The passenger door handled broke on the back side sliding door. It was repaired but now to open the door from the inside you have use brute strength. It will not open easily and the shop is stating there is nothing wrong with it. However, the driver sliding door opens with ease even by a 10 yr old. I saw on many blogs that many people have the same problem. This is a safety issue and most places (school) and camps and any place else you are going to take your kids, they will have to get out on the passenger side. It is not safe for them to have to go into traffic to get out of the car. Then what if the same thing happens to the other door. Will the children be forced to climb through the front to get out, what if there is an accident and the front doors are inaccessible, how will the people in the back get out. This is very unsafe.
2003 Toyota Sienna locks complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 21 of 21, newest first, as owners wrote them.
My minivan passenger doors intermittently either fail to open or close properly. Most often the doors won't open and passengers cannot exit without crawling through to the other side or front. Occasionally the doors will not catch when closed, forcing me to drive slowly with hazards until it gets "unstuck". I've had these problems intermittently since the van was less the 1 year. The dealer has tended to blame me or make a repair which hasn't lasted. Most recently they replaced a door handle and supposedly adjusted a cable and told me the problem was fixed and guaranteed for 6 months and then wanted to charge for additional parts and service when brought back in 5 weeks later with ongoing problems. In reviewing your website this is a problem which has been reported by others. Sometimes the thumb piece sticks, other times the handle fails to open the door. A this point both door handles have been replaced and yet problems still occur, especially when it is hot and humid or very cold. Date given is when problem first started, still occurs in 2008.
Tl*the contact owns a 2003 toyota sienna. While driving 55 MPH, the vehicle's hood blew open and damaged the windshield and roof. The contact was able to pull off the road and discovered that the hood latch failed. He felt that the latch was defective. The vehicle was towed to the dealer, however, they were unable to determine the cause of failure. The insurance company is scheduled to evaluate the vehicle. The current and failure mileages were 65,000.
Dt*: the contact stated the sliding side doors of the vehicle would not stop closing if there was an occupant in the way. The dealer and manufacturer were not contacted.
Dt*: the contact stated the sliding door failed to open. The manufacturer was called who determined the vehicle was not under warranty. The contact would be charged for any work done to the vehicle. So thus far the contact has not taken the vehicle to the service dealer to address the issue.
The sliding door on my sienna symphony just quit working. The door was opened automatically and just quit closing using the same 'auto open/close bottom'. I have not been able to use the auto system since. My biggest concern is since then the door cannot be opened manually from inside and one has to get out to open from outside. This is very dangerous in case of an emergency and the leaving the van becomes life and death situation.
Dt: the contact stated the button used to open the sliding doors jammed. The occupants in the back seat were unable to exit the vehicle. The dealership has been alerted. Updated 7/25/2006 - the consumer lubriacted the button and now the door works.
Upon depressing the button for both sliding doors consumer has to put body against it to make it disengage. Consumer does not have a problem with closing the door. The external handler will not release the lock to open the door. Took vehicle to dealer and had the doors greased. But, it did not help the problem.
Sliding doors on the 2003 toyota sienna van may lock and prove unable to open from the inside or outside, trapping occupants.
Numerous times, the button on the drivers side sliding door has gotten stuck in the "in" position. It will not come back out, and causes the door not to latch. The door literally does not close. This is very dangerous since I drive my grandchildren in the vehicle often.
The door latch buttons on the sliding doors(where my children sit) have gotten stuck. I think the problem is related to heat (days where the car sits in the sun with temps of 95+). When the button is stuck the door either ( may not latch or may not open). If anything happened to my children because of this known and documented door latch failure, I hold toyota responsible. *on 30aug03 our family was going to our pool (it was a hot day). We all got in the van. My daughter closed the siding door. Uh-oh the button is stuck , the door wont close and latch. Our trip in this van is over. I stayed with the van, called our toyota dealer and scheduled a time to repair the door. Toyota could not recreate the sticking button and will not fix or replace. This was the third time the button stuck.
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