2019 Toyota Sienna

Transmission UA80e is a poorly designed transmission. It almost caused an accident due to the transmission lunching forward on its own. Also has a whine coming from the transaxle. There is a customer service program for the 2017-2018 models about this issue. But I have a 2019 and not eligible for the program. Would like for Toyota to make this right. Less than 5 year old van.

Car was recalled for fuel pump and I repaired in 8/2020 with approximately 11,190 miles. I had complained that car, since time of purchase and had 4662 miles when I insisted Toyota fix this, (hunted for gears, hesitated, lagged when accelerator pushed, and had poorer gas mileage than expected). The car now has 34,875 miles on it and is doing the same thing, hesitating, lunging between gears. Our mechanic confirmed this and stated worse when using a.c. Called Toyota Customer Service and they said the car was out of warranty for the pump repair, but perhaps not the power train, transmission, etc. Have not gotten back to me yet, but has not been one working day after spending 2.5 hours on the phone with them yesterday. This is a safety issue, I press on the gas to make a turn and it lags leaving me in traffic. My 2007 Sienna, which is still running for my daughter, never did this and has full power when called upon. Toyota needs to repair the entire fuel system, transmission, if they cannot fix this. There are no warning lights when this happens & it is happening more frequently. Dealership told me they could not put another pump on car and to contact Toyota Customer Service and gave me the number. When we had the car for about a month, dealership said we were just not used to driving a car with this type of transmission and car was low on oil, we added oil and dealership said we used the wrong type, but we figured some oil was better than no oil. We are boomers and have been driving cars for decades, with clutches and without and we know how to drive a vehicle.

I was traveling on the Capital Beltway (495) during morning rush-hour in my 2019 Toyota Sienna Minivan. Normal Road Conditions: Stop & Go traffic in the right-most lane around 9:30am on December 14, 2022. All of a sudden and without warning, when attempting to accelerate and keep up with traffic after the vehicle was stopped, I found that I was unable to move forward. (There was no indication that my vehicle was suffering from mechanical failure prior to this incident and no visible alert or alarm was triggered) At that point, I powered down the vehicle after turning on the hazard indicator lights. After re-engaging the ignition, I then tried to move forward, and found the vehicle to be unresponsive. A tractor trailer was directly in back of me and was inching closer as to keep up with the rush-hour traffic. I was immovable at that moment and waived the truck around. After finding a break in traffic, I attempted to move out of the right-most lane, but with the transmission not responding to the Drive function, found that my only course of action was to to engage Reverse and move to the Right shoulder of the highway. I then notified triple A and my vehicle was towed to a local garage for evaluation. Upon initial evaluation is was determined that it was either related to where the shift cable goes in to the transmission, or complete transmission failure. It is highly unusual for a Toyota transmission to fail at 71.000 miles (odometer reading at the time of the incident). I currently have two other Toyota vehicles with odometer reading in excess of 140,000 miles. I am concerned for the safety of my family and myself, as this is the primary vehicle used for transport. A 3 year old car with less than 100,000 miles should not suffer from transmission failure. This is a major safety concern. What if this happened and I was not in stop and go traffic or already in the slow lane, on a major highway?

June 17, 2022, driving on San Diego freeway north near Sherman oaks California, the Transmission suddenly loses power, however the engine still running feels like the gearbox out of any actions, luckily it’s downhill, managed sliding to the shoulder stopped, The warning light says” turn off traction control”, and “ check engine “ It was rush hour, it was dangerous, after parked few minutes turn off and turn on the engine shift to drive gear the transmission only shifting to lower gears ( 1 or 2) moving slowly, So I managed get of next exit, and stop for few minutes, the I try starting again and driving low gear home, Next morning I turn on the engine the check engine light still on but transmission acted normal, I drove to the Northridge Toyota dealer, which is 2 miles away from my house, Took them 3 day, to return to me, they said it was a coil issue and luckily they didn’t charge me,