2002 TOYOTA 4RUNNER — Complaint #1557847
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STRUCTURE:BODY filed April 14, 2019
NHTSA complaint #1557847 (ODI reference 11196149) concerns a 2002 TOYOTA 4RUNNER and was filed on April 14, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 8, 2019. The vehicle had 140,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Minnesota based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as structure:body, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same TOYOTA 4RUNNER cohort independently describe similar structure:body failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2002 TOYOTA 4RUNNER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
WE PURCHASED A 4RUNNER FOR OUR 18 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER TO DRIVE THINKING IT WOULD BE SAFE, ESP IN MN. SHE WAS DRIVING HOME FROM COLLEGE (130 MILES) AND NOTICED IT HAD A BAD VIBRATION, ESPECIALLY OVER 40 MPH. IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT TO DRIVE. WE WERE OUT OF TOWN AND WHEN WE GOT BACK, BROUGHT IT TO THE SHOP, ONLY TO BE TOLD THE FRAME WAS RESPONDED BEYOND REPAIR (SEE PHOTOS). NOT ONLY DOES THAT SCARE ME FOR MY DAUGHTER, BUT SHE HAS BEEN DRIVING IT A FEW YEARS AND HAD FRIENDS AND OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS IN THE VEHICLE. THE VEHICLE HAS RELATIVELY LOW MILES FOR IT'S AGE AND BASED ON TOYOTAS REPUTATION OF LONGEVITY, WE NEVER EXPECTED THIS SORT OF ISSUE. WE'RE THANKFUL SHE WASN'T HURT, BUT ARE CONCERNED ABOUT OTHERS DRIVING A VEHICLE AND NOT KNOWING IT COULD LITERALLY BREAK IN HALF WHILE DRIVING DOWN THE ROAD!
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1557847 |
| ODI Number | 11196149 |
| Date Filed | April 14, 2019 |
| Failure Date | March 8, 2019 |
| VIN | JT3HN86R320 |
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Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.