Toyota is recalling about 44,000 of its 2024 Tundra pickups because manufacturing debris inside the engine can damage a main bearing and cause a loss of power while driving. It is the third recall for the same defect in two years.
The problem is metal debris left over from machining the engine. Toyota says that debris can damage the engine's number-one main bearing, the part that lets the crankshaft turn. A damaged bearing can cause engine knocking, rough running, a no-start, or a loss of motive power. Losing power at highway speed raises the risk of a crash, which is why the defect is handled as a safety recall rather than an ordinary warranty repair.
What separates this recall from the two before it is when the engines were built. The 44,000 trucks were assembled after Toyota added new controls to its production line specifically to clear the debris that triggered the earlier recalls, but they weren't enough. "Even after these additional controls, the remaining debris could be sufficient to cause damage to the #1 main bearing and lead to this issue," Toyota said in its recall announcement.
Toyota issued the first recall for the defect in May 2024 and a second in November 2025. The May 2024 campaign covered about 102,000 trucks and SUVs; Toyota says dealers have since repaired more than 77,000 of them. The November 2025 recall was larger, at roughly 126,700 vehicles across the Tundra and two Lexus models.
Toyota has not finalized a repair for the 44,000 trucks in the latest recall. The company says it expects to settle the details within the next couple of months and will then contact owners in phases, generally by how long a vehicle has been in service. Repairs will be free.
Until then, a 2024 Tundra owner can confirm whether a specific truck is covered by entering its VIN at toyota.com/recall or nhtsa.gov/recalls. Owners already noticing knocking, rough running, or hard starts should contact a Toyota dealer rather than wait for a letter; Toyota's Brand Engagement Center takes calls at 1-800-331-4331.
The debris problem has shadowed Toyota's twin-turbo V6 almost since the engine entered wide use, according to the company's recall filings and federal safety records.
The engine is the V35A, a gas-only twin-turbo V6 that arrived with the current, third-generation Tundra for the 2022 model year and replaced the truck's longtime V8. The hybrid iForce Max version of the Tundra uses a different setup and is not part of any of the three recalls.
The trouble surfaced publicly in May 2024, when Toyota filed its first recall, NHTSA campaign 24V381, for about 102,000 vehicles: 2022 and 2023 Tundra pickups and 2022 and 2023 Lexus LX 600 SUVs. The cause was machining debris, sometimes called swarf, left in the engine during assembly. Reporting by The Drive, which examined the failure in detail, traced the mechanism to the engine's design. The twin-turbo V6 runs high internal pressure on its main bearings, and when debris works its way onto the number-one bearing and the engine keeps running under load, the bearing can fail.
A finalized fix for that first recall was slow to arrive. A year on, Toyota's own count puts dealer repairs at more than 77,000 of the roughly 102,000 vehicles, which leaves close to a quarter of the recalled fleet still waiting. The affected population kept growing in the meantime. In November 2025 Toyota filed a second recall, NHTSA campaign 25V767, covering 126,691 vehicles: 113,079 Tundras, 9,895 Lexus LX SUVs, and 3,717 Lexus GX SUVs. By late October 2025, federal records show, Toyota had logged 2,604 warranty claims and 303 field technical reports tied to the engine from U.S. sources. Toyota has not finalized a repair for that November 2025 recall either; in announcing today's recall, the company said it is still preparing the remedy for both.
Toyota has changed how it builds the engine as the recalls have mounted. The 44,000 trucks in today's recall were assembled with what Toyota calls additional controls for clearing machining debris. Engines built after them got a further change, Toyota says: an improved number-one main bearing designed to resist debris that remains. The trucks recalled today sit in the gap between those two steps. They got the tighter debris-removal process but not the sturdier bearing, and Toyota says debris can still get through.
How we reported this
This article draws on the following primary sources, accessed May 20, 2026:
- Toyota USA Newsroom — Toyota Recalls Certain 2024 Toyota Tundra Vehicles — Tier 1 manufacturer recall announcement (May 20, 2026); primary source for the 44,000-vehicle figure, the defect description, the quoted statement on the additional production controls, the phased-notification and free-repair terms, and the references to the May 2024 and November 2025 recalls.
- NHTSA recalls database — nhtsa.gov/recalls — Tier 1; federal safety-recall records, including the Part 573 reports for campaign 24V381 (May 2024) and campaign 25V767 (November 2025), the source for the November 2025 vehicle counts and the warranty-claim and field-report tallies.
- The Drive — We Finally Know Why the Toyota Tundra V6 Keeps Self-Destructing — Tier 2; reporting on the root-cause mechanism of the V35A main-bearing failures and the scope of the original May 2024 recall.