general problems of the 2008 Toyota Sienna - part 2

Dashboard melts when driven in 80 degree weather. Becomes sticky and shiny. Glare from shine makes it impossible to see out windshield.

Just notified of sudden acceleration. Hindsight - starting fall 2012 remote starter died,no warmup,my boyfriend and I experienced engine racing when van was cold multiple times,only way to stop it was hand control brake,foot brake was not enough. Planned to have checked but Dec. 1 2012 at the tanger outlet mall in canonsburg PA. I am paraplegic,my minivan is modified with foldout ramp- passenger side sliding door for wheelchair and then I transfer into the drivers seat. All the van handicapped parking spaces were filled but it was early so I parked in a regular space with an empty space next to it so I could get out. Few van accessible handicapped spaces is common so I used regular spots before as long as someone was with me who could back the van up far enough for the ramp to deploy. When my mother,my sister-in-law,my friend,and I returned to the vehicle a pickup truck was parked next to us. My sister-in-law got in the vehicle to back it up so the ramp had room to come out as she had done often. We stood behind the pickup truck waiting for her to back up. All of a sudden the vehicle flew backward so fast that before we could yell stop my vehicle had slammed into the SUV parked across the aisle so hard that it pushed the SUV into the car parked in front of it in the next row. My sister-in-law was completely shocked as were we, it was so fast it was almost like watching a cartoon. My sister-in-law kept saying "I don't know what happened", she thought all she did was put her foot on the brake and put it in gear. Not knowing about sudden acceleration in Sienna's all any of us could think was her foot had slipped even though she has been driving for 25 years without a similar incident she couldn't understand how it could happen, was sure it didn't. The police were called and a report filed. Because one of the welds from modification was broken my vehicle was totaled.

Inside dashboard is very sticky and always shows a glare onto the windshield while driving (safety issue); the dashboard during the summer time is very malleable, if you gently press on it, it moves as if it was melting slowly. This has been like this for a few years, when I contacted Toyota they said there was a replcement program for this in which owners were notified in 2015 and expired on 2018, I explained we never received this notice as we are at the same address since 2000 and are the original new owners of the van, they did not agree to replace as the program had expired. I explained the safety risk not to mention its a know issue, they said you didn't respond in time so they will not pay to have it replaced. The supervisor was rude and said the same thing.

As I was trying to open the tailgate, the lock (rubber layer) felt squishy and I saw some black rubbery deposit on my fingers. Same thing every summer. In 2013 and 2014 December, noticed that it'd take significant effort to open the tailgate in the middle of winter. And now, in January 2015, it just doesn't open. The rubbery area is extremely hard and it can't be pressed to trigger the tailgate unlocking mechanism. I heard that it's a common problem with Toyota Siennas. Would appreciate NHTSA to look at this.

Sliding door which is supposed to not close when someone comes in between is faulty since the purchase which came to me that it should happen. I had complaint to Toyota to see whether it is recall! no answer yet, I hope it is not happening to anyone else?.

Bought a 2008 Toyota Sienna xle limited with all the options etc. The navigation system that was part of the package with our model van we bought states that is covers all of north America. There is a dvd that loads into the nav system each time the van is started, these maps include all of the lower 48 states and hawaii and even include canada. However nothing in alaska is covered. I feel as though we were mislead about this feature and have tried contacting Toyota directly however the maps covered on the dvd is a software program that was provided to Toyota by a 3rd party. Is there anything we can do to get Toyota to listen?? returned phone calls and e-mails from Toyota suggest that the state of alaska doesn't justify their cost in producing a new dvd upgrade to include our state. When we purchased the van this was not clearly stated by the sales manager and we were told that Toyota was coming out with a new dvd that will cover alaska, but now it's obvious they have no intentions of providing this. Frustrated in ak.

I bought my 2008 Toyota Sienna in October 2007. The first defect I noticed is when the rear windows are open, the rear doors do not lock in place when you open them. The mechanic stated said the he thought the reason it was designed this way was as a precaution, in case a child is leaning out of the window when the doors are opened. This made no sense. My experience has been that the door slams really hard and then bounces back. If a child happened to be leaning out the window they would suffer serious injury because of this. No one has been injured thus far, but the slamming certainly startles everyone! this happens even if the window is only open slightly. Another defect is the tire pressure light on the dash. It stays lit up constantly. After adding air on numerous occasions, I noticed that the light comes back on in just a couple of days. I discussed this with the dealer and he simply stated that tire pressure changes with the temperature. This is a safety issue because I would not know if the tires' inflation was really off or not. Obviously I cannot add air to the tires every other day.

I was programming a new Sienna van homelink to my garage door opener. It started the sequence as one would expect. (. Small house icon blinking )but never apparently moved on to the step of retrieving the signal. As required one must hold the garage door opener remote on to try to accept signal. After attempting this several times I stopped and was just in time to notice the motor of garage door opener was overheating and near fire! fire dept was called and it was all checked out. In fear of faulty equipment I took steps to replace both garage door motors. After new openers were installed professional installers attempted to program the homelink. It failed once again. We tried several times and even tried to program other buttons. End result was button 1 and 2 of homelink are faulty and 3 finally programmed. So after replacing my own equipment which I assumed was faulty . . . We determined the homelink system in the car was at fault and malfunctioning. This was determined after we tried on new motors . . . So in the end my original equipment was not the cause of the fire but merely a result of a faulty program chip in the homelink. I was fortunate that my house had not caught fire as my garage is under the family room. I spoke with my dealership as well as Toyota customer care center and home link and non of the 3 sources will assume responsibility of the faulty equipment. The car was only a week old brand new 2008. I feel had the homelink worked properly the 1st and 2nd button would of programmed as easily as the 3rd and my garage openers would not of overheated and near caught fire and place my home and pets in jeopardy. Not to mention I had a cost of $700. 00 to replace equipment that wasn't faulty. I would like Toyota to acknowledge that this may perhaps be the first of several homelinks to have a issue and to make consumers aware that there is a potential malfunction so they too don't overheat and possibly lead to fire in the motors in garage.