Spare Tire problems of the 2008 Toyota Sienna

The contact owns a 2008 Toyota Sienna. The contact stated while driving approximately 15 mph the spare tire hatch control cable snapped and dropped the spare tire onto the roadway. The vehicle climbed over the spare tire by the passenger side rear wheel causing the vehicle to land on the road with a jolt. The contact pulled off the road safely and determined that the vehicle was drivable. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact had not taken the vehicle to a dealer or independent mechanic to have the vehicle diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer had been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 195,000.

Received letter advising that under recall 14v27300 my 2008 Toyota Sienna had a potential problem with the cable, holding the spare tire underneath the vehicle which needed to be replaced. In the fall of 2014 my spare tire was relocated to the luggage compartment of my van which rendered the area unusable for folding the rear seats down to use that area for transporting larger items. I checked with my local dealer regarding a permanent solution/repair and was told they had not yet received notice of and/or repair parts for the identified problem. This has been an unreasonable amount of time to wait to regain full use of my minivan.

I have a 2008 Toyota Sienna van. I had once gotten a flat tire about three months ago. I tried to unwind my spare tire from the undercarriage unscrewing the bolt to lower the spare tire using the winch mechanism. Once the spare was lowered I could not pull the wire back up again. Once the flat was repaired I could not use the winch again to pull back my spare tire to the original position. I went ahead and replaced the winch mechanism on my own cost after not getting any support from the dealership to help fix it or repeated calls to Toyota that refused to acknowledge the defect. They citied that I was out of warranty and now could do nothing. Now I am hearing there is indeed a problem with the mechanism and there is a recall on the van. I placed a call to the dealership in town there is no response. While there may have been dangerous situation this was avoided I think by putting in a third party winch mechanism on my own cost. I like Toyota to either 1) fix my problem 2) pay for the cost of fixing the problem which I took care to fix it on my own cost.

Run flat tire commercial. It is true that you can travel on a run flat tire for over 100 miles with a nail punctured tire. This commercial does not tell you the prones of it and I experienced this problem. I have a 2008 Toyota Sienna all-wheel drive and it has the electronic indicator of low air pressure. It came on once in a while and just added some air. But lately it came on more frequently and I took the van to the Toyota dealer in la crescenta CA. , where I bought the van, for inspection. They told me there is a nail in the left front tire and this type of the ran flat tire can not be repaired. So I had to buy a new tire. Lucky enough they could order it right away and got the tire mounted the next day. The dealer could not mount the tire on the rim and had to send it to a special tire place, because this are special rims, I have been told. The price for this one tire was $ 269. 56 including mounting, balancing and sales tax. Since this type of a van with this run flat tires, does not come with a spare tire. They told me, it is not necessary to have one. What will happened, when you are in the middle of the wilderness in the country. Yes you can drive over 100 miles on the flat tire, but when you get to the next town and they have to order this tire and it can take days before they get one. There you will be stuck for a while. This does not sound like a good way to have this tires. It sure is a miss leading advertising and a bad experience. On tap of it the tires have no warranty. Unhappy experienced owner, karl.