Two problems related to service brakes have been reported for the 1998 Toyota 4Runner. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
I was in reverse and a jolt and pop occurred in the rear passenger seat where my son was seated. He felt it at his feet and all other passengers heard and felt a jolt. When I returned home I crawled under the vehicle and noticed rust and stress cracks on the inside of the rear passenger torsion bar. While applying pressure with my two fingers I pushed through the bottom of the frame rail. The vehicle is not road worthy. My braking problem occurs when I have to stop suddenly in snow or extreme wet road surfaces there is a metal grinding an no brakes. When this occurs in snow I was in 4wheel high. I had no brakes so I put the vehicle in 2 wheel and had brakes. In rain I pumped the brakes until I was able to get brakes. All driving brakes occurred at 35 mph in city driving with no one in front of me.
The contact owns a 1998 Toyota 4 runner. The contact was driving 35 mph when the brakes were depressed but did not hold and the contact crashed into another vehicle. There were no injuries yet the vehicle was destroyed. A police report was filed for the incident and the contact received a citation for the crash. The vehicle was towed by the contacts insurance company. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was 130,000. Updated 05/18/11.