NHTSA complaint #11658181

Owner complaint summary

Transmission is failing, fluid was black and burnt at 35k miles (dealer did not provide a large enough sample to allow for testing the fluid because I didn't specify the amount I needed), and vehicle is not throwing a CEL or MIL so therefore Toyota says that there is no defect. Fluid change did improve the functioning, but it did not correct the problem. Transmission failures are a known problem on numerous Toyota vehicles using an A series transmission. My vehicle has done this and progressively worsened since it had roughly 500 miles on it. Dealership originally refused to document my complaints in their system and Toyota Customer Care's assistance has been minimal at best. My vehicle suffers from numerous of the same complaints that are listed under the 2024 model Tacoma. Before servicing the transmission fluid the vehicle would occasionally have an extremely hard shift around 55mph that would result in the truck spinning tires on the interstate which shouldn't even be possible. I actually managed to capture a short video of the dash as it was doing this once and even sent it to Toyota but they said if they can't replicate it then it doesn't count. I think there needs to be an investigation into Toyota's transmission issues as well as someone should investigate their programming for MIL/CEL activation parameters as their vehicles are alerting the driver's to a problem until there is a complete and total failure which could leave the driver in an unnecessary and dangerous situation that could possibly be avoided if the driver was informed when the "Fail-safe" features activate instead of when they're unable to compensate. I am unable to load the video through this computer; however, I can upload the video from my phone upon request.