general problems of the 2004 Toyota Sienna - part 2

The electric sliding door does not close. It constantly shuts and opens. If a person is stepping into the car the door will close on the person unless they physically manhandle the door. An adult had a difficult time stopping the door from closing on her. During the winter months the sliding doors will not open. Some how the handle release the door ajar beeping noise but the doors will not open from the inside or outside. People need to climb to the back from the front. We received a recall notice but when we took our car in to the dealership it was beyond the 9 year limit. The dealership said it would be over $1000 to repair. We have since had an accident related to the spare tire recall that we thought the Toyota dealership remedied. I now realize the problem and issues with manufacture errors and responsibility. I believe Toyota should be responsible to repair the sliding door issues before someone gets crushed in the electric slider. If ever we were in an accident in the winter, how would the people sitting in the middle rows exit the car. There needs to be a better system to inform consumers of faulty equipment before an accident happens. Manufacturers need to be responsible before an incident occurs. When I called Toyota, they said that I did not have a service history or brand loyalty. We have owned our Toyota for 8 years! we have taken our car to local mechanics except for issues of recall. Our friends bought a Toyota Sienna due to our recommendation and car history. 2 weeks ago we just purchased a Toyota prius for our daughter. That is customer loyalty.

This is a recurring incident. On cold days, the sliding doors will freeze shut. This is a common problem from my understanding, and some folks on web forums have recommended filing a complaint to hopefully get Toyota to issue a recall and resolve the issue. The freezing door problem is exacerbated by the electrical door lock mechanism and open/close sensor on the slider. In many cases, the failed attempt to open the frozen door is enough to trigger the door "open" sensor and cause the interior lights to come on.

Toyota Sienna's equipped with power sliding doors use a plastic coated steel wire to operate the door via a wheel and motor. This plastic deteriorates over time and the steel wire corrodes and fails leading to the inoperable ability of the door in the power mode. In power mode: the door will remain closed if attempted to be opened while the vehicle is in a motion gear. It also allows the controlled open and closure of the door with an automatic reversal if the door detects obstruction. Disengaging this power mode allows the door to be opened when in motion. It also allows the door to slam closed if vehicle is parked on an incline and could injure a person not expecting the closure or opening. Toyota has offered a "service extension", not a recall, for a part that is integral for the safe operation of the sliding doors. This extension will only cover a small percentage of vehicles in their allotted time frame. The actual failed part is not available for replacement and a whole door actuator must be purchased and installed at $1100 per door.

Manufacturer design flaw leads to jammed sliding doors, possibly locking passengers inside. Numerous complaints online. Toyota apparently acknowledges the problem as it has extended warranty on those parts to 9 yrs or 120k miles. Mailing letters earlier this year. I received notice from them when my car had 7 yrs / 130k miles. I think they are not being proactive enough with an issue that rendered one of my doors inoperational. It is not that I can't use the electric door opening mechanism, the defect also impedes the door from opening at all. I think it becomes a safety hazard and should be covered no matter when. It is not my fault it took them several years to acknowledge the problem - my car would be covered had them mailed the letter one year before.

I am having trouble with the side pwer sliding door.

Power sliding door cable broke. Confirmed with Toyota dealer that breaking cable caused power door motor to fail. Toyota has warranty enhancement to cover cable, but will not cover motor.

On freeway interchanges, entrances and exits vsc and abs suddenly engagess. Van is not aggressively driven and when turning on mountain roads and switch backs vsc and abs engages despite the slow and controled steering.

I tool my car last April to get my recall done on my lift gate and ever since that my lift gate is not working. . I have called them several times and have filed a complaint with Toyota as well but it seems no one is listening to me. Please help.

The right side headlight assembly is accumulating moisture and condensation inside which causes the headlight to fail.

Electrical motor and cable that controls sliding door (driver side) has corroded and broken. Door inoperable posing safety concern.

I have 2004 Toyota Sienna minivan le model. 2 years ago trying to get out of drivers seat, as I tried to open the door I heard a motorized clicking sound and the door wouldn't open from inside. I took to a mechanic and he found that the metal wire that connects to the latch had broken. I called Toyota and they said it will cost $250 for the assembly that controls the latch to open the door. Last year my power sliding door (passenger side) started acting up. Sometimes the door would open and sometimes it won't when I press the power door button located on the ceiling close to driver's side. Then it would only open from outside if I pull the latch from outside. Then one day when I pulled the door latch from outside to open it, I heard a loud noise and the metal cable that the door slides on snapped! I received an"enhancement recall" letter from Toyota just after the warranty expired. I searched the web and saw complaints that Toyota does this on purpose last minute expecting that customers won't see it in time. I called the scion dealership in palatine, IL and they said that it will cost me $120 to inspect what's wrong with the power door and there are 4 to 5 parts where 1 or more could have gone bad. Some parts are covered and others are not covered by the warran ty. This should be safety recall and could kill a small kid. A class action suit must be filed against Toyota for ripping off customers. They should be fixing it for free since its a design flaw. I would expect an engine to fail at 96000 miles but not the 2 doors (front manual door and power sliding door). Big companies like Toyota needs to cut off bonus form ceo and board of director's paycheck and use the money to correct their design flaws. I paid $32,000 and expect Toyota to return the cost of repair which is $1800+tax or fix it for free and thank me that I did not file a suit against them.

The power sliding door on the passenger side stopped working. The buttons do not open or close the door. The door is so heavy that it cannot be opened or closed easily. The cable that moves the door snapped and visible (hanging outside the body). We had the extended warranty for 7 years and the car was serviced regularly, but this problem occurred after the extended warranty expired. The dealer says the whole motor, not just the cable, should be replaced, asking for more than $1500 for parts and repair. Snapped cable, loose and visible moving parts outside the body of the van, and a heavy and hard to operate "power" door present a safety problem, especially with the kids going in and out of the passenger side sliding door. I would appreciate it if you could take a closer look at the issue and have Toyota own up to its design problems. This issue has its own forums online, has its own facebook page and it seems that Toyota will not listen one customer at a time.

Electric sliding van door has failed on passenger side, will not open or close. Manual sliding side door on driver side is very difficult to open and close. Very dangerous in event of crash or fire. Dealership estimates over $1000 to fix. . Read more...

I have a 2004 Toyota Sienna xle. Late last year, both of my power sliding doors broke within a week of each other. The cable that operates the doors frayed and snapped apart. I was able to force the doors closed but have not been able to open them since. My kids have had to climb thru the front seats until we could figure out how to fix them. I talked to my local Toyota dealership and was told to fix them the cost of the parts only would be $1200 a door. This cost included a new motor and cable because Toyota does not replace just the cable. I believe this cable issue should of been upgraded to a recall many years ago and is very discomforting to us who are loyal Toyota drivers. We as drivers have paid $30k+ for our vehicles and believe that we should not have to deal with this type of problem on a feature that we paid for as an upgrade to the original package. This is a wide spread problem nationwide from what I have read on several websites and blogs and includes several different year models from what I understand. Thank you for allowing me to share my story and I look forward to hearing about this issue in the near future.

Power sliding door locks and wont open. Its a simple power door lock, when malfunction, no one can open the door, and its serious risk hazard. Toyota dealer charges $700 to repair a door because they say the warranty over after 30k miles.

Failure of electric sliding door cable. Cable that pulls electric sliding door open rusted, failed and snapped in half. Failed cable now hangs outside the vehicle (below the rear passenger's side window) dangling from the door track.

Power slidding door cable broke due to the fact it is exposed to the elements of the rain and snow and ice causing the cable to rust and break door will not open this is a safty issue Toyota needs to address this issue if there was an accident the could be deadly for my family if they can't get out!!!!!!.

Passenger side automatic sliding door failed to open when using remote as well as when it was manually attempted to open. Good thing we have one manual sliding door. . . Though this door is automatically locked when gas tank door is open.

Tl- the contact owns a 2004 Toyota Sienna. While parked, the contact noticed a fracture on the driver's side of the dashboard. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and a complaint was filed. Additionally, the contact heard a grinding noise coming from the air conditioning unit. The vehicle was taken to the dealer for diagnostic testing. The technician advised the contact that the air conditioning compressor would have to be replaced. Also, the contact stated there was rust on the rear driver and passenger side sliding doors. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where the hinge was replaced. The sliding door failure recurred. The vehicle was not further repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 60,000. Kmj.

Passenger sliding door failure. Cable compromised due to design flaw that stripped it of its insulation. Despite being garaged, this caused the cable to fray and then rust, making the door inoperable. This includes manually, as the cable catches on a roller at the door hinge in the sliding track. Additional fear is that consequent motor strain may cause additional failure/expense/fire. The cable failure causes it to bind on the hinge roller and prevents the door from both opening * closing. In an accident, you will not be able to exit the vehicle from that side if necessary. Door did open partially and then would not close without great exertion. Thankfully, my wife was able to force it closed before having to take the highway with our children inside and an open door. Once the part fails, the door can not be made operable without major repair. Toyota has TSB el004-004 on this issue that covers our particular VIN, but will not cover the repair out of warranty. Cost of repair is approximately $2,000 and the fear is that many, like us, will not have the part repaired due to this cost (and anger over *acknowledged* design flaw).

Sienna 2004 has had a defective door from about 40-45,000miles. It was intermittent for years until on 3/30/11 it totally quit working. I could never diagnose the reason why it would only work sometimes. Was it related to heat, moisture. . . . There was no correlation. It quit working. There needs to be a recall not an "extended warranty campaign" but a recall. Also my hatch rear struts that hold up the rear hatch have failed. Hit me in the head failed. I did get those fixed and again there was an extended warranty "campaign" which means select vans are repaired but not all of them. If you look through the complaints that have come in (and can you imagine all that have not even been documented?) then you will see that those Sienna 2004s that have the VIN # that begins: 5tdza23c. . . Have numerous complaints on the same issues that being the electric door assembly and/or the rear struts on the hatch. Now instead of an "extended warranty campaign" Toyota needs to recall and open up the repair to all vehicles. I was told that I should get a new vehicle because they didn't want to repair my old one or deal with the van. My van lies outside of the warranty by 11,000 miles that is it. Even though I have documentation that the door was not working at 126,000 miles they will not repair because it is over 120,000 miles. Today my van has 131,000 and they will not consider unless it is a recall. Please review and categorize these complaints. If you need me to analyze them I will. Contact me. Toyota has unsafe vehicles .

2004 driver's side sliding door cable broke, causing the door to be unable to close. Due to severely cold weather in iowa, the door was forced shut to allow the vehicle to be operable. Door motor replacement cost estimates range from $1300-1500. A few months later the passenger side door started exhibiting problems opening and closing. Turned off the motors from the inside compartment. One time when the drivers side door was opened, a piece of the door assembly shattered the rear 3/4 glass panel.

The 2004 Toyota Sienna xle van that we own has two power sliding doors. The cable to the passenger door snapped preventing the door from functioning as it should. The motor on the door is still in working order, but you cannot replace just the cable, you must replace the entire unit including the motor at $1200. We converted the door to a manual door and that worked for about 2 weeks. The door stopped functioning entirely and we are no longer able to open the passenger sliding door on our vehicle. This is a potential safety risk to us as we haul our 3 children in the back of the van. For example, when fueling the vehicle, the driver side sliding door is inoperable and in the event of a fire, the children would be trapped in the back of the vehicle. We have had very little luck in finding a used part and will hopefully be getting a new part to fix the problem in the near future.

The automatic door failed and almost crushed my 21 month old. It opened and as she was getting out it started closing. It did not detect her and I had to forcefully push it open before it closed her in it. Then again the same thing happened with my 10 year old luckily she thought to get out of the way.

In early January 2011, the heater for the passenger car seat in my Toyota Sienna burned through the leather, through my 12 year old daughter's dress and superficially burned her leg. I believe the seat is defective as a fuse or other safety feature should have prevented such an injury/event.

I started having problems with the power doors and hatch in 2010. I was never informed by Toyota of the TSB-0085-09 and have had to do research myself on the problem. The problem was intermittent and dealerships would not address it. On 5/12 2014 was driving on an interstate at 60 miles an hour in the rain when my power door kept opening and would not close. Someone could have been seriously injured. I had to find a safe place to pull over. It would not manually close. I had to strap the door shut. I feel this is a safety issue that should be fixed by recall.

The doors on our 2004 Sienna frequently "freeze" shut and we are unable to open them automatically or manually. This happens routinely when the temperatures are at or below freezing and are not resolved with turning off the power, doors, lubricating the tracks or warming up the car. The doors spontaneously unlock when we have been driving the car for 15min-1hour. The unlocking occurs while driving and bells sound, dash lights come on. We've taken it to the dealer, but they are not able to replicate the problem, because the issue is intermittent and temperature and time dependent. This is a tremendous inconvenience as we have a newborn, toddler and two school children and a serious safety issue.

The rear passenger power sliding door failed. The cable that opens and closes the door snapped and then bound up jamming the door open about 3 inches. My children could not exit the vehicle on that side if there was an accident and I had to dissasemble the door just to close it.

Rear passenger side power sliding door stops working once in a while. It won't open or close when the power door button is pressed.

2004 Toyota Sienna's automatic sliding door mechanism jammed preventing door closure. The door could not be closed automatically or manually. Circumstances forced passengers, including 4 small children, to travel several highway miles with that door open. In April 2004 Toyota modified that door mechanism for new product and issued technical service bulletin el004-04 "power sliding door inoperative" to correct existing product. Sienna's early 2004 sliding door is a defective product. The Sienna product is a minivan marketed to families and children. As such it is designed to be a closed vehicle. The defective door should be considered a child restraint failure because closed doors are, in fact, the primary protective restraint in a family vehicle. Corrective action we elected is to cut the automatic door's tractor cable. That frees the door to close and permanently disengages the defective door mechanism.

We had used the automatic overhead button to open the rear driver's sliding door. After our children got in the car, we tried to use the button again to close the door, however the door stopped midway because the cable came off it's track. We were not able to close the door while the cable was off the track, so we had to cut the cable and remove it in order to shut the door. We can only use the door manually now, however, it is extremely difficult to open and close, especially on the slightest incline. This is a safety issue for whoever is sitting in the rear seats, typically my children, for if there is an accident, it would be extremely difficult for them to get out. Apparently this has been an ongoing problem for years with the Toyota Sienna's and Toyota will not fix the problem.

This vehicle has two electric side doors, move the two wires running out the door. In states where a lot of snow, salt destroys the cables and they break easily. When I try to buy the cables, it's almost impossible because the Toyota dealer only sell the complete electrical machinery.

I have 2 different complaints. Driver side seat heater burned legs of 3 different drivers before complete failure. Heat was not adjustable. Driver and passenger heaters stopped working at same time. Took to dealer, recommended new heating element ($1000+). Opted not to fix. 2nd complaint, check engine, vsc, and trac off lights illuminated. The van has been sent to the dealer on at least 3 occasions. Gas cap has been replaced several times, spark plugs changed. Will go off for brief periods, but always to return. This has been going on for at least 30,000 miles. I could live with the check engine light on, but if the other lights are illuminated, that indicates these components are not working-kind of important-skid control & traction control!! there are many complaints out there on blogs, doesn't look like anyone has filed any reports with your office regarding this same problem, which is too bad because it's obviously a problem not with just Sienna but several other models as well. Extremely frustrating when even the dealer can't determine what the problem really is!! we purchased this vehicle because of the safety features. Not so sure about it if their safety features malfunction!.

No prior problems. The automatic door and it's safety feature of not closing when something is in the way stopped working. The door will not open completely and when closing it closes on anything in it's way. Sometimes it will not close or open at all. If the button is engaged to turn the automatic door off the door will not budge. It will not work in manual mode. Nothing has been done to correct the failure as of yet, as the expense is prohibitive.

I drive a 2004 Toyota Sienna xle. On 3/4/10 at 1030 am, I was coming to a stop light on broken land pkwy. As I completed a full stop, my Sienna tried to accelerate while my foot was depressing the brake pedal. The vehicle lurched but did not stall out and I was able to continue on my way. During the rest of the morning, I did not experience any more acceleration trouble the rest of the day. I did inform my husband and he suggested I research 2004 Toyota Sienna acceleration. I did that and found a variety of complaints from 2004 Toyota Sienna owners on several internet auto web sites.