A new recall impacts all current-generation Sienna vans.
Toyota made some major changes to its family hauling Sienna lineup in late 2020, offering up brand-new styling and a standard hybrid powertrain from the 2021 model year onward. The changes helped keep it a strong seller in the segment, with more than 75,000 buyers picking one up last year alone. Now, though, there’s a new recall campaign to watch, addressing a safety concern with the seatbacks on the third-row seats.
According to what Toyota told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), some Siennas could have improperly torqued bolts on the third-row seat assemblies. That may not sound like a serious issue, but in a crash, the seatback may not move as intended with low-torqued bolts, increasing the risk of injuring the third-row passengers. Factoring into that scenario is the fact that, in all likelihood, owners may have children sitting back there, so this is a matter worth fixing as soon as possible, both for affected Sienna owners and Toyota itself.
The automaker unearthed the issue in December 2024, during an inspection of the Princeton, Indiana manufacturing plant where Toyota builds the latest-generation Sienna minivan. According to what it told officials, “a Toyota team member found a seat back to recliner plate had low bolt torque on the third-row seat assembly. An investigation at the seat supplier (on-site at the factory) found that a bolt torque check could be intermittently bypassed.”
On February 6, Toyota determined third-row seat assemblies with improperly torqued bolts could be a safety problem, and knock affected Siennas out of compliance with federal safety standards.
In the defect report, Toyota reports it is not able to estimate the number of vehicles that actually have low-torqued bolts — so it’s recalling all of them built from October 13, 2020 through January 27, 2025.
What’s the fix?
Given the nature of the problem, you can probably guess at Toyota’s remedy: tighten the bolts. Toyota says it will notify owners of the problem between March 31 and April 14, 2025. Dealers are already aware as of February 13, and it sent out a copy of its internal noncompliance report to that effect.
Owners will then need to bring their Sienna into the dealer, where technicians will tighten the third-row seat back bolts to the correct specification, free of charge. A decent portion of affected vehicles are still within their warranty period, but Toyota will reimburse owners who paid to fix the issue out-of-pocket.
You can find out whether your Sienna is affected through the automaker’s recall website or the NHTSA site. Toyota’s recall number for this campaign is 25TA05, while the NHSTA recall number is 25V-086.
