US market.

 

The 2UZ was no powerhouse, but with 100% fuel it got 20-22mpg in the 4Runner and 18-21mpg in the Tundra without much sweat. I run 100% gas in mine and get some really nice numbers even to this day if i am not being mean to the vehicles.
I think the 2UZ could get into the low to mid 20s with the ethanol blended fuels with a new 8-10speed trans and good trans tuning and better aerodynamics that they didnt have figured out back 20 years ago.
The 3UR was really thirsty. Its not going to get 20mpg no matter how many speeds you put in the trans.

 

With a good 8 speed the 3UR can hit 20 especially in 2wd set up, possible in 4wd versions. The 3UR ran higher RPMs at freeways speeds compared to competitors' pushrod v8s, there was some room to bring that down when cruising if they could add another overdrive gear or two, and still have a reserve 5th to 6th for slight inclines.


All things considered I sometimes do miss my 2014 Ram 1500. Good power, GREAT ride quality, overall simple enough, and even with the 65RFE (that was in reality a 5 speed with a secondary gear between 2 and 3) still got 21mpg on the highway all day long. Shouldn't have sold that one. Oh well.

 

Tundra engine failures continue into 2026 MY. Hybrid owners are especially screwed, as they are not getting long block replacement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPQDB1_qHPA

 

It’s getting ridiculous. How many years will they continue with this crappy engine?

 

Since we have no data from manufacturer on failure rates I assume the V35A diehards (who still drive their ancient 1GR powered 5th gens) will keep using "things are improving since you don't hear about too many 2026 model year failures and there is no recall yet" line of reasoning like they did with the previous years.

It's worth pointing out that a version of the V35A engine had been in use since 2017 in the LS500 until 2025, and it's the 6th model year in their BOF applications. Not covering the hybrid owners is a bitch move no matter how you slice it unless licking corporate boot is one's full time hobby.

If anyone in northern California wants to be a brave arctic explorer here are some 2024 MY units one can probably get a smashing deal on

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/bf85fdad-bae5-4ba9-befc-a089e3c83f44/

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/624e0b34-617c-4337-9272-c5f6a1cd59b9/

 

The hybrid is pretty much worthless once it passes the 60K warranty. What fool would ever buy one?

 

The buyers probably on average don't keep theirs past the 5/60k coverage so it's fine, at least the 2nd owners won't be saddled with the ancient obsolete outdated v8 dinosaurs.

 

I agree but the trade in value must be terrible if a dealer will even take it.

 

They can probably coast quite a while on the previous gen's reputation, and blame any issues on the previous owner screwing it up and not Toyota's fault. Most Toyota buyers don't follow automotive news so they have no idea about the V35A recalls.

 

But it’s only 1%

 

Come on Burt, you know you want to join the cool kids' club and get a Sequoia.

 

New Tundra was a big fail. Went from being the most reliable to the least reliable 1/2 ton truck on the road overnight.

 

While Tundra engine is a disaster, Toyota is not alone in that. There are a lot of other disasters going on right now, notably GM 6.2 Engine is much bigger deal because frequency of failures is much higher.

Not to make excuses for OEMs, but EPA played a big role in this.

 

What GM does is on GM, I have not owned a GM product since the early 00s because I know they are eh on a good day and since they moved on from the GMT800 platform and started using AFM, I wrote them off completely.

Toyota screwing up their flagship motor is a bad look no matter who makes excuses for them. If the EPA regs was too onerous Toyota should have come out and made it clear so consumers know what was going on. Instead Toyota thought they could play both sides and tried to downplay the issues on the V35A and to this day they are still blaming machine debris even though motors made in Japan were failing all along. F'ing up the J300 motor is inexcusable.