2011 Toyota FJ Cruiser problems
NHTSA has received 38 complaints about the 2011 Toyota FJ Cruiser, and 21% of them involve steering. Next are suspension (16%) and body & structure (13%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 38 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Steering 21% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 2 and 0
- Injuries and deaths
- 0 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 15,000 miles 25 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 17 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 2 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 3 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 2 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 0 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 0 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 0 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 1 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 0 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 0 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Of the 25 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 15,000 miles.
Safety-related details: 2 complaints mention a crash. Its complaints are less severe on average than those of 88% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2011 ranks 5th most-complained-about out of 7 model years of the Toyota FJ Cruiser with enough data (24 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 6 safety recall campaigns.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
June 19, 2016 my wife stopped the vehicle at the top of our driveway, which has a slight decline to the front of our house. She left it running, put it in park, put the emergency brake on. She got out of the vehicle, walked back down to the house and back up, the vehicle took off down the driveway, running into the house. The vehicle bounced back from the house about 10-12 feet. It was still running, with the emergency brake still on, but the gear shift was now in reverse.
Vehicle exhibited excessive steering wheel shake indicative of wheels being off balance. After attempting to re-balance 6 times at 4 different shops the symptom persists intermittently. Other fj owners of 2010 model year and newer fj cruisers have complained that their vehicles have exhibited the same behavior. The problem (based on feed back from other owners on internet forums) is spread across different models, wheel and tire combinations.
My issue started around june, I get the wheel shake/ shimmy at speeds of 55-65. Toyota sees the shake is there and then balances the tires and says its fixed . Toyota inspected the truck saying nothing is broken bent or anything saying they don't think anything is wrong. You can still see the shake is there and they keep blaming that the road is causing the shake. Saying its a crowing. In the road.
At 55,000 miles (6 years old) my front gravel shield had completely rusted off and was found in my driveway. I took my car to my toyota service center and they notified me that both control arms and both front struts were very badly rusted and needed to be replaced. I called toyota corporate and after much debate, I was told there was no recall for this matter and therefore they would only reimburse me 50% of all costs to replace said parts.