Vehicle traveling 35mph on a level street. Warm,dry,windy,cloudy afternoon. Sudden acceleration! Brief (1-2 seconds) ended before I could depress the brake. No damage,collision or injury occurred. Just startled. Checked for floor mat or other visible obstruction/ impedance, none apparent. This was the first time I was sure of the occurrence. There have been a variety of what appear to be electrical /electronic "glitches" : AC green light on button comes on by itself, summer or winter and sometimes I can not get it to turn off. Seatbelt light sometimes comes on when they are properly in use. (and nothing heavy resting on the seats) also airbag light sometimes. Service light remains on sometimes after oil change service. Brake highly sensitive gas pedal very touchy, especially from stop,ie at light. Hard to not spin wheels on starting. (especially when pavement wet, even on level st.). Fortunately, having lived in snow territory, I know the importance of slow starts and stops when possible. I have not checked any sites to see if sienna 2008 has any problems listed yet.
2008 Toyota Sienna electrical complaints
Page 3 of 3: complaints 41 to 45 of 45, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Tl*the contact owns a 2008 toyota sienna. The contact started the ignition. The "engine" warning light indicator illuminated in a flashing motion on the instrument panel. The warning indicator illuminated until the engine was turned off. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer for diagnostic testing. The technician detected an engine default code. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer on a separate occasion for the identical failure. However, the previous repair code was not detected in the computerized system and other error codes. The vehicle has not been repaired for the malfunction. Whenever the temperatures were 20 degrees or below the failure occurred. The failure mileage was 15,255.
Speedometer on my 2008 toyota sienna appears to be showing a faster rate of speed from 3 different speed radars in the city and county of honolulu. There is a 2-3 second delay, with the movement of the speedometer needle. It is clear, that all 3 radars show a consistent pattern of a 5 mile variance. The toyota dealership I purchased the vehicle from did not make appropriate vehicle checks to rectify the problem. They have referred me to a local auto repair with a dynometer which is demanding a $95.00 fee to check the speedometer. A mr. Kitajima the local representative for toyota has is refusing to pay for the dynometer check and is indicating that the radar readings are inaccurate. All three radars could not be defective and coupled with the fact that I've also checked the speed with another vehicle using a cell phone to monitor the speed with the other driver. All of these checks, clearly prove that the speedometer is inaccurate. Again, they all show a 5 mile variance of speed between my new toyota sienna (2008) and all radars and other vehicle checks.
We have an '08 8 passenger toyota sienna le. My son likes to play with the lights... We kept warning him if they got left on the battery would die. It finally happened. Had to go in through the front door using the key - stuck the key in the ignition and turned it and yup, sure enough - dead. Totally dead. There is no way to unlock the sliding doors. There is no way to open the sliding doors (from inside or out). There is no way to open the trunk (which can't be opened from the inside anyway - another concern) I had gone out to the van because I needed something from the trunk. I am 8 months pregnant with twins - there was no way I could climb back. My son had to. I couldn't even get into the middle row b/c there is a baby bucket in the center. If you were in a front end collision such that the battery was destroyed - the only way out of the van would be out the driver's or passenger's side doors. Maybe this is only true if the doors are locked at the time of the accident... But the van locks itself once in drive unless you have this feature turned off at the dealer. No one can get out the back or sides - no one could get in to help you. If the adults in the front were ok it might be very hard o get to anyone in the back if there is a car seat in the middle of the middle row - and then, getting back out would be hard. I totaled a car in college - it is possible for an accident to wipe out battery power. This has me pretty alarmed. It's not something you think of when you buy a car. No one thinks "will I be trapped if the battery goes?" but in this van, I think you would be, and it could be very dangerous. There should be an over ride where if battery power is lost everything automatically unlocks - and there should be a way to open the trunk from the inside! I am freaked out to think of getting in an accident and no one being able to get in to help out my kid(s). This is a huge safety concern!
I was programming a new sienna van homelink to my garage door opener. It started the sequence as one would expect.(.small house icon blinking )but never apparently moved on to the step of retrieving the signal. As required one must hold the garage door opener remote on to try to accept signal. After attempting this several times I stopped and was just in time to notice the motor of garage door opener was overheating and near fire! Fire dept was called and it was all checked out. In fear of faulty equipment I took steps to replace both garage door motors. After new openers were installed professional installers attempted to program the homelink. It failed once again. We tried several times and even tried to program other buttons. End result was button 1 and 2 of homelink are faulty and 3 finally programmed. So after replacing my own equipment which I assumed was faulty ...we determined the homelink system in the car was at fault and malfunctioning. This was determined after we tried on new motors ...so in the end my original equipment was not the cause of the fire but merely a result of a faulty program chip in the homelink. I was fortunate that my house had not caught fire as my garage is under the family room. I spoke with my dealership as well as toyota customer care center and home link and non of the 3 sources will assume responsibility of the faulty equipment. The car was only a week old brand new 2008. I feel had the homelink worked properly the 1st and 2nd button would of programmed as easily as the 3rd and my garage openers would not of overheated and near caught fire and place my home and pets in jeopardy. Not to mention I had a cost of $700.00 to replace equipment that wasn't faulty. I would like toyota to acknowledge that this may perhaps be the first of several homelinks to have a issue and to make consumers aware that there is a potential malfunction so they too don't overheat and possibly lead to fire in the motors in garage.
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