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2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER — Complaint #661929

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NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT SECTOR filed March 17, 2008

NHTSA complaint #661929 (ODI reference 10221440) concerns a 2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER and was filed on March 17, 2008. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 15, 2008. The vehicle had 53,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Massachusetts based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:gear box:shaft sector, 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 HIGHLANDER cohort independently describe similar steering:gear box:shaft sector 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 2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER
Component
STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT SECTOR
State
Massachusetts
Mileage
53,000 mi

Complaint Description

I CAN'T BELIEVE THERE HASN'T BEEN A RECALL ON 2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER INTERMEDIATE STEERING SHAFT PROBLEM. I NOTICE IT HAS A NHTSA ITEM NUMBER 10019873. WHEN MY CAR WAS GETTING A STATE INSPECTION, THE INSPECTOR NOTICED THE SLIGHT NOISE WHEN THE WHEEL WAS TURNED. I FIND OUT LATER AT THE TOYOTA DEALER THAT THE SHAFT WAS "BINDING" AND CONTINUED DRIVING COULD CAUSE STEERING FAILURE. IF THE GAS STATION HADN'T NOTICED THE SUBTLE NOISE, WE WOULD HAVE CONTINUED DRIVING IT UNTIL THE STEERING FAILED. I WOULD CALL THAT A SAFETY ISSUE WARRANTING A RECALL. *TR

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 661929
ODI Number 10221440
Date Filed March 17, 2008
Failure Date March 15, 2008

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