Four problems related to ball joint have been reported for the 2001 Toyota Tacoma. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2001 Toyota Tacoma based on all problems reported for the 2001 Tacoma.
Ball joint separated causing driver to lose control of vehicle.
While I was driving the passenger side wheel completely buckled under the truck. Luckily, I was only driving 15 mph. Had this broken while I was on the interstate, I would have been injured or injured someone else. As a result, the mechanic found that both ball joints were bad so both were replaced. The frame is completely rusted out and the spare tire cannot be removed. No notice was ever given to us or the previous owner by Toyota, regarding the problems stated above.
The contact owns a 2001 Toyota Tacoma. While driving at various speeds, a squeaking sound emitted from the front of the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who diagnosed that the front driver side ball joint was faulty and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The failure mileage was 140,000.
I had made a left turn onto freeway entrance ramp, started accelerating to get up to speed. At approximately 30mph there was a loud bang/pop noise and the vehicle front left dropped down. I hung on to try and keep vehicle under control as it took an sharp left hand turn towards a pole. Even though the brake pedal went to the floor I was able to some how get the vehicle stopped before the passenger side hit the pole where my 1 year old daughter was riding. I had the truck checked for recalls in late 2008 when I purchased it. The report said ball joint recall was VIN # specific and that this truck was not in the VIN range. After the incident happened, I called Toyota hotline for assistance and even though this is the same condition, and part that is failing on the vehicles in range they said, "that sense the recall is VIN specific, there's nothing we can do, and we can't just add a vehicle to the recall". So, now I'm stuck with a wrecked vehicle, but very thankful that I didn't hit the pole where my daughter was sitting. This needs to be addressed and all Tacoma's that contain this style ball joint be fixed before some one does get killed.