1999 Toyota Sienna. Consumer requests reimbursement of faulty tire carrier repairs. The consumer stated in early 2006, he noticed the spare tire carrier was inoperable, and apparently, it had rusted in place. He took the vehicle to a service repair station, where they replaced the corroded spare tire assembly at a cost of $300. Sometime later, the consumer received a recall notice in the mail, regarding the problem he previously experienced. The consumer then submitted the paperwork for reimbursement. However, Toyota denied the request, based on the fact, the consumer did not have the work performed at an authorized Toyota dealership showing completion of ssc A9E. The consumer then went to an authorized Toyota dealer to have the recall performed. Toyota denied the reimbursement again, in a letter which stated the repair that was performed did not meet the criteria for reimbursement under the special service campaign ssc A9E. Updated 02/06/13.

- Silver Spring, MD, USA

I have owned my 1999 Sienna for 5 years. Two months after purchasing my rear hatch door handle snapped. 3 years later it happened again. Now, every door handle on the van is broke. The slider doors stick causing you to have to pull hard on the doors to open. (and they were not sticky from soda) last month both the driver and the passenger front door handles broke. The design of the handles are poor in that the weight is not evenly distributed why pulling the handle. It all on one side and the weaker side snaps. The rear is a cheap plastic that snaps for no reason. If you go on the web there are numerous complaints of the rear hatch and the sliding door handles breaking.

- Anaheim, CA, USA

I am writing in regards to my 1999 Toyota Sienna xle. We have had (and loved) this car for all of it 134,000 miles, but recently the power sliding door (on the passenger side) stopped working. Using brute force, an adult can manually pull the door open and shut, but a child cannot. My local Toyota admits that this is a "design issue" and that he's seen "dozens" of such cases, but that has no bearing on the fact that it costs upwards of $1600 to make the fix. This hardly seems fair, reasonable or safe. I'm sure Toyota will spring into action once a van with a sliding door is involved in an accident where a child is trapped and hurt, but it's too bad that it will have to come to that for them to do what's clearly right. The NHTSA should investigate this issue further -- a recall of some kind is clearly warranted.

- Falmouth, ME, USA