general problems of the 2004 Toyota Sienna - part 2

At 66,000 miles, my 2004 Toyota Sienna driver side front door began making a popping sound. It is broadly known by Toyota that this is a defect in construction and while there is not a recall, they have extended the warranty for this problem to 6 years or 1000,000 miles. This problem manifested itself one week after the car's 6 year purchase date. Toyota corporation refused to replace the door. I went to several dealerships and found one that said that Toyota agreed that the door would be replaced ( with a newly designed door ) and I would have to pay half of the price: $1,700. 00 . Isubsequently canvassed body shops and mechanics in the location of the dealer in question and found out that they knew of many vehicles with the same problem and that they knew that dealerships in the area were fixing the problem without charge for people like me whose warranties had expired. I am in the process of renegotiation with the dealer regarding the repair. In any case, this is my last Toyota.

2004 Toyota Sienna automatic sliding door cable broke and door can not open anymore.

Driver's door detent weld failure. I have an '04 Toyota Sienna that on the driver's side door uses a detent strap to hold the door open at certain points. Where the strap is held at, on the door, there are two spot welds that attach the bracket to the door. The strap is bolted to the bracket. The problem seems to be that two spot welds are not strong enough to hold this bracket. After I found out there was a problem with the door, I contacted my local Toyota dealer, and the service person was ware of this condition . They said it is too far gone to weld and repair and that they would have to put on a new door. After discussing it with this person and the service manager the dealerships position was that it was out of warranty and that the TSB that extended the warranty was expired due to both my mileage and to the timing of my request. So, I want to know what it takes to make this or anything a"recall and how to force Toyota to pay for the repair.

The driver door makes a load clicking noise when you open or close the door. The door does not open or close properly. I have not repaired it yet but have been told it is a spot weld that has failed. I also read online that this is a very common problem on the 2004 Toyota Sienna.

My 04 Sienna minivan right power sliding door failed open. The cable in the track below the rear window separated and jammed the mechanism in the rear hinge. This is a significant safety problem. The design of the power sliding door is flawed. The cable appears to have inadequate protection from the environment. After the metal core of the cable is compromised, it can fail in a way to jam the door open which is what happened to my Sienna. If the cable were to break completely, the door would move unrestrained until full open or closed. Sienna minivans with this design should be recalled. The power door had only had what I consider normal usage. Its a minivan so it has transported kids which require sliding door usage. I was fortunate that my door failed open at home so I wife and kids didn't have to drive with the door open. I had to drive to the dealer with the door open. It is inconceivable that Toyota would design a door actuation system where a single broken cable requires the entire power door assembly to be replaced.

2004 Toyota Sienna xle awd limited with second left passenger sliding door failure. Problem first occurred in Sep 2008 with door sticking with open/close. Referred by Toyota to auto body shop in Nov 2008 for repair - motor/hinge replaced. Failed again after repair and repaired 3/18/2009 by replacing door assembly. Now door is frozen again and will not open automatically or manually.

2004 Toyota Sienna. The lock on the power sliding door has failed and we are unable to unlock or open the door. It can not be used to exit the vehicle in the case of an emergency as the door is basically non-functional.

2004 Sienna le passenger side power sliding door. Cable which pulls door open has snap. Door is no longer operable. It cannot be opened either electronically or manually. Poses hazard as occupants cannot exit out onto curbside.

Sliding doors open when driving.

The drivers side back sliding door got stuck half way open position. Noticed cable for electronic opening was frayed considerably van in the manual open door mode and still could not close. Good news I was close to home when this happened. Husband was able to shove the door closed and then had Toyota repair door. Doors mechanics has a unit with "ball bearings" and they were totally dry. Also, ball bearings fell out of enclosed tracking unit. Cost over $1600 to fix. Auto was with Toyota for 9 days. Luckily my extended warranty insurance paid for the whole thing. Auto under 75,000 miles. Complained about crunching noise while closing sliding door, in the past three years. . . . Not able to find what the problem was. . . Now I know Toyota repair people did not know what they were doing. Again!.

Our 2004 Toyota Sienna has recently been having severe issues with the power sliding door. It would shut and then immediately open again. Could not open the door manually. Now the sliding door on the driver's side will not open either. A definite safety hazard for two rear doors that we can not operate.

This is for a Toyota Sienna xle limited 2004. The cables have snapped on both side sliding doors making them inoperable as automatic doors and hazardous when used as manual sliders.

Hello, our 2004 Toyota Sienna xle driver side sliding door wire snapped day before yesterday. I took it to the near by Toyota dealer and they told me that since I am out of warranty it cost me around $2340. I didn't expect this from a well rated auto company and I am not at all happy. I even went through some websites where they wrote about the same issue. I am very frustrated about this and would like to file a complaint. Hope the company understand the issue and try to fix it and resolve the issue by fixing the existing vehicles.

2004 Toyota Sienna right sliding door hinge failure and door pop opened while on the freeway. Door will not stay close at all. Door will close but will open immediately. Door will stay completely open after trying to close many times. Finally manual door switch had to be activated to close door.

Sienna 2004 le attempting to open the passenger side rear power sliding door the mechanism made a clicking sound and the cable snapped. The motor still appears to be functioning but one of the 2 cables operating the door (braided metal cable) snapped and now the door only slides part way open in the 'manual' mode. I have only 83,000 kms on this 2004 Sienna le and was shocked to see this failure. However, I feel lucky that neither of my children were injured by the cable or mechanism failure. Now I am operating the door in manual mode but it is not opening correctly and I am worried that it may open incorrectly and cause a safety hazard.

I have a 2004 Toyota Sienna van. The passenger automatic door lock no longer works. I can only manually lock and unlock it from the inside of the vehicle. The remote entry and the front automatic door lock/unlock does not work for that door. It is an automatic sliding door. That feature works fine.

Passenger sliding (manual door, not electric version) door will not unlatch when trying to open. Opens about 1/2 inch, but does not move any farther (this is not a freeze/ice issue, it is happening all the time in warm weather). Latch appears not to be unlatching. If I pull really hard, grabbing on the sliding door from the outside while the front passengers door is open(so I can grab the sliding door with 2 hands), I can get the door to finally open. No way to do it without doing that. Used to be occasional, but happening all the time now. Driving with door partially open is a safety condition. Not being able to open the door in an emergency is a safety issue. Having kids get in on the road side of the street is a safety issue.

2004 Toyota sienne le, with only 56,000 miles, passenger side power sliding door made a grinding noise when it opened and now it will not close. Dealership repair costs are between $1,500 and $2,000. That's an outrage, to pay that much just to shut the darn door!.

My 2004 Toyota Sienna le power door, passenger side, hinge is loose from its track and the dealer wants $500 to repair. My van has 128,000 miles but the reason we bought the Toyota and not the Honda was because of Toyota's reputation. I realize the van has over 100,000 miles but I thought this part should have lasted longer. The door now only works manually and is difficult to open thus it's a real hassle if you have kids in the back seat. It seems to have failed prematurely as I thought Toyotas lasted longer. The dealer has ordered the part and this is a two week turnaround item but after reading the blogs I need to file a complaint as this type of problem looks to be quite common. My other vehicle is a tacoma 2005 and it has a few cosmetic problems as well. Specifically, the sun visors are defective; I replaced the drivers side at a cost of $75 and the passenger is doing the same thing. My next vehicle will be a Honda.

2004 Toyota Sienna 1) 3 times my van has locked all the doors without me pushing the lock button. Each time I had unlocked the car and opened and closed at least 2 doors. Then click the doors locked. The last time it happened my 24 month old was in the car. I had to call the fire department to get her out. I had left the keys on the front seat and the remote was laying face up. My baby was in her carseat in the back. I closed the door to put the shopping cart away and click the doors locked. Nothing touched the remote, and it locked. That was 2 months ago and it hasn't happened since. 2)power door failed after 5 years. To expensive to fix. 3) struts on the rear hatch failed at 90,000 miles. This is not a power hatch. This is quite dangerous as the door is heavy and will clonk you in the head if you are not careful. My kids are not allowed to open that door any more. I am so afraid of smashed heads and fingers.

Plastic sheathing on passenger power door, the only power door, dried out and cracked causing the cable wires to be exposed to the elements. As a result, the wires of the cable began to rust and fray and tangled in the door so that it was half opened and would neither open nor close even with the power off. We had to cut the cable off to get the tangled cable free of the door so we could close it. It is poor quality to have the plastic on the cable dry out and crack off so that the power door is unable to be used as a power door which is an option you have to pay extra for. We also had small children buckled into carseats at the time and had we not cut the cable off, we could not drive it as I said the door was stuck half open/half closed.

A broken cable interferes with the proper operation of my sliding door and could make it difficult to exit the car in an emergency. The cable that opens and closes the passenger sliding door rusted and snapped a few weeks ago. I found that a lot of other customers have a similar issues and many of them commented that not only is the part expensive, but the replacement of the part also appears to be a major expense. It does not appear that this issue is covered by a recall, but the large number of complaints entered at NHTSA. Gov does suggest that there is a systematic problem with this cable. I called the "Toyota customer experience center" three times in the last week. Each time, I waited on hold for ~45 minutes before hanging up. It does not appear that they have an e-mail address to register a complaint. Thus, I am writing to you.

Toyota 2004 Sienna - power sliding door failures. Driver side sliding door failed to open as cable snapped. Door was jammed shut so we took the car to the dealership and were told we would have to replace the whole motor unit at a cost of $1,700. Service dept disconnected motor unit so that door would open and close (but with no power option). Two days later the cable snapped on the passenger side sliding door with the door open. It would not close. Returned to the dealership and same action was taken as driver side door. Will now cost $3,400 to fix. With 3 children the safety aspect of a door cable snapping with either the door jammed open or closed is obviously a major concern. Having researched this issue over the past few days I can see that many Sienna owners have had the same problem. This is a major safety and cost issue that should be investigated.

While driving my 2004 Toyota Sienna minivan, the cable which held the spare tire under the car snapped and the spare tire fell off the vehicle.

The passenger side automatic door on my 2004 Toyota Sienna opens half way and then produce a horrible noise as if something is stuck and then tries to go back to latch position.

Information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u. S. C. 552(b)(6) my manual sliding door won't latch either, but it is a welding issue. On the back of the door the latch that is supposed to keep the door closed came loose from the door & is just floating inside the door. Has anyone else had this problem? it seems to be in conjunction with the other welding issue Toyota had with the front doors. This problem occurred about 4 months ago, & now my front door has had the welding come loose, which was a recall. Please let me know if you've heard of anyone else having this problem. Thank you. [xxx].

My 2004 Toyota Sienna Mini van power sliding door made a horrific 'snapping' sound when the cable that activates the door snapped. The snapping cable did not hurt anyone, but could have if someone was standing behind the door near the rear quarter panel window. The door is no longer functional and will cost $1500-$3000 to repair.

Multiple problems with minivan doors since purchase in 2004. Sliding doors freeze shut every winter, only opening after car warms up for 20-30 minutes. Driver side door weld broke after 3 years and needed repair. Front passenger door latch broke requiring use of bungee cords to keep door closed until repair part could be obtained. Power sliding door and manual sliding door also do not stay open at times creating dangerous situation for people entering and exiting the vehicle. Now, warning light comes on showing door open, driver side manual sliding door does not seem to close completely. While driving, door open light and interior lights are constantly activated. I have turned off interior lights to prevent battery drain from door staying slightly open when parked. Dealership will perform diagnostic and repair work but advised since there is no recall issued that cost will be mine. The sheer number of reports of sliding door issues should be enough to warrant a response from Toyota.

2004 Toyota Sienna within one year, both automatic sliding doors have become inoperable first (passenger side) locking sensor failed, resulting in inability to use automatic (motorized) closing system second (driver's side) failed on 2/11/10. Door cable got jammed in center hinge, resulting in inability to close door. Had to drive to dealership with door fully open. Both cases were estimated to cost almost $4000 total. First issue was resolved by just using door manually. Second issue was resolved by cutting cable and using door manually. Can not afford to fix both issues at $4000. Many web searches have found same/similar issues on this van.

Defective sliding door and cable on 2004 Toyota Sienna: recently, a cable that allows the side door(s) of the vehicle to open and close automatically, snapped in half. This very well could have snapped in half while a person was standing near the vehicle, creating a serious injury. With the cable now broken in half, the door(s) now will not latch properly when either the vehicle remote or the side door control(s) in the vehicle are depressed. This now creates a very hazardous situation. The side door(s) are also prone to freezing shut in the winter. Until adequate thawing is completed, door(s) will remain frozen shut, allowing for limited access in and out of vehicle. Upon noticing these problems, I took to the internet to find a resolution and found that is more that just a rare occurrence, but a legitimate problem. . Read more...

Passenger side, automatic door stopped working. Can not close the door completely causing a safety hazard. Went to dealer . . . Dealer mentioned there is a known issue but they will fix it only if the vehicle has less than 36k miles . . . Problem was caused due to the sliding door motor, cable assembly and hitch which holds the door. Dealer's estimate to fix the problem $2000.

The passenger side automatic sliding door has been touchy with its ability to open and close and to indicate to the car whether it is opened or closed. Yesterday, the door ceased to operate. Upon further investigation, it appears that a cable has snapped in the door and will need to be replaced. I feel that this is ridiculous for a 5 year old car. It is also very expensive, from $700 to $1800, with Toyota dealers being the most expensive.

The drivers side sliding door on my 2004 Sienna xle would not operate. The opening cable had frayed. The Toyota dealer wanted $1,700. To repair this which is way too much for a problem I didn't cause. The dealer cut the cable and it now works manually but I can't open the door from the inside. This is a serious defect . I can't use the door in an accident. Toyota should fix this.

The cable to the automatic passenger side sliding door rusted and snapped. We pushed the button by the steering wheel to make it a manual door since it was going to cost between 1,400 and 1,600 dollars depending on the dealership we asked. However the only way to close the door once fully opened is to reach inside the door and pull the inside handle to unlock the holding mechanism to keep the door from sliding shut. My 10 year old son was getting out of the car and shutting the door by using the inside handle to unlatch the door when his fingers were smashed in the door.

1. No events lead to the failure. 2. The driver's side rear sliding door cable and motor of a 2004 Toyota Sienna xle limited quit working, broken cable. Now we are unable to open / close sliding door on driver's side. 3. Having cable/motor replaced est cost $1000.