Home » Toyota to Recall Half a Million Cars Worldwide, 420k in U.S.

Rachel Bodine graduated from college with a BA in English. She has since worked as a Feature Writer in the insurance industry and gained a deep knowledge of state and countrywide insurance laws and rates. Her research and writing focus on helping readers understand their insurance coverage and how to find savings. Her expert advice on insurance has been featured on sites like PhotoEnforced, All...

Full Bio →

Written by

Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

Full Bio →

Reviewed by Jeffrey Johnson
Insurance Lawyer

UPDATED: Jan 19, 2021

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right coverage choices.

Advertiser Disclosure: We strive to help you make confident car insurance decisions. Comparison shopping should be easy. We are not affiliated with any one car insurance company and cannot guarantee quotes from any single provider.

Our insurance industry partnerships don’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own. To compare quotes from many different companies please enter your ZIP code on this page to use the free quote tool. The more quotes you compare, the more chances to save.

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about car insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything car insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by car insurance experts.

We keep wondering when the string of bad luck and clouds of misfortune will depart Toyota. It seemed as if no sooner than when they met their goal of becoming the world’s largest automaker the troubles started. And celebrating achieving that goal quickly passed, as they lost their top position to General Motors. Toyota even found themselves falling all the way down to the third position, behind Volkswagen.

That lack of sales success has continued throughout the year, as Toyota has lost marketshare with year over year monthly sales shortfalls occurring since February. And if the sales issues weren’t enough for the company, quality control issues with models continue to creep into the picture.

Perhaps creep isn’t the right word, since Toyota’s recalls seem more like a tsunami than just the usual course of business. In the last two years, Toyota has recalled more than 13 million vehicles in the United States. And today, the Japanese automaker announced yet another recall of over one half a million cars, 420,000 of which are in the U.S.

The cars under the latest recall include:

  • 2004 Toyota Avalons
  • 2004/2005 Toyota Camrys
  • 2004/2005 Toyota Highlanders
  • 2004/2005 Toyota Siennas
  • 2004/2005 Toyota Solaras (convertibles)
  • 2004/2005 Lexus ES330
  • 2004/2005 Lexus RX330
  • 2006 Lexus RX400h

 

And they’re being recalled over a potential issue with the power steering. The belt from the power steering pump can separate from a pulley, which will cause the power steering system to fail. Once that happens, the automobiles will become much harder to steer. All of the cars affected by the recall are powered by V6 engines.

Toyota suggests owners of affected vehicles that have questions or concerns to visit either the main Toyota recall site or their Lexus brand’s recall site. Owners can also make toll-free calls to either Toyota at (800) 331-4331 or Lexus at (800) 255-3987.