Bulletins
| Bulletin | Bulletin date | Replacement Bulletin | Item no. | Summary | Added |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNKNOWN OR OTHER | |||||
| 00207 | 04/26/2007 | 10022143 | Techstream ecu flash reprogramming procedure. *kb | 07/06/2007 | |
Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNKNOWN OR OTHER | |||
| 08/26/2010 | 30000 | ||
| This sun visor drivers side will not stay up in the closed position, there is no adjustment which can be made to fix it. according to toyota dealer in newark de a new visor is needed. i understand from the dealer this is a very frequent and common problem, with many model years.' | |||
| 09/11/2011 | 138000 | ||
| Pulling into parking space, vehicle suddenly accelerated. had i not already had my foot on brake pedal to stop, damage to other vehicle would have been much worse. witness' said vehicle lurched upward just before acceleration. i slammed it into park and cut engine to make it stop. afterwards, trying to get it home, when i took foot off gas pedal, the car would shutter and almost die, causing me to have to put it into neutral and rev engine to keep it from dying. | |||
| 08/06/2011 | 93400 | ||
| 2003 toyota rav4 - transmission slipping; ends up it is a computer (ecm) problem which is skipping 2nd gear and hesitating on acceleration and jurking into 3rd gear from 1st gear | |||
| 07/30/2011 | 128593 | ||
| My husband was driving to the grocery store when he heard a grinding noise. soon after, the check engine light went on. he immediately took our vehicle to the local toyota dealer. we soon discovered our 2003 toyota rav 4 has a defective ecm and the transmission has been severely damaged due to the ecm. it costs over $5,000 dollars to replace the ecm and the transmission. we are unable to drive the vehicle because we feel it is dangerous for ourselves and others. | |||
| 08/06/2011 | 93400 | ||
| 2003 toyota rav4 - transmission slipping; ends up it is a computer (ecm) problem which is skipping 2nd gear and hesitating on acceleration and jurking into 3rd gear from 1st gear | |||
| 07/30/2011 | 128593 | ||
| My husband was driving to the grocery store when he heard a grinding noise. soon after, the check engine light went on. he immediately took our vehicle to the local toyota dealer. we soon discovered our 2003 toyota rav 4 has a defective ecm and the transmission has been severely damaged due to the ecm. it costs over $5,000 dollars to replace the ecm and the transmission. we are unable to drive the vehicle because we feel it is dangerous for ourselves and others. | |||
| 08/06/2011 | 93400 | ||
| 2003 toyota rav4 - transmission slipping; ends up it is a computer (ecm) problem which is skipping 2nd gear and hesitating on acceleration and jurking into 3rd gear from 1st gear | |||
| 07/30/2011 | 128593 | ||
| My husband was driving to the grocery store when he heard a grinding noise. soon after, the check engine light went on. he immediately took our vehicle to the local toyota dealer. we soon discovered our 2003 toyota rav 4 has a defective ecm and the transmission has been severely damaged due to the ecm. it costs over $5,000 dollars to replace the ecm and the transmission. we are unable to drive the vehicle because we feel it is dangerous for ourselves and others. | |||
| 08/06/2011 | 93400 | ||
| 2003 toyota rav4 - transmission slipping; ends up it is a computer (ecm) problem which is skipping 2nd gear and hesitating on acceleration and jurking into 3rd gear from 1st gear | |||
| 07/30/2011 | 128593 | ||
| My husband was driving to the grocery store when he heard a grinding noise. soon after, the check engine light went on. he immediately took our vehicle to the local toyota dealer. we soon discovered our 2003 toyota rav 4 has a defective ecm and the transmission has been severely damaged due to the ecm. it costs over $5,000 dollars to replace the ecm and the transmission. we are unable to drive the vehicle because we feel it is dangerous for ourselves and others. | |||
| 07/01/2011 | 212000 | ||
| Hi about my 2003 toyota rav4, its seems to stall and shutting off the engine while driving. for exaple it happen more then 5 time on me this month7/1/2011, and almost getting bump in rear end. i took it to toyota dealer, and paying $100 for what they could find anything wrong. this model should be recall or accident will happen. | |||
| 02/26/2011 | 124000 | ||
| The check engine light turned on. the car began hesitating upon acceleration. i took the car to auto zone so they could give me a quick diagnosis. they said one of the codes that came up had to do with the catalytic converter and that would be causing the stalling. i took my vehicle to one of the dmv's g2 repair stations and had the catalytic replaced and was informed that i had to take my car to toyota to have the ecm reflashed. the car worked fine for a few days and now the check engine light has turned back on and the car began to stall again. i was nearly in an accident due to the stalling. i have an appointment to have the ecm reflashed but the very rude service advisor at toyota let me know that might not fix the problem. he let me know that my previous repair station sent me there to cover themselves when in fact they sent me there due to toyota's service bulletin. i don't understand why i have to pay to have a faulty ecm reflashed. toyota should provide that services for free. i have since found out that a faulty ecm can ruin the transmission so i may have some costly repairs in the future due to a faulty part by toyota. toyota should replace the ecms on all 2001-2003 toyota rav4s since they know they are faulty and cover the cost of the transmission repair caused by their faulty ecm. toyota is being very underhanded by sending out the services bulletin to certain repair shops and not to actual toyota owners. they should be held liable. are they going to wait until someone dies? the unexpected stalling can cause a serious accident and toyota owners should be informed. if i had known this i would not have purchased a toyota for my teenager. the stalling almost caused an accident while i was driving but it would have definitely caused one for someone with less driving experience. it's a shame that toyota will not do anything until someone gets hurt. | |||
| 04/06/2010 | 55000 | ||
| Computer failed that led to transmission to fail. after fixing it still glichs. it is ok one day and gliches another very unpredictable and transmission mechinac canonot figure out the problem. computer was put in new and transmission was rebuilt cost about $ 4000. it is hard to efford this during these ecnomic hardships. not to mension all this happened only on 88000 kms. | |||
| 05/01/2010 | 144000 | ||
| Driving my rave4 2003 when all of a sudden it had no power struggled to shift it felt like i was riding a bull. it is very scary. when you have no power and need to accelerate at a light. please protect the people. force toyota to so a recall. this is a known issue. do not wait till someone gets hurt or killed. i am now having to replace a transmission and computer.$3300. my car is in the shop so i do not have the vin# plus when you take it to the repair shop they do not know what is wrong with it. it does not show on the computer that it is the transmission or the euc. | |||
| 05/10/2010 | 139000 | ||
| Our 2003 toyota rav 4 has begun to have a very serious problem. when driving, the car will suddenly lurch forward or hesitate to excelerate. we immediatedly had this investigated, only to find out that the onboard computer needed replacing at a ridiculous dollar amount. this expensive repair has yet to be completed. meanwhile, we've had time to research the problem, only to find thousands of other toyota rav4 owers that have experienced the same dangerous lurching and hestiation of their vehicle. toyota says that our car is either too old or has too many miles on it. this car has been meticulously maintained, and now they say there is nothing they can do about this serious uncontrollable problem. we just felt you should be made aware of this dangerous situation. | |||
| 03/01/2010 | 119000 | ||
| I was driving my 2003 rav4 about 2 weeks ago when it refused to accelerate from a stop at a red light, i was in the middle of the intersection(coasting basically) with a line of unhappy traffic behind me before it slammed violently into high gear and almost caused me to crash into the overpass walls. it has since then been intermittent, being fine for a day or so then doing the same thing, in varying degrees of severity. the check engine light went on, and i made an appointment to bring it in to toyota for diagnostics. they quoted me $6800 to replace the ecm computer and the transmission. this vehicle has been regularly maintained and only has 119,000 miles. i have since found out that this is a very dangerous and common problem with this year of toyota that they have known about for a while now. i can't drive the car at all until the computer is replaced, and then it will need a transmission shortly afterward according to both toyota and the other rav4 owners in this situation. if the computer had been replaced prior to the problem demonstrating itself in the shifting difficulties, there would have been no damage to the transmission at all. i think that toyota is to blame for not advising rav4 drivers of this dangerous defect and the relatively cheap repair that could have saved me much time and money. i need a car to work, so i either pay toyota $6800 or buy a new car, and in this economy i don't know if i'll be able to get the financing to do either. | |||