Toyota recently expanded its recall of the new Tundra’s V6 engines, but there’s a warning for owners of later models.
Since its initial launch, there has been concern and disappointment over the new 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 in the Toyota Tundra. The saga continued last month, when Toyota recalled about 44,000 more trucks to address a manufacturing defect, bringing the total to about 270,000 units globally. The automaker’s statement in May did not include any measures for the latest batch of trucks, but people assumed it would follow the same process as previous units by replacing faulty engines. he is No The case, as reported by Toyota to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) An updated recall report published on June 15.
The remedy program will be as follows: “All known owners of the subject vehicles (in this case 43,566 Tundras manufactured between February 7, 2024 and August 5, 2024) will be notified to return their vehicles to a Toyota and Lexus dealer. Using an inspection software, the dealer will evaluate the #1 main bearing and collect available vehicle drive data to confirm the condition of that bearing. If the inspection software cannot confirm that this If the bearing is free of abnormal wear, the dealer will replace the engine. Treatment will be provided free of charge.
You probably missed the main point of that statement, but here’s a quick summary anyway: If you have the latest 2024 Toyota Tundra, you might be No Receive a new engine as a point of order.
The automaker is using a software-based approach instead, though these units apparently have the same problem as the two recalls that preceded last month’s latest campaign: one in May 2024 and the other in November 2025.
Now, in another letterToyota explained the chronology of its latest recalls. As early as May 2026, it finished the analysis of #1 main bearings from engine bursts in trucks manufactured after It implemented improvements to the bearings in July 2024. “Toyota investigated the effects on bearing pressure of one of these changes, the cam housing clearance change, and in collaboration with the supplier, also studied the progression of wear of bearings from engines in the field. To do this, non-failed engines and engines with a reported #1 main bearing failure were collected, towned down, and the bearings were sent to the supplier for analysis.”
In February, the automaker further said it found “a stack of bearing pressures based on variables that included timing chain tension and engine loading scenarios, but this pressure stack could not differentiate engines that were previously recalled from engines produced during the period under study (in 2024 and 2025).” Toyota ultimately determined through bench testing on the #1 bearings that those components produced during the latest recall matched those from the previous two campaigns.
“Based on the results of the above investigation, Toyota determined that, during a specific production period following the recalls of 24V-381 and 25V-767, but prior to the implementation of a certain improvement to the #1 main bearing, there is a possibility that engine machining debris of a particular size and quantity may not have been cleared from the engine during manufacturing and may result in (bearing failure).”
Toyota’s revamp may give new owners the all-clear…but for some, the damage has already been done.
While Tundra sales declined slightly in 2025, hundreds of thousands of customers still gave Toyota’s full-size truck a shot, even as the engine recall saga began to take hold. As things stand right now, Toyota has replaced more than 70,000 V6 engines, and many of those came after long waits as dealers and owners alike faced massive backlogs to complete repairs.
This new software is set to inspect new engines, according to a report by driveLooks at the resonant frequency of the crankshaft in conjunction with data from the engine’s onboard computer to assess the condition of the #1 main bearing. This way, technicians don’t have to dismantle the engine, and Toyota says it will replace engines if there isn’t enough data to say conclusively whether the bearing is still in good condition.
Nevertheless, this leaves considerable ambiguity as to whether the inspector is “confident” of this effect. Will not done fail, and how it may vary from dealer to dealer (even with Toyota’s instructions on the matter). This is also sidestepping the issue of what caused the failure in the first place, why it took so long to apparently fix it in production, and why some owners may still have little doubt even after a “clean” inspection that their suspect engine may have failed at some point. And owners of all groups on social media and forums are harping on this, as well as having inconsistent communication on the issue.
Overall, Recall Crosshair owners are understandably disappointed with this years-long saga. In an age when more and more vehicle defects are “fixed” via software, seeing those who have received a replacement engine for an acknowledged manufacturing problem provides little, if any, peace of mind. Today’s Tundras ship with an improved Main Bearing #1 to avoid the debris that Toyota is attributing to earlier engine failures. The idea is that, even if there is debris, at least it will not result in bearing failure and a destroyed engine.
Since there have been three recalls so far regarding this engine, however, the question is whether these new engines can also fail. And even if they hopefully don’t (probably). especially If they don’t), that’s why some owners may feel like they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place between engines that are sure to fail, and a stable engine that almost certainly won’t fail. They will still have the cloud of bearing problems hanging over them, even if Toyota’s rigorously developed software and an inspector give that engine a clean bill of health…rather than completely replacing the engine to remove the concern forever.
For those owners, the damage may already be done. At any rate, the ongoing recall campaigns have significantly dented Toyota’s reputation for durability and reliability, especially with its trucks.
