Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure on the 2004 Toyota Tundra
4 crashes 4 injuries 8 of the 74 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.
When control arm, ball joint or bushing failure gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Toyota Tundra report control arm, ball joint or bushing failure at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 57,500 miles and a quarter after 112,500 miles, from 55 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 108,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 50,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 150,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 100,000 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.
5% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 miles | 57,364 miles | 81,000 miles | 113,250 miles | 150,000 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, 4 a crash and 4 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 $400–$2,200 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 on other years
The same failure is reported on 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2007, at a median of 55,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 155,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
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.
Dt: the contact received NHTSA recall campaign 05v225000 concerning the lower ball joint. This vehicle has the same problems as indicated in the recall. According to the dealer and manufacturer this vehicle was not included in the recall due to VIN. Although the lower ball joints failed the vehicle had not been repaired. *ak update 2/21/2006 - the consumer was driving when the right lower ball joint failed without warning. As a result the front right tire separated from the vehicle. *nm
We have a toyota tundra a 2004, my husband said it was steering like something was catching he took it to a repair shop they could not find anything wrong, so we picked it up that same day, took it on a trip, on our way back going 70 MPH on the highway it felt like the whole front drivers side of our truck fell off, it was a terrible terrifying jolt my husband knew that we had lost the tire and rim sparks were flying everywhere as we were sliding down the highway on the axel, luckily we were on a straight away with no traffic but one vehicle behind us. The friction slowed the truck down, we pulled it off the highway, we were surprised to see that the ball joint had collapsed and the tire and wheel were folded under the truck so that the truck was actually sliding down the highway on this tire and wheel, the sheriff said he had never seen anything quite like it. We called the toyota dealer to see if there had been a recall that we had missed they said no recall on that VIN number. After checking on the internet we found that they do have this problem on the 2004 tundra's but ours was not part of the recall. Toyota is saying that it…
Dt*: the contact stated while driving at 10 MPH the front drivers side wheel fell off. The vehicle was towed to the residence where the contact replaced the lower ball joint. Four months later the front passenger side wheel fell off due to the same problem. The vehicle is at the dealership currently for the second repair. There is a NHTSA recall, # 05v225000, regarding the lower ball joint. The vehicle has the same problems as indicated in the recall; however it is not included in the recall due to the VIN.
Also reported on the 2004 Toyota Tundra
Other body or interior problem
Rust or structural corrosion
Differential or transfer case failure
Other suspension problem
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Oil leak
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 74 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 control arm, ball joint or bushing failure happen on the 2004 Toyota Tundra?
Across 55 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 57,500 miles and a quarter after 112,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control arm, ball joint or bushing failure on the 2004 Toyota Tundra?
74 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 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