I live in New Hampshire and bought a new 2005 Quad Cab Tacoma in September 2005. My truck has only seen two very mild winters worth of salted road conditions. I wash the under body of my truck frequently.
By spring 2007, I noticed that surface rust is breaking out all over my truck’s frame, at the weld joints, on the flat surfaces of the frame and anywhere something is bolted to the frame.
I have talked to the service department at Toyota of Nashua, NH where I bought the truck and they state that no other customers have brought this problem to their attention as yet. I am a mechanical engineer and I design and work with metals, undercoating and painted finishes all the time. Based on my experience, it is my opinion that a properly paint two-year-old truck frame should not have this much rust breaking through the paint on the frame as mine does.
All Toyota advertisements I have always seen, stress the durability and extremely long service life expectancy of their vehicles. The entire reason I bought my Toyota was based on their long-standing track record of high quality and customer satisfaction.
Working with the dealership we escalated this situation to the New England District Service & Parts Manager trying to get Toyota to repair the rust break through problem. I presented the idea that there may be a Toyota design problem with the undercoat and paint system specified for the 2005 Tacoma’s and or that the coating materials were not applied correctly to my specific truck.
The New England District Service & Parts Manager is basically stating that all frames start to rust eventually and that Toyota has no obligation to repair the frame rust even thought the truck is only three years old. My local dealership is now saying this problem is in the hands of New England District Service & Parts Manager and if I am not satisfied with their response I may have to go through the arbitration process with corporate Toyota USA to get this rust problem addressed and corrected.
I had never owned a new vehicle prior to buying my 2005 Tacoma. I had always bought used vehicles (domestic and foreign alike) and worked hard getting my hands dirty to maintain these vehicles and correct the problems I inherited from their previous owners.
This time around, I spent three month reading car & truck magazine articles, reading various reviews on sights like this one and test-driving a wide variety of new trucks. I paid for membership on http://www.ConsumerGuid.com and http://www.Edmonds.com and read-up on the short list of vehicles I was interested in and read-up on the pros, cons, pit falls and scams related to extended warranty’s and dealer applied under coatings.
These very reputable magazines and websites all stated that the factory applied rust preventative systems are much better today because the various truck manufacturers have all learned from their quality issues and rust problems from previous model years. These same media outlets all seamed to hint that the dealer applied undercoating systems are only as good as the hung-over minimum wage teenagers that are paid to apply them.
Based on the information I found on extended warranties and dealer applied under coating I decided not to purchase these options. I also placed heavy weight on Toyota’s long-standing public record of consistent high quality, vehicle longevity and excellent consumer satisfaction records. As you are all very much aware, Toyota takes great pride to stress these corporate values in almost every one of their advertisements.
Then I negotiated long and hard with five different Toyota dealers before I finally received the price I could afford for the truck I had fallen in love with. On the day I drove off the lot in my new Tacoma I couldn’t have been happier or more proud of my truck. To this day I still love my Tacoma.
All this said I am extremely disappointed with how my Tacoma’s frame has stood up to only three New England winters. The first two winters were unseasonably very mild with very little snow and ice and very minimal sand & salt was applied to our roads. However, this past winter we had far more snow & ice to deal with.
Since I first observed the initial frame rust, I started to research numerous undercoating options/systems and talked to both my Toyota Dealer and to privately owned body shops to get quotes for having the entire frame and under body coated. The best price I have gotten for a professionally applied job was $1,400 and for that price they would not extend any form of warranty that rust would not break through the coating at sometime in the future.
I have reviewed numerous postings on http://www.caranddriver.com, http://toyotatruckworld.tenmagazines.com/, http://www.ttora.com/forum/, http://www.tundrasolutions.com/forums/tacoma, http://forums.off-road.com/toyota-tacoma/ and http://www.customtacos.com/forum from members stating that they are also experiencing rust related issues with their Tacoma’s frames. Admittedly it appears that Tacoma’s built prior to 2000 are much worse that from 2000 onward. However, there are still many 2005 and new Tacoma owners also stating that they are observing the same rust symptoms that I am seeing on my Tacoma’s frame.
I have also seen numerous people posting messages about a hush-hush (unofficial) recall that Toyota is either just starting or has just begun, where Toyota is rumored to be offering to buy back Trucks with extensive frame rust issues.
To all you Tacoma Owners, I would like to ask that you joint me in calling and writing to Toyota Customer Relations, the person I have talked with is Naomi Torres at 1(800)331-4331. If enough of us speak out and demand help, eventually Toyota will be forced to admit there is a problem and stop trying to sweep it under the rug.
>> Stay informed about: '08 Tacoma -- Undercoating -- Yea or Nay ??? 
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