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.