2023 Toyota 4Runner UNKNOWN OR OTHER

the rear manual tailgate has opened 3 times while the vehicle was at highway speeds and the doors would be locked. the latest incident happened on 1-30-26, at highway speed (70mph) the tailgate opened completely without warning. the indicator on the dash did light up and an alarm did sound. I had been on the road approximately 10 miles without incident before that. this was the third time this happened, although the first two the door did not completely open, only became unlatched but stayed shut. all three times were mornings that were extremely cold. (below -1 F) each time i made sure there was no ice or snow or other object in the way of securely closing the tailgate. even if there were, the door would not be closed from the onset and the dash warning should have indicated the door was not completely latched.

Started driving on the freeway when we heard something on the roof of the car and when I opened the moonroof cover from inside the car I could see that the entire moonroof had shattered. All the glass was flying off the car and onto the freeway.

A new 4Runner over a year old has an OEM windshield safety concern. The dealership has been polite with my concerns. With normal use, the windshield has been compromised by what appears to have been the slightest road debris. I’m up to 7 repairs. All repairs at dealership except 1. I love this vehicle out of my many vehicles since 1988, even the Toyotas (i.e. Tundra, Camry, CHR, and FJ cruiser [12 years, 2 chips with 150K miles]) yet this 2023 4Runner’s windshield is defective by any logical reasoning. I’m concerned with the potential of it shattering.

While driving the 4Runner on a clear road with no vehicles in close proximity, I heard a loud explosion like noise. I looked around and didn’t see any damage, I didn’t strike anything , nothing hit me. As I continued driving I could hear glass noise above and realized it could have been the sunroof. I pulled over and pulled back the sunroof cover and confirmed that the glass was broken. Luckily my 6 month old baby was not in the vehicle and the sunroof was closed and covered so no glass made its way into the car but I would consider this a high risk near miss. Once I got home I inspected the damage further and noticed that the glass broke upwards. I made an appointment with the dealership that I purchased 4Runner from (Victory Toyota in Canton, MI) and explained to them what happened. The dealership was initially adamant that something must have struck the sunroof but I explained that this scenario is improbably given the height of the vehicle and the amount of force needed to cause such a large hole, additionally the glass broke upward and you can see that in the photos attached. Once at the dealership they confirmed that the glass was raised up. Vehicle is now being repaired. I’ll add that I found a NHTSA investigation report for Kia but there was no resolution noted. As an engineer i believe this is a design and/or assembly issue associated with the clearances in the glass sunroof assembly. Too tight tolerances would create additional stress on the glass, thermal cycling of the glass further aggrevates until glass ultimately fails. Very scary situation and I hope NHTSA starts taking these complaints seriously.

4runner windshield makes a loud snapping, metal on glass crunching/tapping sound when temperature drop and is very distracting. The dealership heard it some the first visit and placed limited tape on the edge of the cowl lip facing the engine.sound got louder and drowned out the radio. On the second visit it had warmed some. Dealership did not inspect the windshield seal or check for loose components under the cowl as suggested.

Regarding jack components included with the vehicle. An unknown person, let the air out of one of my tires as an act of vandalism, harassment, or, possibly as a set up for a crime, as is common in California. I attempted to lower my spare tire so that I could put it on and address the tire that has been deflated at another location. The equipment supplied to access the pulley that drops the tire was unusable. The pieces look to be powder coated in a brown color and have combination screw or socket heads on them. There are two of these screws needed to put three pieces together, in order to access , the chain driven pulley to access my spare tire. These screws were apparently powder coated together making it impossible to loosen so that these pieces could be put together to do its function, I have sent come home and, trying to use both the socket set, which does not work, because the powder coating changes the overall size of the screw head. I also tried a screwdriver. These lock screws are unmovable with reasonable and even slightly excessive force. I do need to access my spare tire, even though somebody did come along with an air pump to assist me on that one incident, I need assistance quickly. I do not trust Toyota to resolve my problem in an efficient and non-financially punishing way. This is a dangerous situation. Imagine somebody having a flat tire in the remote area or a dangerous area and needing to leave an area quickly. Toyota should replace all of these parts. I attempted to upload a file, but the form was not permitting me using Google Chrome on an Apple iPhone