Toyota Sienna Recall Affects Nearly 700,000 Minivans

Toyota Motor Corp’s U.S. unit said on Thursday it is recalling about 694,000 Sienna minivans in North America due to a shift lever problem.

Toyota said that because of possible damage to the shift lock solenoid installed in vehicles involved in the recall, the minivans could shift out of “park” and roll away without the driver depressing the brake pedal.

Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight said Toyota has received reports of 21 “minor” accidents in the United States and three minor accidents in Canada. Two of the incidents involved what Toyota called minor injuries, such as bruises.

Sienna is the second-best-selling minivan in the U.S. market, behind the Dodge Caravan made by Chrysler, and is particularly popular among Orthodox Jews.

4 Comments

  • Echad MeAnash

    Here’s an important part to the story:
    (from nydailynews)
    The vehicles were made at Toyota’s plant in Indiana. The Siennas are from model years 2007 to 2009 and from 2004 to 2005.

    Any not from those years are not affected.

  • Surprise

    Is it only me or should people stop buying Toyota’s because of the recall rate in the past 15 years?

    • Nobody

      No, but they should compare the recall and safety rate to other brands, and not continue to assume that Toyota is the gold standard in that area. Toyota’s brand reputation for quality and safety has outperformed its actual results for 15 years.

  • Toyota recall

    I put in my vin on the site and found out that my minivan is included. However i was notified that they are not ready to really do this. Eventually i will get a postcard. If i do see the problem i can go into my local dealership and if they agree with me they will fix it at no charge. The problem being that the car can move out of park with the ignition on and the brake pedal NOT pushed.