AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 17 owner reports

Engine sensor failure on the 2000 Toyota Tundra

1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 17 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.

Reports of this failure 17
With an odometer reading 16
Reports per 1,000 built 0.6 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 13%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $180–$900
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 16th

When engine sensor failure gets reported

Owners of the 2000 Toyota Tundra report engine sensor failure at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles, from 16 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 125,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 86,439 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.

13% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 16 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
38,165 miles 59,240 miles 93,750 miles 101,300 miles 124,604 miles

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Of these reports, 1 a crash and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.

Putting it right typically runs $180–$900 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure, every year of the Toyota Tundra

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

Median
  1. 2000 (this one) 94k
  2. 2001 Toyota Tundra engine sensor failure 46k
  3. 2002 Toyota Tundra engine sensor failure 59k
  4. 2003 Toyota Tundra engine sensor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  5. 2008 Toyota Tundra engine sensor failure 34k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

The throttle position sensor malfunctioned on my 2000 toyota tundra. When I took it in to be fixed the part took two weeks to come in because it was on national back order. The reason for this back order was that the part had been redesigned and was not availible yet. This tells me that the part was faulty in the first place.

53,959 miles NHTSA complaint 389052 filed 2003-01-13

2000 toyota tundra sr5 4WD repeated failures of o2 sensors, have two sensors fail within 30,000 miles total on the truck. Expensive repairs. On jan 13 2004, toyota repair stated it could cost $800 to repair o2 sensor in exhaust manifold because "around half" of them won't come out and the entire manifold must be replaced. I know two people personally with the same exact failures on this year truck.

24,000 miles NHTSA complaint 449498 filed 2004-01-13

68800 mi. Check engine light on. Dealer said exhaust manifold and gasket were leaking. It and both o2 sensors needed to be replaced. One o2 sensor had been replaced less than 12 months before - now both!. Technician said they'd fixed 5 or 6 exact same problems within the last month - at one dealership!. Another web site indicates others are having the same problem. I smell mfgr defect that should be covered 100% as it's emissions oriented and because problem seems to be wide spread. It's possible to design and build a manifold that doesn't leak or warp. Toyota should own up and fix at their expense. Unconscionable if they don't, and need NHTSA to make them. *jb

67,600 miles NHTSA complaint 465259 filed 2004-04-11

Also reported on the 2000 Toyota Tundra

Other body or interior problem

316 reports median 112k

Other brake problem

177 reports median 38k

Rust or structural corrosion

166 reports median 103k

Premature brake pad or rotor wear

69 reports median 34k

Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure

56 reports median 133k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 17 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does engine sensor failure happen on the 2000 Toyota Tundra?

Across 16 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is engine sensor failure on the 2000 Toyota Tundra?

17 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed