1998 TOYOTA TACOMA — Complaint #567257
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SUSPENSION:REAR:SPRINGS:LEAF SPRING ASSEMBLY:LEAF filed December 28, 2005
NHTSA complaint #567257 (ODI reference 10146223) concerns a 1998 TOYOTA TACOMA and was filed on December 28, 2005. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 27, 2005. The vehicle had 91,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New Hampshire 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. 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 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 1998 TOYOTA TACOMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
MY 1998 TOYOTA TACOMA HAD ITS LEFT REAR LEAF SPRING BREAK JUST IN FRONT OF THE REAR DIFFERENCIAL. THIS CAUSE THE LEAFS TO TWIST INWARDS AND RUB AGAINST THE GAS TANK EXPOSING THE BARE METAL OF THE TANK. LUCKLY I TOOK THE TRUCK TO THE MECHANIC BEFORE THE RUBBING AGAINST THE TANK WORKED ITS WAY THROUGH POTENTIALLY CAUSING AN EXPLOSION WITH A SPARK. AT THIS TIME I WILL BE REPLACING THE LEAF SPRINGS (AFTER TAKING SOME PHOTOS). I HAVE ALSO FILED A COMPLAINT NO 2005-12280233 WITH TOYOTA MOTOR CORP. THEIR POSITION IS THAT I WILL HAVE TO BEAR THE COST OF THE REPAIR AS IT IS OUT OF WARRANTY. I BELIEVE THIS IS A POTENTIALLY UNSAFE CONDITION AND A RECALL TO CHECK LEAF SPRINGS SHOULD BE MADE. *NM
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 567257 |
| ODI Number | 10146223 |
| Date Filed | December 28, 2005 |
| Failure Date | December 27, 2005 |
| VIN | 4TAPM62N0WZ |
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.