Kaptein Caprivi blogs…

As I previously stated, I do receive emails from people regarding their Fortuner stories. Sometimes I receive an email which horrifies me. I have no way to verify these mails, but then again I can’t see people going through all the trouble to send me these mails if they were not true. I received this mail yesterday.

Hi Kaptein,

Has the story about the Toyota Fortuner Rollover problem been aired on Carte Blanche yet? (KC: Not yet.)

I rolled our Toyota Fortuner on the 5th July 2009 on a dirt road I travel frequently doing between 80 and 90k’s when the back of the vehicle swung out when I went over some corrugations in the road. The vehicle rolled over once and thankfully landed back on its wheels.  My two year old son was with me in the vehicle and miraculously he was not injured. We were both wearing our seatbelts but I however broke my pelvis in 4 places, shattered by knee and shin. I had two big operations to reconstruct my pelvis, knee and shin.  I am confined to a wheel chair for the next 3 months and it will be 6 months before full recovery.  This experience left both myself and my husband very dissappointed in Toyota.  My husband contacted Toyota and asked them to do a technical investigation into the accident since he felt there was a serious problem with these vehicles.  My husband is a farmer and he travels extensive areas on dirt roads in his Toyota Hilux bakkie on a daily basis  Over the past 14 years he has owned various Toyota vehicles and never experienced what he did in the Fortuner.  He contacted Toyota when our vehicle had 30 000 k’s on the clock to complain about its unstability.  He was told all we needed to do was replace the tyres which they did for us at 50 000 k’s and I then rolled the vehicle at 57 000 k’s.

The technical investigation findings on our vehicle was that we drove the vehicle with tyres in an under inflated state and that could cause stability problems.  When my husband contacted them again to explain that the vehicle had been towed for 8 k’s on a dirt road and a futher 2 k’s with a scew suspension and flat tyres and that that is what caused the damage to the tyres, they were arrogant enought to tell him the case was closed and that was their final stance in this regard.

This experience has cost us both emotionally and financially and has left us hesitant towards purchasing another Toyota even though it is the only vehicle we have ever considered before…