The 2004 Toyota Tundra has 7 recalls, the most serious being multiple Takata airbag inflator recalls where the passenger frontal airbag can explode and send metal fragments into the cabin, potentially causing serious injury or death.
Several of these airbag recalls cover the same underlying defect across different filing waves and geographic scopes, with some specifically covering vehicles originally sold or registered in high-humidity regions including Florida, the Gulf Coast, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and certain U.S. territories, where moisture accelerates the risk. Regardless of which filing applies, the failure mode is the same: the passenger frontal airbag inflator can rupture violently during deployment rather than inflate the bag in a controlled way.
The remaining recalls involve the front suspension and brakes. The front lower ball joints on certain trucks can wear prematurely and develop looseness, which first shows up as heavier steering, a tendency for the wheel not to return to center, and clunking from the front end. Left unchecked over time, a worn ball joint can fully separate from the knuckle, which removes the connection between the wheel and the suspension and causes sudden loss of steering control. There is also a brake concern on trucks equipped with both the factory stability control system and the optional TRD dual exhaust: the driver's side exhaust pipe sits close enough to a rear brake line found only on stability-control-equipped models that the two can make contact. Where that contact occurs, the exhaust pipe can wear through the brake line and cause brake fluid to leak, reducing braking ability at the rear.
