2013 Toyota Sienna
This year drew an ordinary 183 complaints for a Toyota Sienna — the model's median is 162. What they were about is the unusual part: 17.5% of them mention noise, against 6.5% 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 | 183 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 162 |
| Involving a crash | 7 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 6 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 21 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- noise — 17.5% of this year's complaints, against 6.5% across the other years of this generation (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: noise, differential, rear differential, coupler.
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
REAR DIFFERENTIAL- VISCOUS COUPLER MAKING A WHIRRING NOISE WHILE DRIVING. TOYOTA RAV4 WAS ISSUED A RECALL FOR THE SAME PROBLEM. TOYOTA SIENNA NEEDS ONE AS WELL. IT IS A COMMON FAILURE OF THE BEARING PARTS.
NOISE FROM REAR DIFFERENTIAL. BEARING IN THE VISCOUS COUPLER APPEARS TO BE BAD AND A COMMON ISSUE-TOO COMMON FOR THIS TO NOT BE A RECALL.
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.
- 18V024000 AIR BAGS
- 13V014000 AIR BAGS
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 2013 Toyota Sienna? What happened to yours?
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