Did anyone see this?

NBC Story on Toyota Recall or

Toyotasteeringrecall.com

Dadgum relay rod.
I'm really pissed that they won't replaced the ones on pre-89 even though it's the exact same part.
Technically thsi report states something incorrect - it's 90-95 4Runners, not including 89. 89 model is first gen and NOT covered (that's what i have).

with all that said - IMO toyota has done what is expected and at least typical for a recall, this is no new story - that recall has been all over the place for years. it's really hard to expect a compan yto be abel to track down people that own a vehcile 20 years after it was made, AND make those people show soem kind of recognition of having received notice.
Most folks I know throw away 905 of their mail. What else could they do?

Never saw the story, definately a sad one though. This seems to me to be a typical media move. Take a terrible tragedy and make it into big business not doing enough. Lets be honest we don't know what the actual cause was, could have been alcohol related, could have been an animal crossing their path or could have been a bunch of kids just driving too fast. I personally got both of the recall notices, first one in California and the second here in Idaho. If you ask me their doing something right to keep up where these trucks are otherwise I'd never had recieved the second one. To be perfectly honest I ignored the first recall, thankfully common sense stepped in and I took my baby in when I got the second notice. With a loss like this family needs to have a reason why and a poorly timed recall notice from a big company like Toyota is just too easy a target. Just my 2 cents.

The recall has been out for about 3-4yrs now. I know mine broke in May'05 prior to getting the recall notice. Fortunately, it broke just as we started onto the trail, and I was barely moving. Mine had suffered a fracture about half way through it at some point earlier, the metal had aged before it broke completely. I was lucky for if it had broke anywhere else on the highway/mountain roads/fire roads, it would have bee all over. When we went to the wrecking yard the next day to get another one, I found a 2nd gen 4-Runner w/the passenger side crushed and the relay rod broke in the same place. It struck me as being a bit odd at the time that this one broke identical to mine, but I thought it could have been a result of a crash and not the cause, and mine had likely broke from 15 years of trail abuse. I was in the process of trying to designing one from tube when i got the recall notice.

In hindsight Toyota should have ran a few informative commercials to make more people aware of the problem, or to get them not to ignore the recall notice. People still would ignore the information, but a public announcement would have ended any liability issues of people not being informed.

The kid was thrown from the vehicle. What, he didn't have his seat belt on? Who's fault is that?

I finally had my recall done last spring after having ignored it and put it off for at least a couple of years. Glad I finally did, at least for peace of mind.

My 4Runner is an '89, but not covered (production date 10/1/88) even though the part, design, and setup is exactly the same.

Wanting to go ahead and change over to the replacement part anyway, I called toyota today for a price... $205 for the relay "new" rod.

New one must e made of titanium or something <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />
I guess they have to make up for all the ones they're giving away free...

But on that note - are there aftermarket replacements that are beefier?

I haven't compared the spare I have to any my two replacement ones, but they look to be the same. I think the issue was with the casting process originally used, and not the design.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Earlier models probly used a different supplier.