I've never heard of a Toyota losing its tranny with so few miles, but my neighbor had it happen last week.

His Tacoma is a 2002, 4x4, 4-door.

He said he's been religious about maintenance at proper intervals; in fact the week before he had drained/filled the coolant, drained/filled the tranny, oil change, and air filter/PCV change, but the tranny failed on a road trip after Christmas. Left him stuck with a rebuilt unit and (almost) second mortgage.

The questions I had for him:
did you power flush the tranny?
Yes. (might be a problem...the cruiser forums suggest only drain/fill)
did you add any transmission additives?
No.
are you certain the fluid level was correct?
Yes.

To my knowledge, this is an anomoly--a very rare thing. What do you guys think? Have you heard of any others such as this?

It does happen; anything machanical can and will break. I've been a mechanic for 24 years and have seen it all; I guess that's why I drive a stick shift transmission, manual lever transfer case and a mechanical locker........less crap to fail.

An in-law was a toyota salesman for a while and saw a toyota tranny fail on the way off the lot. Apparently some gear in the tranny broke. It's expected that every product in production will have one or two bad parts come off the line, we just buy Toyota due to the perception that this happens much less with Toyota than with other brands.

Was it a 3.4 with a SC?

Ya some will say that a Supercharger will shorten the service life of a tranny (but TRD will deny that claim). I'm going on 130k in mine, and the thing still runs and shifts very smooth. However, it's no secret that the added horsepower puts a lot of strain on the drivetrain components and MAY cause accelerated wear and tear.
Also, like they said, any car can fail prematurely...it's still an automobile and it's still made by humans, and humans get impatient, stupid, or "bad cases of the Mondays." <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />