general problems of the 2005 Toyota Sienna - part 1

2005 Toyota Sienna rear auto hatch safety reverse mechanism does not stop the closing of the door when encountering an object, hand or body part or when attempts are made to stop the closing of the door. Door continues to close under power that cannot be reversed/stopped. This defect/problem could conceivably be a serious and potentially fatal hazard if a child was exiting the rear cargo compartment and the door was in the process of closing. A hand or arm in the door gap would not be sufficient to stop the closing of the door I believe although it would be quite stupid to attempt this situation since strong resistance by hand cannot reverse the closing of the door. This problem just started in August 2011.

I have a 2005 Toyota Sienna xle awd limited. The power sliding doors have motors in them that open and close the doors, via small steel cables. The steel cables attached to the motors/doors are the same steel cable type used in the Toyota spare tire recall. These steel cables are trash. If/when they break, Toyota is charging $1,600 to $1,800 per door to fix the problem, even if the motor attached to the steel cables is fine. I've been told that on newer model Sienna vans you can just purchase the steel cables and not the whole motor. A google /yahoo search turns up hundreds if not thousands of complaints regarding these automatic sliding door issues and the extreme cost to repair them. Additionally, I have been told by my Toyota dealership that if the steel cable breaks, I can not open or close the door manually. This is a safety hazard! I have 2 children, if the door(s) won't open manually, how do I get my kids out if I have an accident? Toyota needs to be held accountable for this problem. A recall needs to be conducted and Toyota needs to foot the bill for these fixes. I called Toyota USA and reported the issue. Toyota basically could give a rat's butt about it. It's not a safety issue on a large enough scale. I am at a loss for words at just how angry I am at Toyota. $3,200 to fix about 12 foot of cable that is no bigger in diameter than an cell phone charger's wire. We need help and representation!.

2005 Toyota Sienna automatic sliding door does not open (this is the second time).

2005 Sienna power sliding doors - one frozen shut, the other sometimes closes, sometimes shuts partway and locks in semi-open position.

2005 Toyota Sienna power sliding doors: 2nd failure of doors within the past 3 months. First failure was lock assembly mechanism. Most recent failure is servo motor cable assembly that opens and shuts the door. Door would not shut. . . Could not drive car safely. Left stranded.

Cable for power sliding door (passenger side) snapped. When you manually open door you have to press on it to keep it open otherwise it will automatcially shut and might crush you.

The lock motor in each sliding doors has stopped. The doors open via manual door handles. Keyfob, internal door buttons near the doors, and buttons near rear view mirror do not work to open or close the doors.

On the driver side sliding door, two out of three bolts that hold the locking latch have fallen through the sheet metal. The result is that the door open indicator light goes on and off while we are driving and the door is technically open while we are driving, albeit locked. As per some quick internet research, this is not an uncommon problem but one that Toyota will not fix. It is not the result of any user misuse and I therefore and disappointed by Toyota's stance.

2005 Toyota Sienna, driver's side automatic sliding door engaged in open position cannot be retracted to closed position.

Passenger sliding door inoperable; faulty lock actuator & motor assembly unit.

The lh slide door does not open or close properly. The lock/unlock mechanism that holds the door open and closed does not work automatcally. It does work when manually opening the door from the outside of door. The automatic slide does work if the locking latch is disengaged first.

The rear passenger sliding door will not open either manually or automatically. I took it to the dealership and was told that the automatic latch mechanism was broken and when that failed and you try to open the door manually with the handle it breaks the door latch as well so now door won't open either manually or automatically. This seems like a quite a design/engineering flaw. If the automatic opening mechanism fails and the only other way to open the door then causes the manual latch to break leaves you without the use of the door at all.

Toyota Siennas 04-06 are prone to door popping when opening and closing due to broken door welds. This is the situation of a company that is having tremendous growth and will not take care of the customers who helped propel that growth. Even though it is out of warranty, they have failed to recall the issue and replace the defects.

2005 Toyota Sienna rear two automatic sliding doors failed within 4 days of each other. Children cannot get in and out of vehicle by themselves now. Toyota wants $1800+ per door to fix! doors can be made to open manually but children cannot shut them by themselves.

My 10 year old grandson could not exit my 2005 Toyota Sienna van. He jumped the seat and came out the rt front door. The rt slider door stuck open 6 inches from the frame. A metal cable rusted through and broke. The door would not close power or manual. I forced the door closed from the outside and have not opened it since. It can not open more than 6 inches. A recall to check the spare tire release was done recently. The door cables are also subjected to salt spray in ri. Toyota service verified the complaint. In an emergency,. The door could not be opened.

Automatic sliding doors failure. Won't unlock from inside. Already repaired once, now happened again and Toyota won't fix it for inder 1000$ on the same door.

Toyota Sienna 2005 sliding door stopet working. Sliding door on passanger side makes grumbling noise but it dosn't move.

Several months ago, we noticed the driver's side sliding door on our 2005 Toyota Sienna le (we have manual doors, not power sliding doors) would not "click" or "catch" and lock when we opened the door. No matter what we tried, the door would not latch and stay open about 25% of the time. A few days ago, the same door started to not close all the way intermittently. While driving, the interior lights and the door open indicator lights will come on and go off at varying frequency. When the interior lights are on, they cause a distraction and make driving more difficult at night. The lights will go on and, sometimes, slowing down or taking a left turn will cause them to go off, but only for a short time. Anywhere from 5 seconds to a few minutes later, the light will be back on. They are on more then they are off. I'm sure our lights going on and off is also distracting to other drivers. I'm fearful the door will one day fly open while we are driving, putting my children in danger. I have not taken the vehicle to my dealer but I will this week. I've read countless accounts on the internet of problems with the doors on the Sienna and I hope when enough complaints come in, a recall will be initiated.

The door to my 2005 Toyota Sienna stuck open while on vacation 500 plus miles from home. The door could not be closed due to a common failure that many other owners have experienced. The motor breaks and sticks to a cable that is used as a guide in the mechanism rendering the door inoperable. I had to cut a cable to close the door manually just so that I could drive the car home with my wife and 3 small children. The door open warning light and beeper would randomly sound while driving as if the door was trying to open itself. I tried shutting the door several times and it would close and latch. I had to turn off the electronic control and make sure the door was locked but it would still sound the beep and warning light. The safety issue is that you cannot fix the door without going to a dealer when the motor fails and I fear some people might try to drive with the door open. If there was an emergency that required my family to exit the vehicle (ie flood fire or accident) that door wouldn't have worked. Toyota knows of the problem and they have upgraded the mechanism that is sold in their parts departments but they have not done a proper recall. I do not want someone to get hurt before they act. I shouldn't have to worry about the safety of my family or pay thousands of dollars to fix something they know is defective.

I own a 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan with 70,000 miles. The other day the driver's side front door started making a popping sound when it was being opened or closed. Now, just three days later, the sound is a horribly loud popping/cracking sound when the door is opened or closed. It sounds as if the door is going to fall right off the car when it is opened or closed. I called the dealership and Toyota corporate and found out a TSB was issued for the problem for the first 36,000 miles. Since my van has 70,000 miles Toyota will not cover any of the repair. I did an online search and found many many owners are having this same issue. Toyota is aware of the issue but will not issue a recall on a known defect. It is the welding on the front door that is not holding and in most cases the entire door must be replaced.

Manual sliding door on 2005 Toyota Sienna remains stuck closed and cannot be opened from within or without the vehicle.

Just opened the driver's side door and it started popping. Nothing led up to the event. It happens every time the door is opened and gets louder all the time. Not corrected at present time. Toyota warrenty out of date by 30 days when first reported.

Toyota Sienna front door weld failure occurs spontaneously. Michelle at Toyota corporate says "not maint. Nor operation fault" & "no different owner action to prevent". Letter sent by Toyota 11/02/07 stated in effect"if no noise. . . No action necessary" which serves to delay owner action until out of warranty. Toyota successfully shifted $2000. 00 responsibility from themselves to me.

I have 2005 Toyota Sienna which its driver side door started making a popping noise from sept-7-2010. I searched the forums about this issue and found this door welding came off and the door may fall off any time. I talked to Toyota and they said I am out of warranty by few days. My Sienna has 31k mileage. I found from forums the only solution is to change the entire door. I talked to Toyota again they agreed to weld it for 50% of cost. Rest of the 50% I need to pay. I did not receive any recall notice regarding this door latching/popping issue from Toyota.

My son was opening the rear hatchback of my 2005 Toyota Sienna, he opened it fully and without warning it closed almost injuring my 3 year old who was climbing in the trunk and hitting my older son who was opening it on the back. Now the hatchback closes without being propped up. It is very difficult to load groceries and you need two adults to do this one to prop up the door and one to load the groceries. My main concern is having one of my five children get hurt or killed. The door is heavy enough to seriously injured or killed.

Toyota Sienna 2005 was taken into dealership for regular maintenance service which included a check of the brakes. Was told rear brakes needed to be replaced and that was performed. Was told by dealer that front brakes were fine. 1 month later having problems with brakes still. Took it to private mechanic and was told that master brake cylinder needed to be replaced. I would think this problems would have been detected when it was at the dealership. I am lucky that my brakes did not fail and cause an accident. Other issues with this 2005 Toyota Sienna include having to replace the a/c compressor twice, rack and pinion replaced, and now the rear struts on the tailgate have failed. This vehicle is a serious safety risk.

One day I went to get gas and after getting gas, the drivers side door does not open. We cannot manually open the drivers side. There is something with the gas lid thing. I have four children and we bought out 2005 Toyota Sienna xlw limited awd for safety reasons. If I am ever in an accident, no one will be able to open the door to get in or out to help. This needs to be recalled and rectified immediately! as for the passenger side door. The door will not open with the automatic sliding. We have to manually open and close the doors. Again, we paid for the high end of this vehicle for safety and comfort reasons. These door issues need to be recalled and fixed as soon as possible for the safety of our children. I do not want to be in an accident and stuck before Toyota decides to get this fixed.

The cable on the driver-side sliding door of my 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan snapped making the door hazardous to operate.

2005 Toyota Sienna power doors are failing. Today I could not get my kids out as both doors failed to open. The drivers side door opens about 4-6 inches and it make a loud noise and closes again. The passenger door has failed about a year after we bought the vehicle and the dealer replaced the electric motor. Also seat belts get stuck and you are not able to retract them, dealer said it was normal for seatbelt to get stuck when it folds in incorrectly. Very unsafe situations as we have our kids in the vehicle most of the time.

At about 107,000 miles, our 2005 Toyota Sienna driver's side door began making a loud popping. No incident led to the initiation of this noise. Investigation revealed broken welds at the door stop connection. Further investigation revealed a significant number of other complaints including a service bulletin (nv003-07). Toyota was contacted and after about 2 weeks of follow-up, it was determined that they would not assist us in any way citing a lack of "service history" with the dealership. We were over our extended warranty mileage by about 7000 miles and the time by about 3. 5 months. We are the second owners of the van, but the original owners were my wife's parents. Nothing has been done so far to repair the door. A proper fix would include installing a new door. We are a middle class family working on a budget though so that is out of the question. We will have to find an alternative. Options include 1)removing the door stop allowing the door to freely swing. . . Definite safety concern. 2)drilling out the spot welds and mig welding them back. . . Nobody is having any luck with this from what I am reading. 3) drilling out the spot welds and attaching with a bolt. . . Only temporary from what I am reading. . . Cracks form in the welded materials. The temptation is to temporarily fix the problem and then sell the vehicle. We are honest faithful people so I would not be able to stick another family with this issue. Some might argue that this is not a safety problem. Since the stop is still partially attached, my wife has been entering and exiting through the passenger side door to prevent any further damage. Complete failure would result in extreme difficulty fixing it and pose a serious threat to one of my three unsuspecting children when they open it up. I have already read of children being hurt by a free swinging Sienna door. This is a manufacturing problem. Welds aren't supposed to break. The materials between the weld should break first. It was a bad weld from day 1.

1 - no events (accidents or the like) leading to failure. 2 - failure is power sliding door (passenger side) - 2 parts - one is power sliding door does not open when buttons are pressed (though it attempts to, but fails to open), second part is that the door does not open manually either (whether using interior or exterior handles for exiting vehicle) 3 - have attempted to reset system as online TSB and blogs state to do for all Sienna sliding door errors (no end to the number of complaints in chat rooms or blogs); now have service appointment safety concern - since door will not open at all, and children ride in the rear of vehicle, in the event of accident, children cannot be extracted thru door without breaking windows unless they can make it to another working door.

1. No irregular usage. Just stopped working. 2. Power sliding doors fail to open/close properly. 3. No action taken as of 6/12/2010.

I have a 2005 Toyota Sienna and the van has electronic doors and that I have read in the web that a lot of people are having the same problem but Toyota is ignoring it. Its a safety issue and Toyota corp. Does not care. The sliding door almost smashed my daughter. I took it to antioch Toyota and they just greased the doors trying to avoid the repairs. They are waiting for someone to get badly injured before they fix anything. You can google it and you will find same complain from hundreds of people Toyota don't care. Its unsafe I even have a extended warranty and still wont fix it! the government can't just sit and let Toyota get away with this and have more people be injured and not do anything about it! pls help!.

2005 Toyota Sienna rear passenger automatic door will not open automatically. . . Must manually open and close door. Motor will make a sound but door will not move as if locked in place.

I own a 2005 Toyota Sienna and my passenger side sliding door will not open electronically or manually. This is a safety issue as I carpool and have to let the children out on the street side. If there is a fire the door is not operable. I brought it to the dealership and they said that they do not know what the problem is, so they want to start changing parts until the problem is solved. This is an on going problem with the Siennas.