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1996 TOYOTA TACOMA — Complaint #392304

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NHTSA Complaint about SUSPENSION:REAR:SPRINGS:LEAF SPRING ASSEMBLY:LEAF filed February 3, 2003

NHTSA complaint #392304 (ODI reference 10005194) concerns a 1996 TOYOTA TACOMA and was filed on February 3, 2003. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 23, 2002. The vehicle had 78,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Wisconsin based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as suspension:rear:springs:leaf spring assembly:leaf, 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. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.

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 TACOMA cohort independently describe similar suspension:rear:springs:leaf spring assembly:leaf 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 1996 TOYOTA TACOMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
1996 TOYOTA TACOMA
Component
SUSPENSION:REAR:SPRINGS:LEAF SPRING ASSEMBLY:LEAF
State
Wisconsin
Mileage
78,000 mi

Complaint Description

REAR LEAF SPRING ON PASSENGER SIDE (# 2 LEAF) HAS CRACKED, LEADING TO UNPREDICTABLE REAR SUSPESION BEHAVIOR OVER BUMPS. THIS IS A WIDELY KNOWN PROBLEM. TOYOTA IS AWARE THAT THERE IS A HIGH FAILURE RATE ON TACOMA LEAF SPRINGS, AS ARE ALL PARTS AND SERVICE PERSONNEL THAT I HAVE SPOKEN TO. THIS IS A VERY EXPENSIVE REPAIR FOR A KNOWN PROBLEM, TOYOTA SHOULD BE PROVIDING ASSISTANCE/RECALL.

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 392304
ODI Number 10005194
Date Filed February 3, 2003
Failure Date February 23, 2002

Similar SUSPENSION:REAR:SPRINGS:LEAF SPRING ASSEMBLY:LEAF Complaints for 1996 TOYOTA TACOMA

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.