Shock top hat failure on our stock 2024 Tacoma Off-Road while offroading

[BAQ717]

The guys at Shocks Surplus seem to think these top hat failures could be in part due to the OR shocks which have very little travel before hitting the ESCV. They can be harsh on sharp hits and transfer a lot of energy to the chassis. I haven’t had any failures but can confirm the stock OR shocks do tend to bottom out very easily. Hoping that when I upgrade to a 2.5 Bilstein it puts this potential issue to bed.

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[CEtaco]

I have a 2024 Limited non-hybrid model. Can anyone tell me if this issue applies to the Limited model also (AVS). Also, I am not clear exactly what is failing based on all of the pics. Can someone point it out to me please?

 

[Sagebrush]

Can anyone tell me if this issue applies to the Limited model also (AVS).

I have no idea, but since these failures seem to have all but ceased, it's clear Toyota found a fix. At what date it was implemented, I have no idea.

 

[TacoFreak]

@sunapeelakers just reported a top hat failure in a 2025.

@CEtaco There is a good picture of the top hats that fail in post #128. You could compare that to the top hat in your Limited to see if it is the same. I think it might just be Off Roads, but I'm not sure.

 

[CEtaco]

Thanks everyone for the responses and the information. I took a look at my Limited and both of the fronts look fine as of now. However, the top post of each strut where the AVS wiring comes out is heavily rusted. I will be mentioning it to them at my next scheduled service appt. Has anyone else noticed this? I believe it's just cosmetic at this point.

 

[izzy]

can confirm the stock OR shocks do tend to bottom out very easily

done a fair bit of offroading in the SR and only bottomed the front driver side out once. was downhill, dived into a pretty big rut at 10-15mph. You really would have had to try to bottom out in my truck. like you have to go out of your way to do some stupid shit offroad to bottom it out. I probably should have slowed down before the rut but I misjudged it's depth.

the rebound threw the whole truck in the opposite direction when it bounced out of the rut

I think what we're seeing is the softer OR suspension (for comfort or offroad performance or flex) is bottoming out more easily. And maybe Toyota didn't quite match the right top hat to the potential stress it would be under with the softer suspension.

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