I wanted to give all 3rd Gen Tacoma Owners (and possible owners) a heads up on an Odometer/Speedometer issue I'm having with my 2017 4wd V6 Tacoma. I noticed after the first week of ownership that traffic in my area had really increased in speed. I live in southern California and the traffic tends to be pretty consistent based on time of day and day of the week. I was finding that I was traveling what seemed like 5mph faster than I normally would travel to keep up with the flow. I found this odd, so I started to test my speedometer whenever I could. We have a couple of highways in the area that have those radar signs that will show you your speed. I was seeing that the speedometer was reading 5% over every time I checked it. I thought the signs could be off, so I took my truck to the dealership to get the speedo checked. I made my appointment, did my best to explain my concern, dropped my truck off and waited to hear back from the dealer. They had the truck for a 24 hour period and returned it to me with the statement of "no issue found". I asked my service adviser how they had check the accuracy, he replied that they had plugged the truck into their diagnostic tool and found nothing wrong. I informed him that they would need to place on a rolling road (chassis dyno) in order to check the accuracy of the speedometer. He didn't seem to understand why and said he would work on finding a way to check the accuracy. The truck was at the dealer for a couple more days, at which time I received a call from another service adviser letting me know my truck was ready to pick up. I asked the new adviser what was found and he gave me the same answer about no issue found. I asked again how they had checked the speedometer and he said the service tech had driven past a radar speed sign twice and found the speedo to only be off by 2 mph. I asked at what speed he drove past the sign and it wasn't in the notes. Needless to say I was a bit upset. I picked up the truck, knowing that this dealership was unable to accurately check the speedo calibration.
The next few days I spent using my lunch breaks to voice my issue to Toyota Corporate over there 800 number. I would normally spend the first 15 minutes on hold, get to talk to someone for a minute, then be transferred to someone else. My intention was to find out if there was a local Toyota dealership that had a rolling road that could accurately check my speedometer. This was the question I posed to the individual that took my call, to which I received no encouraging answer. The service person on the other end of the line said they would have to call all the local Toyota dealers around me and see if they could check my speedo. She called the first few and one said they could check the speedo, no problem. She transferred me to that dealership and dropped off the line. I asked the new dealership if they had the equipment to verify speedometer accuracy and he said "yes, we can plug it into our computer and check everything". Ugh...these are the professionals that take care of our cars. Said good bye to the new service adviser and started back with Toyota Corporate.
After a few more calls to Toyota Corporate they said I needed to go back to the original dealership to get the issue worked out. About 30 minutes later the service manager from the original dealership called me. He was very professional and understood what I was looking to have checked. Fortunately the service manager also turned out to be a bit of a hot rodder too, so he knew of a local chassis dyno shop. He talked to Toyota Corporate and got them to agree to pay to have my truck run on the local chassis dyno. We set up a date and time that worked for everyone and we dynoed the truck
View attachment 390689
As you can see from the service record the speedometer/odometer is 5.6% off (when you average all the data points). The Service Manager was pretty surprised, the guys running the dyno were very surprised, I was proud that I was pretty close on my 5% estimate. So what to do next. Well, the service manager had no spec on what the accuracy of the speedometer was supposed to be. He had actually been trying to find the allowable range for the week leading up to the dyno test and he had nothing. He had also been working with an engineer at Toyota to find the speedo tolerance and they both kept telling me they were still looking.
A little back story on me, I have worked in the automotive aftermarket for over 15 years. I've even worked with Toyota (TRD specifically) on their supercharger systems for a few of those years. I've had many Toyotas apart and know how easy they are to work on, how great their design and engineering is, and how indestructible they are. I also know, that no one in American at Toyota can re-calibrate a computer. All the tunes for the TRD Superchargers are straight from Japan. When TRD would do project cars they had to use aftermarket ECUs so that they could re-calibrate them.
Knowing this, I asked the Service Manager what he would like to do. He said he would like to find a solution. I gave him 4 or 5 days and called up to see where we were at. He said he was still working with the Engineer to come up with a solution. I suggested Toyota just buy the truck back and we would go our separate ways. He asked for one more chance to try and find a solution, so I agreed. He called me back 30 minutes later saying he had talked to the engineer and there was nothing they could do about the calibration error. The service manager gave me the number to Toyota Corporate and wished me luck with my claim.
The next couple months followed with Toyota telling me it would take 30 days to get the Lemon Law Claim going, then another 30 or more days after that to get anything to happen. I said no problem let's start the process. 30 days went by, I called Toyota Corporate to see what was happening with my claim, it had been closed and labeled resolved. Yep, I was a bit upset again. I had to refile my claim and I was told it would be 30 days to get things going, again. I asked to speak to a supervisor to deal with this new issue. I'm placed on a five minute hold, after which I'm told there are no supervisors available and one will call me back within 24 hours. Here's the great thing about that, they call whenever is convenient for them. If you don't answer, they leave a message only saying where they are from and their first name. This means when you call back you get to go through 10-15 minutes of hold time to try and get a hold of them again...it's fun. I did, finally, get a hold of a supervisor. It ended up being a useless conversation...all he would say is there is nothing he could do and he was sorry. Interestingly though, I received a from Toyota regarding my Lemon law issue 48 hours later...strange.
The letter from Toyota was just a form letter from a different department. It was asking for a bunch of information, that they already had, so I called to see if I needed to send the information again. Only took me 3 days to get a hold of the person that sent that letter, and they ended up not needing any of the information they requested. That was about 10 ago. Today I received this letter:
View attachment 390688
Yes, I will be continuing down the road of having Toyota buy back my truck. Initially, I wasn't going to let anyone else know about the issue I was having. I figured those with Toyotas like them and don't burst their bubble. The longer Toyota keeps dodging me and the 3rd Gen Tacoma issue the more upset I get, though. Some may say that 5.6% isn't a whole lot. Imagine saving 5.6% on every Tacoma (and maybe other cars too) when is comes to warranty. That's probably a pretty large number. Now also look at how poor the MPG is on the Tacoma...knock it down another 5.6%. The SAE (society of Automotive Engineers) had agreed that the standard deviation for speedometers/odometers should be +/-4%. This is a pretty big deal...I would be willing to bet that every 3rd Gen Tacoma has this issue too. Now if you don't mind getting cheated by a large manufacturer every time you drive your truck, great, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I'm writing this to let all the other little guys, like me, know that the big corporation is stealing from them and they have no issue doing it. Do with this information what you will, but I will have Toyota buying my truck back.
If you've read this far, thank you for reading my rant and I'll update this as things happen.
Best regards,
Wes
The next few days I spent using my lunch breaks to voice my issue to Toyota Corporate over there 800 number. I would normally spend the first 15 minutes on hold, get to talk to someone for a minute, then be transferred to someone else. My intention was to find out if there was a local Toyota dealership that had a rolling road that could accurately check my speedometer. This was the question I posed to the individual that took my call, to which I received no encouraging answer. The service person on the other end of the line said they would have to call all the local Toyota dealers around me and see if they could check my speedo. She called the first few and one said they could check the speedo, no problem. She transferred me to that dealership and dropped off the line. I asked the new dealership if they had the equipment to verify speedometer accuracy and he said "yes, we can plug it into our computer and check everything". Ugh...these are the professionals that take care of our cars. Said good bye to the new service adviser and started back with Toyota Corporate.
After a few more calls to Toyota Corporate they said I needed to go back to the original dealership to get the issue worked out. About 30 minutes later the service manager from the original dealership called me. He was very professional and understood what I was looking to have checked. Fortunately the service manager also turned out to be a bit of a hot rodder too, so he knew of a local chassis dyno shop. He talked to Toyota Corporate and got them to agree to pay to have my truck run on the local chassis dyno. We set up a date and time that worked for everyone and we dynoed the truck
View attachment 390689
As you can see from the service record the speedometer/odometer is 5.6% off (when you average all the data points). The Service Manager was pretty surprised, the guys running the dyno were very surprised, I was proud that I was pretty close on my 5% estimate. So what to do next. Well, the service manager had no spec on what the accuracy of the speedometer was supposed to be. He had actually been trying to find the allowable range for the week leading up to the dyno test and he had nothing. He had also been working with an engineer at Toyota to find the speedo tolerance and they both kept telling me they were still looking.
A little back story on me, I have worked in the automotive aftermarket for over 15 years. I've even worked with Toyota (TRD specifically) on their supercharger systems for a few of those years. I've had many Toyotas apart and know how easy they are to work on, how great their design and engineering is, and how indestructible they are. I also know, that no one in American at Toyota can re-calibrate a computer. All the tunes for the TRD Superchargers are straight from Japan. When TRD would do project cars they had to use aftermarket ECUs so that they could re-calibrate them.
Knowing this, I asked the Service Manager what he would like to do. He said he would like to find a solution. I gave him 4 or 5 days and called up to see where we were at. He said he was still working with the Engineer to come up with a solution. I suggested Toyota just buy the truck back and we would go our separate ways. He asked for one more chance to try and find a solution, so I agreed. He called me back 30 minutes later saying he had talked to the engineer and there was nothing they could do about the calibration error. The service manager gave me the number to Toyota Corporate and wished me luck with my claim.
The next couple months followed with Toyota telling me it would take 30 days to get the Lemon Law Claim going, then another 30 or more days after that to get anything to happen. I said no problem let's start the process. 30 days went by, I called Toyota Corporate to see what was happening with my claim, it had been closed and labeled resolved. Yep, I was a bit upset again. I had to refile my claim and I was told it would be 30 days to get things going, again. I asked to speak to a supervisor to deal with this new issue. I'm placed on a five minute hold, after which I'm told there are no supervisors available and one will call me back within 24 hours. Here's the great thing about that, they call whenever is convenient for them. If you don't answer, they leave a message only saying where they are from and their first name. This means when you call back you get to go through 10-15 minutes of hold time to try and get a hold of them again...it's fun. I did, finally, get a hold of a supervisor. It ended up being a useless conversation...all he would say is there is nothing he could do and he was sorry. Interestingly though, I received a from Toyota regarding my Lemon law issue 48 hours later...strange.
The letter from Toyota was just a form letter from a different department. It was asking for a bunch of information, that they already had, so I called to see if I needed to send the information again. Only took me 3 days to get a hold of the person that sent that letter, and they ended up not needing any of the information they requested. That was about 10 ago. Today I received this letter:
View attachment 390688
Yes, I will be continuing down the road of having Toyota buy back my truck. Initially, I wasn't going to let anyone else know about the issue I was having. I figured those with Toyotas like them and don't burst their bubble. The longer Toyota keeps dodging me and the 3rd Gen Tacoma issue the more upset I get, though. Some may say that 5.6% isn't a whole lot. Imagine saving 5.6% on every Tacoma (and maybe other cars too) when is comes to warranty. That's probably a pretty large number. Now also look at how poor the MPG is on the Tacoma...knock it down another 5.6%. The SAE (society of Automotive Engineers) had agreed that the standard deviation for speedometers/odometers should be +/-4%. This is a pretty big deal...I would be willing to bet that every 3rd Gen Tacoma has this issue too. Now if you don't mind getting cheated by a large manufacturer every time you drive your truck, great, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I'm writing this to let all the other little guys, like me, know that the big corporation is stealing from them and they have no issue doing it. Do with this information what you will, but I will have Toyota buying my truck back.
If you've read this far, thank you for reading my rant and I'll update this as things happen.
Best regards,
Wes
