2001 TOYOTA 4RUNNER — Complaint #2178492
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SUSPENSION:FRONT:CONTROL ARM:LOWER BALL JOINT filed February 19, 2026
NHTSA complaint #2178492 (ODI reference 11719079) concerns a 2001 TOYOTA 4RUNNER and was filed on February 19, 2026. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 17, 2025. The vehicle had 275,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Colorado based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as suspension:front:control arm:lower ball joint, 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 suspension:front:control arm:lower ball joint 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 2001 TOYOTA 4RUNNER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2001 Toyota 4Runner. The contact stated that while driving approximately 15 MPH, there was a thumping and clicking sound coming from the front of the vehicle before the front passengerâs side of the vehicle unintendedly lowered. The vehicle was stopped and inspected, and the ball joint was touching the ground. The vehicle was towed to the residence. The vehicle was then towed to an independent mechanic, where it was diagnosed that the lower ball joint had failed and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 275,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2178492 |
| ODI Number | 11719079 |
| Date Filed | February 19, 2026 |
| Failure Date | December 17, 2025 |
| VIN | JT3HN86R619 |
Similar SUSPENSION:FRONT:CONTROL ARM:LOWER BALL JOINT Complaints for 2001 TOYOTA 4RUNNER
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.