Catastrophic failure/breakdown stories?

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we drive 4th gen Toyota 4runner's.. this doesn't happen unless

- Neglect
- Extreme abuse beyond design
- User error
- Accident
 
+72,000 miles with the old girl.

Once the alternator went out, I jumped it and it got me home to replace.
Once the sway bar link came loose wheeling and trashed my outer CV boot, it got me home to replace.
Once my rear shock reservoir line wore though and I had a bouncy rear on the trail for a couple hours til I got to a shop that got me a temporary replacement to get me 3,000 miles home.

Those are the extent of my failures! This is going to be a pretty dry thread.
 
The worst will be those that wheel in the rocks, and have had the unfortunate pleasure to grenade their rear ring and pinion gears far from home.

I did that in Moab but was lucky enough a buddy picked it up on his flatbed and towed it home.
 
Inv4drZm said:
The worst will be those that wheel in the rocks, and have had the unfortunate pleasure to grenade their rear ring and pinion gears far from home.

I did that in Moab but was lucky enough a buddy picked it up on his flatbed and towed it home.
Click to expand...

yep... which is a result of the 4 conditions listed above..
 
Was camping, hit a rock or pothole that I didn't see on the front passenger side of my skid. 03-05 has a weaker passenger diff mount bracket, it broke introducing excess play into the drive drain. CV snapped accelerating up a loose hill and the xfer case unlocked sending all the power to the rear and stripped the ring/pinion pretty good. The partially unsecured front diff rotated into and cracked both upper and lower oil pans. Happened in the middle of the day about 6 miles from pavement, took approx 16 hours of it being towed by a good friend to make back to pavement in ~40° and heavy fog w/out power steering or power brakes. Surprisingly, zero body damage despite what we had to work our way around and over. FJ Cruiser had a hard time towing ~6k lbs up 30°+ inclines lol

Ins totaled the rig. Rebuilt and back on the road, only thing left to do is reinstalling the skids. Basically a fluke accident in exactly how the rock contacted the skid
 
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Damn so that's the full story! I remember reading some stuff on 120 about reinforced diff mounts, I guess this is what happens when they break. Glad you got it out and rebuilding though.
 
NinjaOne said:
Was camping, hit a rock or pothole that I didn't see on the front passenger side of my skid. 03-05 has a weaker passenger diff mount bracket, it broke introducing excess play into the drive drain. CV snapped accelerating up a loose hill and the xfer case unlocked sending all the power to the rear and stripped the ring/pinion pretty good. The partially unsecured front diff rotated into and cracked both upper and lower oil pans. Happened in the middle of the day about 6 miles from pavement, took approx 16 hours of it being towed by a good friend to make back to pavement in ~40° and heavy fog w/out power steering or power brakes. Surprisingly, zero body damage despite what we had to work our way around and over. FJ Cruiser had a hard time towing ~6k lbs up 30°+ inclines lol

Ins totaled the rig. Rebuilt and back on the road, only thing left to do is reinstalling the skids. Basically a fluke accident in exactly how the rock contacted the skid
Click to expand...

This qualifies lol.
However its not completely a fluke, I saw someone a few years ago at a wheeling event have the same thing happen to an early year 4th gen. (unless it was you lol) I believe the issue only went from 03-to early 05's. im not sure the cutoff though. There is a number or letter stamped on the newer diff supports that were made stronger. Mines an 05 and has that stamp. The thinner one didn't.
There is more info on this on the 120 boards and there used to be someone who sold gusseted diff supports
 
Well,

I drove my 4th gen completely underwater - the engine exploded and I had to rebuild it myself because no shop would touch it. Then I was on a trail and blew the right front axle and rear diff and had to pay for an off-road tow back to civilization. I also blew up every single type of aftermarket CV I could find, 9 in total. Now I just have one in the truck with the tools to change it at all times.
 
My only issue is boring compared to these.

Changed the battery and the ECU went haywire. My engine stalled out multiple times, the floor and engine vibrated heavily, my battery light went on and off. Eventually after giving it some gas while idling in park and turning it on and off multiple times she was back to normal.
 
Billynath1988 said:
This qualifies lol.
However its not completely a fluke, I saw someone a few years ago at a wheeling event have the same thing happen to an early year 4th gen. (unless it was you lol) I believe the issue only went from 03-to early 05's. im not sure the cutoff though. There is a number or letter stamped on the newer diff supports that were made stronger. Mines an 05 and has that stamp. The thinner one didn't.
There is more info on this on the 120 boards and there used to be someone who sold gusseted diff supports
Click to expand...
Fluke in that I had full RCI steel skids and it deformed the skid enough to kiss and cause the bracket to break. 06+ for sure should all have the redesigned bracket, and it sounds like late '05 models.

No, it wasn't me... but I do have the beefier bracket now.
 
[MENTION=119029]NinjaOne[/MENTION]

was this just in the last couple months? up on Manastash ridge?

if so, some of the guys I run with passed you, and the group you were in. one of them posted some pics on our local page. sounded like a brutal trip.
 
nevada said:
[MENTION=119029]NinjaOne[/MENTION]

was this just in the last couple months? up on Manastash ridge?

if so, some of the guys I run with passed you, and the group you were in. one of them posted some pics on our local page. sounded like a brutal trip.
Click to expand...

That would've been me. If they got any good pics send them my way lol

It was a bit brutal. Thankfully no injuries or damage beyond what was listed above. Any other group I would've had to abandon and attempt to recover later; Empty Pocket Crawler crew is amazing!

Coming down several of those hills we had multiple rigs with 4.88 gears in low and riding their brakes me strapped to my hitch attempting to keep me at a safe decent speed. Pretty sure I was the heaviest rig there, majority of the group was FJs. V8 + full armor ain't light. I stayed a day longer than I had been planning and; didn't roll into camp until 2 AM (broke at ~2 PM) Took another ~5 hours to get to pavement from camp the following day.
 
As someone mentioned earlier, this is gonna be pretty dry - unless you get a lot of folks responding who had major, catastrophic failures on their 250,000-mile rigs - LOL! Now, switch brands...?
 
NinjaOne said:
That would've been me. If they got any good pics send them my way lol

It was a bit brutal. Thankfully no injuries or damage beyond what was listed above. Any other group I would've had to abandon and attempt to recover later; Empty Pocket Crawler crew is amazing!

Coming down several of those hills we had multiple rigs with 4.88 gears in low and riding their brakes me strapped to my hitch attempting to keep me at a safe decent speed. Pretty sure I was the heaviest rig there, majority of the group was FJs. V8 + full armor ain't light. I stayed a day longer than I had been planning and; didn't roll into camp until 2 AM (broke at ~2 PM) Took another ~5 hours to get to pavement from camp the following day.
Click to expand...

pretty sure there was a video too. lol. sounded bad.

check your inbox, PM incoming.
 
Only major failure so far was the stupid t-case actuator. I went on a hiking trip with some friends and a buddy lost some gear at a previous campsite. We drove about 40 miles around a big loop and up some old logging roads to try and get within a reasonable walk of the site. The last few miles the road was steep/rough enough to warrant 4-lo.

Once we got back down the mountain to the blacktop the darned thing wouldn't shift out of 4-lo. Actually it shifted out "sort of". The computer got all kinds of confused and the dash said it was in 4-hi but the engine was screaming to do about 45mph. We nursed it back to a parking area to meet up with some other friends.

I spent the night checking the forums, having my buddy try and shift it while I tapped/banged on the actuator. I loosened the bolts and wiggled it while trying to shift, disconnected the 4wd ECU, etc. Most everything I could find to get this thing un-stuck but nothing worked.

At the end of the day I had a 10hr drive home so I had to disassemble the actuator, shift the rods manually into 2-Hi, and then ziptie them in place. It cost me a new actuator and about 2 weeks of screwing around in my garage to get it reinstalled. Now I've got a reminder set to shift that darned thing at least once a month......
 
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