The Tundra Engine Recall Now Covers Three Campaigns. Here Is What to Check Before You Buy.

 10 min read | Recall status verified August 12, 2026

Tundra Engine Recall: What Actually Failed

The Toyota Tundra engine recall started as one campaign covering roughly 102,000 trucks. It now spans three separate NHTSA campaigns and 272,349 US vehicles, of which 255,213 are Tundras. However, every campaign traces to the same root cause. Machining debris left behind during manufacturing reached the crankshaft main bearings, where it caused bearing damage and, eventually, engine failure.

The engine is the V35A-FTS, a 3.4L twin-turbo V6 rated at 389 horsepower and 479 lb-ft in most trims. Note the displacement, since several outlets and dealer listings print 3.5L instead. Toyota’s own product materials say 3.4L.

Below you get all three campaigns side by side, with the build-date windows, why the remedy changed partway through, and a step-by-step check for the truck in front of you. For a cross-brand comparison, our coverage of the GM 6.2L V8 recall lawsuit follows the same shape on a different platform.

The Three Campaigns at a Glance

These three populations do not overlap, so the unit counts add rather than double-count. However, one important wrinkle applies. The second campaign covers V35A engines, including service parts, which means a truck already fixed under the first campaign is eligible for recall again.

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Tundra Engine Recall Campaign One: Unconditional Replacement

For an owner, campaign 24V-381 remains the cleanest of the three. Toyota replaces the engine assembly outright, with no inspection gate and no argument about whether your particular bearings are contaminated. Remedy letters went out between December 17, 2024, and February 19, 2025, and the fix has been available ever since.

Progress is real, although incomplete. Toyota reported more than 77,000 of roughly 102,000 vehicles repaired as of May 20, 2026. Consequently, a meaningful share of affected trucks remains on the road unrepaired. Some of those sit on used lots today. Toyota’s field data behind this campaign showed 166 Field Technical Reports and 824 warranty claims as of May 20, 2024.

Why the Tundra Recall Remedy Shifted to Inspection

However, the two newer campaigns work differently, and the difference matters to anyone waiting on a fix. Instead of replacing every engine, Toyota inspects the number one main bearing using software and recorded drive data. A replacement follows only when the bearing fails the check.

Why the change? Scale is the obvious pressure. The first campaign committed Toyota to replacing roughly 102,000 engines outright, and the two later populations together add another 170,000 vehicles. An inspection gate means Toyota builds and installs replacement engines only where the data indicates contamination, instead of for every truck in the population. For an owner, the tradeoff is direct: a faster path to a verdict, plus a chance the verdict clears the engine entirely.

Here is the practical problem as of today. Toyota has published a remedy for both newer campaigns, yet neither has begun final-remedy owner notification. For example, owners of 26V-320 trucks received interim letters on July 23, 2026. Those letters flag the truck without giving a dealer anything to complete. Therefore, a dealer generally cannot close out either campaign right now. Anyone buying a truck in those populations is buying an open recall with no fix date.

Toyota Tundra Years to Avoid, and Why Build Dates Mislead

Searching “Toyota Tundra years to avoid” returns model-year answers. However, model years are the wrong unit here. All three campaigns fall inside 2022 to 2024, so the model year alone narrows almost nothing.

Build dates look like the better filter. Even so, they are not enough. Notice how heavily the first two campaigns overlap. Every Tundra built between November 22, 2021, and February 13, 2023, sits inside both stated ranges. Toyota defines these recalls by engine production periods at specific plants, not by vehicle assembly date. As a result, the door-jamb sticker cannot tell you which campaign applies, or whether any applies at all.

Therefore, only the VIN answers the question. Treat any 2022 through 2024 non-hybrid Tundra as unresolved until you have run the VIN. Our used 4WD buyer’s guide covers the rest of the inspection, although this engine deserves a check of its own.

How to Check a Specific Truck Before You Buy

Six steps, phone in hand, standing at the truck. Work them in order, because each one narrows what the next needs to answer.

First, photograph the VIN from the dash plate. Second, run it at NHTSA’s recall lookup, which names the campaign number when a recall is open. Third, match the campaign number against the table above to learn whether the remedy exists yet. Fourth, call any Toyota dealer with the VIN and ask the service desk to read the full campaign history, including completed items. Fifth, ask the seller for the repair order covering any engine replacement. Sixth, inspect the truck itself, since paperwork alone will not settle it.

Reading the Result: What Each Outcome Means for the Price

The lookup returns OPEN recalls only, which creates the trap most buyers fall into. A clean result means one of two things. Either the recall never touched the truck, or a dealer already completed it. Those are different trucks at wildly different prices.

Two gaps deserve attention. No authoritative source confirms whether a replacement engine’s serial number lands against the VIN. Nor does any source confirm whether Toyota reports recall engine swaps to vehicle-history services. So do not assume a Carfax report surfaces the swap. Similarly, remember the service-parts wrinkle: a completed first-campaign repair does not place the truck outside the second campaign.

What to Check on the Truck Itself

If the dealer service desk is closed, or the seller has no paperwork, the physical checks below carry the decision. None of them prove a clean bearing. Together, though, they show whether someone opened the engine and how the owner treated the truck.

What Warranty Covers a Replacement Tundra Engine

Owner forums circulate a claim about replacement engines carrying only a one-year warranty. The claim is misleading rather than false, and the distinction matters most to used buyers.

A Toyota communications manager stated the position on record. The powertrain warranty stays unchanged at 5 years or 60,000 miles on the Tundra. Separately, a replacement carries a 12-month unlimited-mileage service-repair warranty. Whichever of the two terms runs longer is the one you hold. Toyota has issued no warranty extension for this engine. The powertrain term runs from the original in-service date and caps at 60,000 miles. Many 2022 trucks have therefore passed the mileage limit already, even though the five-year clock does not expire until late 2026 and into 2027. Consequently, on a higher-mileage used truck, the 12-month term is often the real coverage.

How Toyota Describes Tundra Engine Failure

Toyota’s filings describe knocking, rough running, a no-start condition, stalling, and loss of motive power. Notably, one section of the federal filing asks Toyota to identify any warning occurring before failure. Toyota left it blank across all three campaigns. In other words, the manufacturer does not claim a dependable early warning exists.

Toyota does connect progression to load, although not in the way forums often repeat. The filings reference higher loads, along with timing-chain tension and engine loading scenarios, as factors in how the condition develops. Read it as a description of engine load in general, not as a statement about your trailer.

The Hybrid Question: Excluded Is Not Immune

The i-FORCE MAX hybrid sits outside all three campaigns. Plenty of buyers therefore read the exclusion as proof the hybrid engine is unaffected. The filings suggest a narrower reading. Toyota’s exclusion rests partly on the electric motor preserving limited motive power after an engine failure, which lowers the safety consequence rather than eliminating the failure.

So the hybrid is a defensible pick when recall exposure is your main worry. However, do not describe it as immune, since Toyota’s own reasoning stops short.

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Towing, Load, and What the Filings Never Say

A persistent forum claim holds these engines fail disproportionately when towing. No federal filing mentions towing at any point across all three campaigns. One outlet published a quote attributing “sustained towing loads” to an NHTSA filing. The phrase does not appear in the document.

Treat the towing correlation as unverified. For overlanders, the practical takeaway holds either way. A truck carrying a camper and a full payload works its engine hard. An open engine recall is a poor thing to take 40 miles down a forest road. Our roundup of the most reliable overlanding engines covers what a high-duty-cycle build asks of a powertrain.

Third-Gen Tundra vs the Alternatives

Notably, the biggest difference between a third-gen Tundra and its full-size rivals right now is not capability. It is recall exposure and remedy availability. For instance, a truck inside campaign one has an available fix today. A truck inside either newer campaign has a published remedy with no deployment date, which is a materially worse position for a buyer.

Cross-shopping puts Toyota Tundra reliability in scale. GM’s 6.2L L87 carries a roughly 600,000-vehicle recall of its own with active litigation, which is a larger population than any single Tundra campaign. A leaked 2027 F-150 order guide shows Ford dropping the 2.7L EcoBoost, although Ford has not confirmed it. Ram’s 1500 avoided an engine campaign of this scale, yet it absorbed a 1.27 million-unit seat belt anchor recall in August 2026. In other words, no full-size platform is clean. The honest comparison weighs documented problems against each other, not one flawed truck against several perfect ones.

The second-generation Tundra sits outside the argument entirely. Its 5.7L V8 has a long service record and no comparable engine campaign. It remains the default answer for buyers who refuse first-run powertrain risk. The cost is obvious: older electronics, worse fuel economy, lower payload ratings, and none of the current truck’s towing numbers.

So who should buy which? Take a campaign-one truck with a documented completed repair, or a hybrid, or a truck built outside all three windows and confirmed by VIN. Walk away from an unrepaired truck in either newer campaign unless the price reflects an engine of unknown condition and an unscheduled fix. Run through the standard questions to ask a seller as well, since a recall check is only one part of the process.

Final Verdict

Toyota Tundra reliability is now a documented question rather than an assumption. The third-generation truck is a strong overland platform carrying a serious engine problem across three campaigns and 255,213 trucks. For a buyer, the defect itself is less important than remedy status, because Toyota has already shown it will fix the affected engines. What varies is whether the fix exists yet for your particular truck.

Therefore, buyers who want the least friction should target two things: a completed 24V-381 repair with paperwork, or an i-FORCE MAX hybrid. Both remove the waiting problem. Anyone shopping a 2024 non-hybrid built between February and August 2024 is looking at an interim notice and no completion date. Both belong in the price. Also check the odometer, since a truck still inside the 60,000-mile powertrain window is a materially stronger buy than one past it.

Current owners, meanwhile, have a simpler job. First run the VIN. Then book the repair if campaign one applies, and watch for the final-remedy notification if either newer campaign does. Since Toyota reports no dependable warning before failure, treat any knock or stall as a reason to stop rather than to finish the weekend.

Over the long term, the more useful question is not whether this specific engine gets fixed. Instead, ask whether you want a first-run engine generation in a truck you plan to load heavily and take a long way from a dealer. Buyers who weigh first-run risk heavily often land on the second-generation Tundra and its 5.7L V8, a platform with a far longer service record. The tradeoff there is capability and features. Both choices are defensible. Let the recall history above inform the call, rather than Toyota Tundra reliability as a general reputation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Tundras are covered by the engine recall?

All three NHTSA campaigns together cover 272,349 US vehicles, of which 255,213 are Tundras. The remainder are Lexus LX and GX models sharing the engine. The three populations do not overlap, so the counts add rather than double-count.

Which Toyota Tundra years should you avoid?

All three campaigns fall within model years 2022 to 2024, so the model year alone narrows almost nothing. Build-date windows overlap between the first two campaigns, since the recalls follow engine production periods rather than vehicle assembly dates. Only a VIN check answers the question for a specific truck.

Can a dealer fix my truck today?

It depends on the campaign. 24V-381 has an available remedy and Toyota replaces the engine outright. The two newer campaigns, 25V-767 and 26V-320, have published remedies but have not begun final-remedy owner notification, so a dealer generally cannot complete them yet.

Is the i-FORCE MAX hybrid affected by the Toyota Tundra engine recall?

The hybrid sits outside all three campaigns. However, Toyota’s exclusion rests partly on the electric motor preserving limited motive power after an engine failure, which lowers the safety consequence. Read it as lower recall exposure rather than as a guarantee against failure.

Does a replaced engine come with a new warranty?

Toyota states the powertrain warranty is unchanged at 5 years or 60,000 miles, and a replacement carries a 12-month unlimited-mileage service-repair warranty, whichever runs longer. No warranty extension exists for this engine. The 60,000-mile cap usually bites first on a used truck, so check the odometer before assuming factory coverage still applies.

Does towing cause these engine failures?

Notably, no federal filing mentions towing. Toyota references higher loads along with timing chain tension and engine loading scenarios as factors in how the condition develops. Those terms describe engine load generally. Treat any specific towing correlation as unverified.