1998 TOYOTA AVALON — Complaint #550715
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SERVICE BRAKES, AIR:CONTROLS:HAND CONTROL/VALVE filed August 22, 2005
NHTSA complaint #550715 (ODI reference 10133740) concerns a 1998 TOYOTA AVALON and was filed on August 22, 2005. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 1, 2004. The vehicle had 75,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Texas based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as service brakes, air:controls:hand control/valve, 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 AVALON cohort independently describe similar service brakes, air:controls:hand control/valve 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 1998 TOYOTA AVALON shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
ON A 98 TOYOTA AVALON XLS: THE A/C AND HEATING SYSTEM SHUTS DOWN COMPLETELY OCCASIONALLY. THE FRONT AND REAR DEFOGGERS FAIL ALSO. WHEN THE SHUT DOWN OCCURS, THE AIR VENTS EMIT VERY HOT AIR, EVEN THOUGH THE THERMOSTAT IS SET FOR A/C. I ALMOST HAD AN ACCIDENT WHEN IT STARTED RAINING AND THE DEFOGGERS FAILED TO OPERATE. IT APPEARS TO BE AN ELECTRICAL WIRING DEFECT FOR WHICH I HAVE APPEALED TO TOYOTA TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY,BUT WITHOUT ANY SUCCESS
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 550715 |
| ODI Number | 10133740 |
| Date Filed | August 22, 2005 |
| Failure Date | April 1, 2004 |
| VIN | 4T1BF18B3WU |
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.