In the United States, consumers have the right to seek legal recourse if they don’t like the product, and many do. Honda is in court over steering issues, Ford is being sued over missing features in its F-150 Lightning, and General Motors has had to turn to legal counsel over an allegedly defective V8 engine. Now, Toyota is reportedly filing a class-action lawsuit in court over an alleged eight-speed gearbox defect. car complaints. The transmissions are produced and supplied by Aisin, a member of the Toyota Group, in which Toyota owns 25% of the shares, according to the lawsuit. This is not very accurate because Reuters Last year, it was reported that Toyota had sold approximately US$1 billion in shares, reducing its shareholding ratio from 24.8% to 20%. Regardless, the lawsuit blames Toyota. So what’s the problem and which cars are affected?
Multiple Toyota models named in class action lawsuit
toyota
Plaintiff Neil Pallaya filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that many Toyota and Lexus models equipped with eight-speed automatic transmissions “slip, hesitate, lose power, make loud whines, shift erratically and malfunction.” It’s a troubling set of issues, and the lawsuit lists the following models:
The above-mentioned plaintiff purchased a new 2020 Toyota Highlander in December of that year. The car was equipped with a 2GR-FKS 3.5-liter V6 engine and a UA80E transmission, which was also present in all the above-mentioned cars. The car had a five-year/60,000-mile limited warranty, which was all well and good, but in September 2025, with about 67,200 miles on the clock, “the eight-speed transmission began to emit a persistent, high-pitched whine when the accelerator was applied.” A dealer inspection revealed the transmission was faulty and needed to be replaced at an estimated cost of $7,451.33, the lawsuit states. Since the warranty period has expired, the customer is responsible for the bill.
Plaintiff seeks $5 million, claiming Toyota knew about problems for years
toyota
The lawsuit reportedly seeks “more than $5 million,” costing Palaia $405. His transmission remains unrepaired, and he says the Highlander SUV “has declined in quality and value than it represents and fails to meet the average consumer’s expectations for safe and reliable operation.” Additionally, he claims Toyota and Aisin were aware of problems with the transmission as early as 2015 (excessive heat allegedly builds up inside the torque converter, causing transmission oil to burn and degrade prematurely, damaging the clutch).
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Palaia’s class action lawsuit alleges that the companies should have ordered a redesign of the torque converter or transmission after Toyota’s warranty analysis group allegedly flagged the transmission as a “priority powertrain issue” in February 2017. This allegedly prompted the issuance of a series of technical service bulletins (TSBs) to address issues such as “sharp shifting,” “hesitation,” “unusual transmission noise,” and “improper torque converter operation.” The lawsuit also draws attention to the transmission control module software and claims the transmission should last at least 200,000 miles. Numerous related TSBs are listed below:
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T-TT-0580-19 (November 4, 2019) and T-TT-0580-19_Rev (January 27, 2020)
This article was originally published by Autoblog on December 1, 2025 and first appeared in the News section. Click here to add Autoblog as your preferred source.
