84400 miles on car. About 2 weeks ago started hearing growl when driving. No warning lights or alarms, just noise. Fearing a failure of something could put my family at risk we stopped driving the car and immediately took it to an Independent car mechanic who confirmed the transmission is failing. He called around to transmission shops and they stated they do even try to work on the Toyota CVT transmissions and only the dealer will fix them by replacement for $11k. We have satisfactorily owned Toyotas over the years and they have a great reputation but this transmission is a failed design. There is no way a transmission should fail in this short of time with this few miles. Apparently ours is not the only one and there is a class action lawsuit being considered for this very problem.
- NHTSA ID
- 11766654
- Incident
- Sep 9, 2026