Hole in frame - how bad is it?

westwind77

westwind77

New member
So after a summer of 'toys' in the garage I cleaned out my side and put the 4R in. Got under it to take a peek and was not happy with what I saw, a hole in the frame on the under side, passenger side, rear at the end.

How bad is this?

IMG-0179 — ImgBB
 
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whoa

Dang man, that doesn't look good that's for sure. I'd take it somewhere to get some reinforcements welded in asap.
 
Jeremy556 said:
Copious salt. It's also out in the middle of the ocean, so it gets year round salt spray traveling through the air.
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Yep. It's spent it's life in an extremely corrosive environment, and unfortunately it sounds like a case of out-of-sight-out-of-mind neglect.

12 years isn't bad for such an environment, and use.

The rest of the undercarriage is likely in similar condition. But an inspection will be in order.

In such an environment anything will rust or corrode at an accelerated rate. Either people really make an effort to wash the salt off regularly, or replace vehicles periodically due to rust/corrosion.
 
02SE said:
The rest of the undercarriage is likely in similar condition. But an inspection will be in order.
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Actually the rest of the frame is in decent condition. The frame on the other side of the vehicle in the same place is solid with issues. The frame in this rear section is by far the worst for some odd reason.

The vehicle is garage kept and out here on Cape Cod we do not get much snow, not like further west in MA, but we do have a lot of salt in the air.

I always wash the exterior and underside after any snow storm once the roads are clear and the salt is gone. I was honestly shocked to see this damage given how much I usually rinse my vehicle. I do not take this out on the beach either as that is big cause of issues like this.

I will say it was just at the dealer 2 months ago and there was NO mention of this issue as they had it for the entire day doing a complete fluid change of everything.

Currently have 130k on the 4R.

Guess I will call around to find a frame shop to get their thoughts and see if they can do anything about it. I would have replaced the vehicle by now but due to the lack of new vehicles on the market and nothing that really appeals to me I have been hanging on to this one.
 
"Frame" shops are few and far between as you will probably find out. I ended up finding an auto repair shop that was willing to patch my '03, which had a larger hole than yours for $1000.00, Yep expensive. If you can't weld yourself you are at their mercy.
 
Time for a Safe-T-Cap repair. Or ditch it. It's amazing what the salt air does to a car. We restored my fathers 1997 Wrangler a little while back for him and brought it down to their beach house in NJ. The side that faced the ocean and breeze had coil springs and other brand new parts starting to show surface rust within months. The other side was clean.
 
rdruss said:
"Frame" shops are few and far between as you will probably find out. I ended up finding an auto repair shop that was willing to patch my '03, which had a larger hole than yours for $1000.00, Yep expensive. If you can't weld yourself you are at their mercy.
Click to expand...

I called one of my nicer local body shops I have dealt with to inquire about this. They recommended another shop I've done business with getting transmissions replaced in the past for my business. They just received a vehicle back from them with frame repair and were very impressed with the work.

That said, my wife's vehicle look mint compared to mine and is 9 years old. I have work trucks that live by and in salt water that are from the mid 2000's with NO frame issues.

How much of this, if any, can fall back onto Toyota? I know they had significant issue with the 4th Gen frames and have multiple class action lawsuits going on.

Mine was one of the first 1000 off the line, is it possible they did not address the issue from the '09 year with the early '10?

I have a apt for the shop to look at it tonight after work just to get an idea of what we are looking at. Is it also worth taking to the dealer and seeing what if anything they are willing to do about this?

I know I live in the NE and salted roads and I could understand if I neglected the 4R but never washing/rinsing under or by driving it weekly on the beach, but neither of those happened.
 
westwind77 said:
I called one of my nicer local body shops I have dealt with to inquire about this. They recommended another shop I've done business with getting transmissions replaced in the past for my business. They just received a vehicle back from them with frame repair and were very impressed with the work.

That said, my wife's vehicle look mint compared to mine and is 9 years old. I have work trucks that live by and in salt water that are from the mid 2000's with NO frame issues.

How much of this, if any, can fall back onto Toyota? I know they had significant issue with the 4th Gen frames and have multiple class action lawsuits going on.

Mine was one of the first 1000 off the line, is it possible they did not address the issue from the '09 year with the early '10?

I have a apt for the shop to look at it tonight after work just to get an idea of what we are looking at. Is it also worth taking to the dealer and seeing what if anything they are willing to do about this?

I know I live in the NE and salted roads and I could understand if I neglected the 4R but never washing/rinsing under or by driving it weekly on the beach, but neither of those happened.
Click to expand...

where I live, road salt and brine solution is literally applied almost daily for months during the winter (nov - apr)... I have never seen a frame that bad. I suspect you must have gotten some bad steel or something, I have never seen anything like that. I'm no frame expert or mechanic but to me I don't think what I'm seeing is normal for your climate. the rest of the frame looks good? just the one spot and only that spot?
 
when you are washing it, you might not be washing the frame properly underneath or inside the frame. sometimes dirt or sand can get in there and if it's constantly wet because of the dirt, rust could accelerate. i have a 2005 also, still in good shape but was meticulous about the rust, cleaning it up and repainting when i see something though i've neglected it at some point. i've done a major removal of rust during the height of covid in the front when i replaced my lower control arm, spring and shocks and repainted it and it helped a lot with slowing it down. i have one major hole in the rear too where the upper control arm connects to the frame and differential. you will not believe how much rust i removed then around 2 years ago.

westwind77 said:
I called one of my nicer local body shops I have dealt with to inquire about this. They recommended another shop I've done business with getting transmissions replaced in the past for my business. They just received a vehicle back from them with frame repair and were very impressed with the work.

That said, my wife's vehicle look mint compared to mine and is 9 years old. I have work trucks that live by and in salt water that are from the mid 2000's with NO frame issues.

How much of this, if any, can fall back onto Toyota? I know they had significant issue with the 4th Gen frames and have multiple class action lawsuits going on.

Mine was one of the first 1000 off the line, is it possible they did not address the issue from the '09 year with the early '10?

I have a apt for the shop to look at it tonight after work just to get an idea of what we are looking at. Is it also worth taking to the dealer and seeing what if anything they are willing to do about this?

I know I live in the NE and salted roads and I could understand if I neglected the 4R but never washing/rinsing under or by driving it weekly on the beach, but neither of those happened.
Click to expand...
 
Over 10 years old I doubt Toyota will do anything about it. Where on the frame is this? I actually work in auto restoration (but we only do classics) and properly done frame work can cost quite a bit as it's very involved. I fluid film mine every fall and thankfully I don't have any real rust to speak of on mine. It was in the Boston area until 2018 when I bought it and brought it to NH.
 
Humble Leader said:
where I live, road salt and brine solution is literally applied almost daily for months during the winter (nov - apr)... I have never seen a frame that bad. I suspect you must have gotten some bad steel or something, I have never seen anything like that. I'm no frame expert or mechanic but to me I don't think what I'm seeing is normal for your climate. the rest of the frame looks good? just the one spot and only that spot?
Click to expand...
An important component in speed of oxidation is temperature. Most people in northern climates that dump salt all over their roads in the winter, only do so in the winter, when temperatures are low and rust is slow. People who garage their cars will have far more rust in these climates than those that leave their vehicles outside. If you also have salt spray being applied the rest of the year when temps are higher, you get lots more corrosion.

When I lived in Florida, I would see 3-4 year old cars that lived within a few hundred yards of the ocean that were rusted out worse than 8 year old Michigan cars.

You could fix the hole in the photo without too much trouble, but when something is rusted like that in a spot you can see, there is plenty more that you can't. I bet hard to see areas like around the body mounts are mostly rotten, and places all over the body have started to rot as well, even if they are not yet visible.
 
85GT-79FJ40 said:
Over 10 years old I doubt Toyota will do anything about it. Where on the frame is this? I actually work in auto restoration (but we only do classics) and properly done frame work can cost quite a bit as it's very involved. I fluid film mine every fall and thankfully I don't have any real rust to speak of on mine. It was in the Boston area until 2018 when I bought it and brought it to NH.
Click to expand...

Looks like driver's side frame rail, just in front of the lower control arm mount. I think that rubber hose with the stripe is the driver's side parking brake cable.
 
I finally had time this weekend to tap it with a hammer and wire brush the area.....NOT good. See below for more photos.

I know the 09's had this issue, could it be possible the very early 10's like mine that I bought in late 2009 have the same issue?!

IMG-0209 — ImgBB

IMG-0208 — ImgBB

IMG-0207 — ImgBB

IMG-0206 — ImgBB

IMG-0205 — ImgBB

Heading to frame shop tomorrow then right into Toyota after to see what they have to say about this. I was just in there 5K miles ago for a massive fluid change service. They had the vehicle for a day and a half and NEVER said anything about this!
 
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