2001 Toyota Sequoia: brake failure

Filed Jul 23, 2015 · Brakes, Steering · 316,000 miles · NC

Street driving, clear day and car dash board starts to alarm. Dashboard lights for vsc, antilock brakes goes haywire. Horrible grinding noise and vibration felt through the brake pedal, with loss of power, and pull to the right all simultaneously happening. Alarm bells all going off in the car. It is very loud noise for all occupants. Terrifying occurrence with loss of brakes and power. First event lasted approximately 20 seconds. Pulled over and the car seemed fine. This has been intermittent but occurred after car was warm and occurs more frequently when its is warmer outside as well. Now, 16 mos later, this happens all the time and toyota dealer says there is nothing wrong with car and cannot diagnose the issue. It is a safety issue for sure. Will have to park the car now since they cannot figure out what is wrong with it.

Filed Apr 22, 2015 · Brakes · 130,000 miles · NC

Tl* the contact owns a 2001 toyota sequoia. While driving 45 MPH, the check engine light illuminated on the instrument panel and the brakes failed. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic. The technician diagnosed that the anti lock brake system failed. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 130,000. The VIN was not available.

Filed Apr 6, 2015 · Brakes, Steering · 170,000 miles · NJ

Driving down road and drivers side front end dropped; the vehicle just seized. The ball joint snapped and the tire buckled on the vehicle there was no brakes or steering. Fortunately I had just exited a major highway onto a straight secondary road when this occurred. I feel if this had happened on the highway I would have been in a major accident; which would have included multiple other vehicles as well..

Filed May 16, 2012 · Brakes, Driver assistance · 174,000 miles · NC

Recently, my 01 sequoia has been making a loud metal-like grinding noise coming from the front end of the car. Sounded like it came from the engine or the tires. This caused the car to become unstable on the road and it was swerving, the vsc trac light and vsc off light flashed and beeped rapidly, and worst thing of all was that the brakes did not work either. The more I put pressure on the brakes, the more the metal grinding noise was intensified. Felt like the engine was going to be dropped in the middle of the road or the tires were scraped to the bone. Problem first happened in april, but thought it was nothing because as fast as it came out of nowhere, it quickly went away also. However, 2 weeks ago, my husband and my son were in my car and it happened again. This time it lasted longer and my husband had to try his best to control the vehicle because it was swerving and shaking so bad, and the loud grinding noise was back. We kept the car in the garage for a week in hopes that it will "go away." today, 5/16/12, as I'm driving at 50mph it happened again.thankfully, there were no cars behind me, and just a truck a little ways ahead of me. Because I was driving at a speed of 55mph, it was very difficult to stop. I put pressure on my brakes to no avail because the more I tried to push the brakes, the louder the noise was and the more the car was shaking. This is one of the most terrifying events in my life because I saw that I was approaching the back of the truck fast and I couldn't stop, I tried to pull to the side but there were no room because the sides were just guard rails. At that point, I put more pressure on my brakes because I didn't wanna be killed or hurt anyone else, so my car finally started to slowed down. The scariest part was that I could not brake. The more I applied my brakes, the louder the noise, and the more the car was shaking.

Filed Jan 4, 2006 · Brakes, Suspension · 106,000 miles · MD · crash

Driving south bound on rt. 301 in bowie, md. Began to slow and moved right into the exit lane towards mount oak rd. West bound. Heard a loud noise and the 2001 toyota sequoia leaned over toward the drivers side front wheel. It became extremely hard to turn the steering wheel and braking power was greatly reduced and the sequoia was basically uncontrollable. Was able to steer slight towards the right to avoid being pulled back into traffic. Impacted a safety median, designed to protect cars entering the highway from those exiting the highway, and crossed completely over it the wheel hub had separated from the lower control arm. The tire, wheel rim, hub, steering rack, steering tie rod, control arms, brake lines, drive axle, etc. Had all been damage severely. Pictures of the scene show a single skid mark from the driver's side front wheel clearly. The single skid mark indicates that one wheel was not rotating at all, while the other three were rotating freely, or under the control of the anti-lock brakes. I found no my 2001 recalls. I later found the federal safety agency campaign id number : 05v225000 indicating a recall due to failed ball joints in the 2002-2004 sequoia. The sequoia model was first available as a my2001 and initial introduction was late in 2000. My2002 started in the late summer of 2001. I find it hard to believe that so quickly after the model introduction toyota would make major changes in the suspension and/or ball joints. It was by luck only that no one was injured or killed due to the suspension failure, toyota needs to react quickly and notify my2001 owners of this dangerous defect. Not only did the suspension fail, causing the wheel to move back and jam into the rear wheel well area, but it seemed to cause an almost total loss of braking ability. I believe the anti-lock brakes responded to the locked front wheel by modulating the power to the other wheels resulting in less braking force.

Filed Nov 13, 2004 · Brakes · 63,900 miles · CO

Squealing brakes and severe warped rotors causing vibrations while braking. Contacted toyota and was notified that calipers and rotors are insufficient for the vehicle. Tsb issued to repair if under warranty, otherwise cost is $2000. After one week of driving, following a replacement of the rotors and pads, notice an extreme vibration. Discovered that the rotors are heating up real fast. Notified that this condition could cause brakes to fail if not fixed properly. My safety could be jeopardized by this defect. Vehicle cost is $40k with additional costs to correct a known defect discovered after warranty expires. I expect more for my initial expense. Toyota should be responsible to correct these problems before there are any incidences of brake failure causing injury to anyone.