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Toyota Tacoma - Spontaneous Starting

Toyota Tacoma • Consumer complaints • Transmission failure • Safety interlock failure • Spontaneous starting • Misc. failings --- News • Toyota Resists Possible Tacoma Recall

John of Fitzwilliam NH (11/25/03):
I would like to report an incident that happened to me with my Toyota Tacoma pickup this August while camping with my family. It was Saturday morning around 11 am, my truck was parked between two trees, both doors were open, the truck was parked in reverse -- it has a standard transmission, and the key was on acc. We were listening to the truck radio. I leaned into the passenger side to tune the radio to a clearer station, and as I was tuning the radio all of a sudden the engine starts to turn over like it was trying to start.

This caused the truck to start lurching backward. When this happened it knocked me into the truck (I was leaning into the passenger side door). I lost my footing and fell in, the engine was still trying to start. All I could think to do was to pull the key out of the ignition, but this did nothing -- the engine was still cranking. I reached for the brake with my hand because I had fallen near the floor, but that didn’t help the truck was still lurching backward.

I was starting to panic. I coudn't quite reach the clutch pedal. Then I yelled for help -- my sister-in-law jumped into the drivers seat and slammed on the brake. That didn’t help. Just then she got out and my wife jumped in -- she had just barely enough room to jump in as the truck was now just about to the tree on the drivers side. Sh was nearly crushed between the truck and the tree.

At this time I was trying to get out the passenger side door. My foot hit the ground, the truck lurched and pinned my leg and shoulder between the tree and the truck. My shoulder was hurt by the door. My wife finally pushed in the clutch and the lurching stopped but I was still pinned against the tree and the truck is still cranking over.

My wife shifted into first gear and it rolled off me. I told my wife to leave it in neutral and get out of the truck. The engine was still cranking. The only way we could get it to stop was to disconnect the battery.

This was an extremely traumatic experience, and there were many witnesses.

I called my local Toyota dealer where I bought the truck. By the way this truck is a 1996 model with 89,000 on it, which I feel makes no difference -- the starter should not be able to engage with no key, no one in the drivers seat, no one pushing in the clutch, don’t you agree?

I had to have the truck towed from the campground to the Toyota garage. This was on Saturday, so I wasn’t going to hear anything from them until at least Monday. On Sunday I e-mailed Toyota headquarters customer complaint dept., told them the situation and I received an incident number from them and they told me they would be in touch with me within 24 hours. They never got back to me. On Monday my Toyota dealer called me and told me my starter needed to be replaced, would I like them to fix it?

I told them I;ve been trying to contact someone at Toyota headquarters to find out how this could possibly happen. I didn’t want them to just put in a new starter and possibly have the same thing happen again. After numerous attempts to contact them via e-mail I found a number I could call and talk to someone -- they referred me to the product liability dept. I told them the story and they told me I could either file a formal complaint or they could send an investigator to check it out.

I needed to be assured that this would not happen again so I wanted the investigation. They told me it could take up to 30 days and then up to another 30 days for an official response. Finally after almost 2 months without a vehicle and 45 days after the investigator checked it out and still no response from product liability, I had to agree to have the truck fixed. The day I agreed to have it fixed, product liability got in touch with me and told me my response was in the mail.

Their response to me was that it is not unreasonable for a vehicle with 89,000 miles on it for the starter to go out, I agree but this starter didn’t go out it went "in" and stayed in, causing a life-threatening situation. Someone will eventually be killed from a situation such as this.

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