Toyota Tacoma Maintenance Check Warning

Just Two Threads from Losing a Wheel

While there is a long list of common maintenance checks for ensuring that your Toyota is good to go during service at a garage dealership or in your own home garage, it turns out that there are at least a few not-so-common checks you may want to add to your list and/or ask the garage mechanic to check for you.

Related article: Why You Cannot Trust Your Car’s Maintenance Recommendations

That was the message in a recent Toyota Maintenance YouTube channel episode where the host shows how close a customer came to having his drivers’ side front wheel come off while driving in traffic.

Nope, it wasn’t due to loose or missing lug nuts, which happens quite often by the way. Instead, the eventual and potentially deadly accident waiting to happen was a loose lower ball joint nut normally held in place by a cotter pin. The nut was a castle head type with slots for inserting a cotter pin through to ensure the nut does not work itself loose. Which is especially important for trucks that typically drive under rougher conditions than cars do. In this case, the cotter pin had sheared off.

The Value of the Video

The value of this video is that it serves as a good warning to owners having their vehicles serviced to ensure that the nuts holding your wheels to the rest of the vehicle are being inspected periodically for intact cotter pins.

The other lesson is that if you are having front end work done on your vehicle, to politely ask that any cotter pins touched are replaced with new ones rather than simply re-bending the old cotter pin. Which you always do with your cotter pins when working on your vehicle…right?!

That said, here is the video in its entirety well worth watching.

I have never seen this before...close call

And finally…

For additional articles related to car repair and maintenance on your Tacoma, here are a few for your consideration:

• Toyota Tacoma Common Problems

• Most Reliable 3-Year-Old Trucks That You Can Buy Right Now

• No Panic Problem Common to This Toyota Engine

Timothy Boyer is a Torque News automotive reporter based in Cincinnati. Experienced with early car restorations, he regularly restores older vehicles with engine modifications for improved performance. Follow Tim on Twitter at @TimBoyerWrites for daily new and used vehicle news.

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