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Your Toyota Tundra's Tonneau Cover May Fly Off, Remedy Not Available Yet

Toyota had a lot of trouble with the third-generation Tundra ever since the first examples of the breed arrived at dealers. There are still plenty of problems, with the latest issue coming in the form of tonneau covers that may detach while driving due to a badly designed joint.
Toyota Tundra 113 photos
Photo: Toyota / edited
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Last year, in early October, the Japanese automaker became aware of the flying tonneau covers after Toyota Motor North America received a technical report from the field. The company retrieved parts for investigation, but no abnormalities were found. Toyota shrugged it off as incomplete tightening during installation, but still decided to monitor the tonneau cover issue in the field.

Come January, a dealer informed Toyota Motor North America that a customer had experienced the very same thing while driving at highway speeds. The following month, the safety boffins finally had the brilliant idea of investigating the securing joint and verifying torque values.

Lo and behold, the torque values of certain joints were found to be lower than required to properly compress the lock washer. It was during this time that Toyota received the third field report alleging tonneau cover separation.

Subject 2022 and 2023 model year Tundra vehicles feature a tonneau cover that attaches to the front part of the bed. Toyota claims that there’s a possibility for the axial force of the joint to become insufficient to retain said cover, with the root cause being the joint’s design.

No fewer than 130,266 trucks have been fitted with the suspect tonneau cover, of which 13 percent are estimated to be at risk of tonneau cover detachment. The trifold hard tonneau cover is listed in the attached document under two part numbers: PT954-34220 for the 5.5-foot bed and PT954-34221 for the large 6.5-foot cargo box.

Both are manufactured by a Michigan-based supplier by the name of Extang Corporation, which is a Truck Hero brand. Truck Hero was acquired by an L Catterton-led consortium back in January 2021. There is no remedy available at press time for the flying tonneau covers. Affected owners will receive interim notifications no later than May 3rd (!!!) with instructions to remove the tonneau cover to eliminate the risk of detachment. Final notifications will be sent once the remedy is available.

The 2022 and 2023 model year Tundra pickups called back under campaign number 23V-142 were manufactured in the period between November 2nd, 2021 and February 21st, 2023. Precisely 16,408 tonneau covers were installed by Toyota or its dealer network, and 567 were sold over the counter. The Japanese automaker explains that over-the-counter tonneau covers may have been installed on any of the remaining 113,858 trucks.

Exclusively available with twin-turbo V6 muscle, the 2023 model year Tundra is presently listed by the build & price tool with a starting price of $37,865 excluding destination charge. All configurations get a 10-speed automatic tranny, and the range-topping powertrain comes in the guise of a hybrid twin-turbocharged sixer.
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 Download: Toyota Tundra tonneau cover recall (PDF)

About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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