2012 Toyota Sienna
This year drew an ordinary 247 complaints for a Toyota Sienna — the model's median is 162. What they were about is the unusual part: 29.1% of them mention takata, against 3.6% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the Toyota Sienna, which began in 2011 and ran to 2020. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 247 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 162 |
| Involving a crash | 10 |
| Involving a fire | 4 |
| Recalls | 9 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 21 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- takata — 29.1% of this year's complaints, against 3.6% across the other years of this generation (8×). Owners wrote it as: takata, takata recall, numbers, campaign numbers.
- differential — 8.9% of this year's complaints, against 2.5% across the other years of this generation (3.6×). Owners wrote it as: differential, rear differential, coupler, awd.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
SAYS MY REAR DIFFERENTIAL - VISCOUS COUPLER- IS BAD AND NEEDS TO BE REPLACED AT A COST OOF AT LEAST $1,300 AND THAT DOESN'T INCLUDE INSTALLATION. HAPPENED JUST AS CAR WENT OVER 100,000 MILES AND IS COVERED IN RAV 4 BC HAD SAME PROBLEM BUT NOT 2012 SIENNA NOTHI…
MY 2012 SIENNA AWD XLE HAS 103K MILES AND HAS A WHIRRING NOISE COMING FROM THE REAR DIFFERENTIAL AREA FOR A WHILE NOW. THE PITCH AND VOLUME IS PROPORTIONAL TO SPEED AND IS LOUDER AS SPEED INCREASES. MY RESEARCH TELLS ME THIS IS A COMMON DEFECT WITH THE COUPLIN…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V005000 AIR BAGS
- 19V741000 AIR BAGS
- 19V553000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 16V858000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
- 17V006000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 12V120000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
- 13V014000 AIR BAGS
- 11V560000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 9. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Toyota Sienna was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2012 Toyota Sienna? What happened to yours?
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