Transmission issues - Now needs replacement

AnnieNWicket

New member
📛 Founding Member
Oct 16, 2024
10
15
Alberta
Vehicles
2024 Land Cruiser
I have owned my brand new 24 LC for 6 wks. I just did a road trip from Alberta to the Oregon/Cali Coast and she drove like a dream (mostly). I adored the adaptive cruise and her easy handling. I racked up 5500km on my trip with only minor hiccups during my drive time, which I chalked up to being a brand new vehicle.
During the last 2 hrs on my drive/return home, my LC made her first hard gear change while going up hill in auto cruise (at about 100km/h). It was so jarring, I thought I’d actually hit something on the road. About two mins later, she did it again while downshifting on a hill. I can confirm, I did not hit anything… instead my beautiful beast was acting up. It literally shook the car (and me) but she kept going. The rest of the drive home she had some minor clunks as I drove in normal city traffic to my home.
The following day, out doing errands, she had a full on fit. Never got her over 60km/h and she was shifting between gears hard and loud and shaking the car. Lucky my errands were close and I went back home right away and called to book her in at the dealership. I am scared to drive her now. I had one day between the appointment for her to be looked at, where I needed to do a quick errand… literally a 3 min drive up a hill and 3 mins down… the way down, she drove without issue. Leaving the parking lot and up the hill was cringe worthy. So bad I put her in manual and clunked my way home… at least in manual I know the shift is coming vs the random and surprise of whats she will do in automatic.
She’s at the dealership, their initial diagnostic shows nothing, but during the drive inspection, there is clearly something very wrong. They are keeping her for the next two days to dig in.
My issues arose at all ranges of speeds and gears and in both automatic and manual drive modes. It even began under the control of auto cruise.
The good thing is it didn’t act up fully while I was enjoying my road trip, but now I see those small clunky shifts between gears… were leading me and my girl to something more ominous. I’m glad I was so close to home when this all came to a head, because that’s be a full bag of dog poo had it happened mid trip.
Anyone in the same boat and severity?

Update -
Oct 30th - 1.5 wks ago the dealership showed me my transmission fluid was twinkling with metal shavings from my transmission. They were awaiting further directions from Toyota, but everything is indicates it’s a new transmission that is needed. They have been looking for a replacement transmission and there is nothing available and nothing in stock I was told.
Today - I heard back from the dealership and the transmission is on order… no idea from where but I honestly don’t care. All I care is they say it will arrive this coming Monday and they hope to have the repair completed a few days after… so fingers crossed I will have my girl back in a week and a half.

Oct 31- amending my updated from yesterday. Apparently the service rep who contacted me to say the fix was on the way, was wrong. Very wrong! The only thing arriving is fluid test kit from Toyota Canada for further testing. There is no transmission ordered or replacements coming next week. Not sure how much incompetence it requires to mess up something so significant as that… but it’s happened. I feel like I am in a sad comedy of errors and bad luck. I knew something was “off” for them to have a new transmission that fast.
Everyone I have spoken with agrees that a full replacement is the only solution. Toyota seems to be dragging this out for some useless and frustrating reason for me as their customer.
When I spoke with the service mgr and told him I want to reframe this - I need a new transmission and I’d like to just order one - take my CC info and we can deal with the financial ownership of this later, in order to get this moving faster… He told me they cant do that as their is no inventory and a formal request has to be submitted to Toyota to pull one off the production line and be diverted for this repair/replacment.
 
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I have owned my brand new 24 LC for 6 wks. I just did a road trip from Alberta to the Oregon/Cali Coast and she drove like a dream (mostly). I adored the adaptive cruise and her easy handling. I racked up 5500km on my trip with only minor hiccups during my drive time, which I chalked up to being a brand new vehicle.
During the last 2 hrs on my drive/return home, my LC made her first hard gear change while going up hill in auto cruise (at about 100km/h). It was so jarring, I thought I’d actually hit something on the road. About two mins later, she did it again while downshifting on a hill. I can confirm, I did not hit anything… instead my beautiful beast was acting up. It literally shook the car (and me) but she kept going. The rest of the drive home she had some minor clunks as I drove in normal city traffic to my home.
The following day, out doing errands, she had a full on fit. Never got her over 60km/h and she was shifting between gears hard and loud and shaking the car. Lucky my errands were close and I went back home right away and called to book her in at the dealership. I am scared to drive her now. I had one day between the appointment for her to be looked at, where I needed to do a quick errand… literally a 3 min drive up a hill and 3 mins down… the way down, she drove without issue. Leaving the parking lot and up the hill was cringe worthy. So bad I put her in manual and clunked my way home… at least in manual I know the shift is coming vs the random and surprise of whats she will do in automatic.
She’s at the dealership, their initial diagnostic shows nothing, but during the drive inspection, there is clearly something very wrong. They are keeping her for the next two days to dig in.
My issues arose at all ranges of speeds and gears and in both automatic and manual drive modes. It even began under the control of auto cruise.
The good thing is it didn’t act up fully while I was enjoying my road trip, but now I see those small clunky shifts between gears… were leading me and my girl to something more ominous. I’m glad I was so close to home when this all came to a head, because that’s be a full bag of dog poo had it happened mid trip.
Anyone in the same boat and severity?

Update -
Oct 30th - 1.5 wks ago the dealership showed me my transmission fluid was twinkling with metal shavings from my transmission. They were awaiting further directions from Toyota, but everything is indicates it’s a new transmission that is needed. They have been looking for a replacement transmission and there is nothing available and nothing in stock I was told.
Today - I heard back from the dealership and the transmission is on order… no idea from where but I honestly don’t care. All I care is they say it will arrive this coming Monday and they hope to have the repair completed a few days after… so fingers crossed I will have my girl back in a week and a half.

Oct 31- amending my updated from yesterday. Apparently the service rep who contacted me to say the fix was on the way, was wrong. Very wrong! The only thing arriving is fluid test kit from Toyota Canada for further testing. There is no transmission ordered or replacements coming next week. Not sure how much incompetence it requires to mess up something so significant as that… but it’s happened. I feel like I am in a sad comedy of errors and bad luck. I knew something was “off” for them to have a new transmission that fast.
Everyone I have spoken with agrees that a full replacement is the only solution. Toyota seems to be dragging this out for some useless and frustrating reason for me as their customer.
When I spoke with the service mgr and told him I want to reframe this - I need a new transmission and I’d like to just order one - take my CC info and we can deal with the financial ownership of this later, in order to get this moving faster… He told me they cant do that as their is no inventory and a formal request has to be submitted to Toyota to pull one off the production line and be diverted for this repair/replacment.
I do not think Toyota took the time and effort to train Toyota Techs on maintenance procedures on this new model. Perhaps they are awash with 3.5 Tundra twin turbo issues. I had mine in the shop for a tire swap. They had to give me a loaner overnight (cudos to them) because they had trouble installing the TPMS on all 5 wheels. They did not know where the 12V battery was located. Give Toyota a year or so to get caught up with new LC issues. Does Canada have lemon laws?
 
I do not think Toyota took the time and effort to train Toyota Techs on maintenance procedures on this new model. Perhaps they are awash with 3.5 Tundra twin turbo issues. I had mine in the shop for a tire swap. They had to give me a loaner overnight (cudos to them) because they had trouble installing the TPMS on all 5 wheels. They did not know where the 12V battery was located. Give Toyota a year or so to get caught up with new LC issues. Does Canada have lemon laws?
Sort of. Apparently.
 

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I do not think Toyota took the time and effort to train Toyota Techs on maintenance procedures on this new model. Perhaps they are awash with 3.5 Tundra twin turbo issues. I had mine in the shop for a tire swap. They had to give me a loaner overnight (cudos to them) because they had trouble installing the TPMS on all 5 wheels. They did not know where the 12V battery was located. Give Toyota a year or so to get caught up with new LC issues. Does Canada have lemon laws?
I agree on they will need more time to learn the LC. I went in for a tranmission flush I had scheduled for them to see if they saw metal shavings.

After 3 hours the service advisor said they did not recommend doing a flush on such a new vehicle. I also asked about a drain and fill and they said that would only get about 4 quarts out and it holds 10 (I think?) so it was not worth it in their mind.

After reading this I think they were nervous to do it because they have never done it. Maybe it was a good decision after all instead of them screwing it up.
 
That. Is. Too. Scary. To. Even. Consider.
Ya, I understand it's in the back, but it's just lazy to just give up after not seeing it under the hood. I talked to the service manager and he wasn't happy about it. Got a free fob program out of it.
 
How incompetent are they? I found the batter the first time I opened the hatch because I wanted to see what was behind all those plastic cubby coverings.
 
I do not think Toyota took the time and effort to train Toyota Techs on maintenance procedures on this new model. Perhaps they are awash with 3.5 Tundra twin turbo issues. I had mine in the shop for a tire swap. They had to give me a loaner overnight (cudos to them) because they had trouble installing the TPMS on all 5 wheels. They did not know where the 12V battery was located. Give Toyota a year or so to get caught up with new LC issues. Does Canada have lemon laws?
There are no lemon laws or recourse in my province or federally. I am left to deal with the warranty through Toyota. This is my 4th Toyota and this is the first time I’ve experienced anything like this. The dealership has always been great to deal with in the past. I do believe it’s Toyota Canada that has dropped the ball on this whole situation.

As for not knowing where your battery was for the tire swap… I have to admit, that made me laugh pretty hard. Luckily you got a loaner 😉
 
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I do not think Toyota took the time and effort to train Toyota Techs on maintenance procedures on this new model. Perhaps they are awash with 3.5 Tundra twin turbo issues. I had mine in the shop for a tire swap. They had to give me a loaner overnight (cudos to them) because they had trouble installing the TPMS on all 5 wheels. They did not know where the 12V battery was located. Give Toyota a year or so to get caught up with new LC issues. Does Canada have lemon
I’m so sorry to hear that… Wish you best of luck with the repair 🤞

At what factory your LC was assembled? Tahara or Hino? Just in case here are instructions on how to parse this information out ftom the VIN:
Thread 'Any non-First Edition Tahara builds (aka R5) out there?'
Any non-First Edition Tahara builds (aka R5) out there?


Also what is your current odometer reading?
My LC was from Tahara and is the Land Cruiser model (not the 1958 or FE). I have/had about 5500kms (or 3400kms) when I dropped it off at the dealership. My problems arose distinctly in about the last 200kms of my drive home for a lengthy road trip.
 
Sort of. Apparently.
I looked into this but really there isn’t much recourse for me. We do not have adequate or appropriate laws that protect consumers when it comes to vehicles and are dealing with manufacturers defects, even of this scale.
 
I’m so sorry to hear that… Wish you best of luck with the repair 🤞

At what factory your LC was assembled? Tahara or Hino? Just in case here are instructions on how to parse this information out ftom the VIN:
Thread 'Any non-First Edition Tahara builds (aka R5) out there?'
Any non-First Edition Tahara builds (aka R5) out there?


Also what is your current odometer reading?
My LC is the Land Cruiser model (not 1958 or FE). She was out of the Tahara plant.
There is about 5500kms (or 3400 miles). My issues arose however distinctly in about the last 200km of my lengthy road trip. There were hiccups and grumblingsI now see in retrospect were building to her breakdown but nothing near as pronounced and jarring as what happened in those last few hrs/kms.
 
Wow. Nobody is saying anything about how long it went without failing completely. That seems like a lot of hard miles on that transmission with debris floating around inside of that thing.
 
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