What is wrong with my grill (and how to fix it)?

Okay, I recently (February 2022) bought what was supposed to be the ideal truck (for me): 2022 TRD OR Premium MT. It took me eight months of hunting and deposits to make this happen. This is my third Tacoma; I had a 1996 and a 2012 before this one. After a week or so of purchasing this one, I noticed that something was off about the hood/grill surround relationship. In particular, on the passenger side toward the headlight, the hood appears to almost sit above the grill surround rather than being flush as it is on the driver side.

I took it to my local dealership, and they tried to fix it twice through panel realignment under warranty, then gave up and said they could not fix it. They eventually just decided to say it was within specification after I contacted Toyota Corporate, so Toyota does not want to deal with it.

Here is the good side:

And below is the bad side. Two things that are hard to see from this angle are (1) the hood is raised about half a centimeter vertically from the grill surround down near the headlight and (2) the grill surround is actually rubbing against the headlight.

Has anyone seen this issue before? Any thoughts on what it might take to resolve it? I have been reluctant to get in there and try anything since I had naively assumed Toyota would address issues like this, but I guess I am on my own at this point.

 

A lot of Tacoma's have panel gap issues. If you are so concerned with it, sell the truck.

Remember, this is a mass produced truck. Not a bespoke luxury car. Somethings won't meet your satisfaction, learn to live with it.

 

They did try to adjust the hood bumpers. It looks like the hood/fenders and hood/headlight relationships are good. I have relatively low expectations for the gaps on these things; the tailgate is a mess, for example. This one worries me because the hood is not even touching the gasket on the angled part toward the headlight.

 

Yeah, I know what a Tacoma is and isn't. I am also not here to whine about issues with my truck. I would like to fix it, if possible, and was hoping that perhaps someone here has dealt with a similar issue themselves. Your feedback has been noted.

 

You say they messed with the hood. Did you try tweaking the grill surround? It's two 10 mm bolts and two retainer clips. Should be easy to pull and reset.

 

My local dealership sent it to their body shop twice. According to them, they removed the grill surround both times and reset it. I just went out and pulled the bolts and clips. Maybe it is normal, but it seems like the grill surround is pulling toward the driver side. I would have to pull fairly hard to try to center these 10 mm bolt holes:

 

The top clips don't align the grille so they don't matter. How it tabs into the bumper is how it aligns. There might be a little bit of play to tweak it, there might not be. Just depends on how brave you are with plastic.

 

Ha. My bravery will depend on how much it will cost to fix what I might break. The body shop manager here was saying that the connection to the headlights determined the alignment, which seemed wrong to me since those push pins don't seem to be doing much. I have wondered if just replacing the grill surround might do the trick, but I just do not know enough about the structure to have any idea what the problem is (assuming there is just one).

 

5mm off (like you said in the original post) is way within tolerance of panel gaps. I build custom hot rods and every car that comes through the shop gets gaps cut and realigned, it often involves adding or removing metal to make is consistent. The panel gap tolerance on GM cars in the late 60s / early 70s was 3/8”. There is some alignment adjustment allowance on the grill, fenders and hood but remember if you go about adjusting one gap your affecting another one…

 

A bit disappointing but why not just forget about it lol . I know It shouldn’t be like that but it’s not Rolls-Royce.Personally, I would consider this as a minor issue. But then again, I normally care less about these type of small stuff. I normally start caring when I see a chunk of the hood is missing.

 

Well, I guess my thinking is that if it is something easily fixable without a major investment in time or money, it is worth it (to me) to fix it. If not, I am sure I will inflict much worse damage to it in the coming months. Since I am not an expert on Tacoma body work, I cannot even assess what the issue is, let alone how to fix it. My hope was that I could get some insight from others with more experience with these issues to at least rule out simple fixes.

 

I just checked mine...all good.

And I have removed the grill to install my OEM LED headlights.



Looks good to me!

 

Good point. The Toyota body shop said something similar. They could not improve it without either replacing things or getting aggressive with altering the panels. I am not interested in going down the path of alteration, especially since it may just cause more issues than it resolves.

As for tolerances, the gap distances are pretty flexible in the service manual, which is why Toyota was not willing to fix it. However, the tolerances for flushness of the panels is much less forgiving, and the grill/hood on mine is more than twice the maximum tolerance in the service manual. The Toyota tech doing the measurements said he had no way of measuring that, so he ignored it.

 

If I wanted results that bad I would take it to the best body shop around and ask if what you want is possible, and if so, how much it would cost.
In your case Toyota has ‘given up’, meaning they are done throwing money at the problem, and they obviously are ok with the results. Unfortunately that still leaves you with a misaligned hood/grill . Take it to an expert and see what they say. Then you can decide if its worth doing.

I can tell you Ive owned 5 Tacomas throughout the years and I know for a fact a few panel gaps on my ‘21 are just plain bad. Maybe its the Mexico plant, maybe its a Covid era build, maybe it was built on a Friday. None of my other new trucks had issues like that.

The dealer addressed a few of the gaps under warranty and now they are a lot better . They still aren’t perfect, but I can live with it now. As long as I don’t get $ deducted for wonky panels when I go to sell or trade it down the line, I can live with it. Its a Toyota Tacoma .

 

Put a low clearance bumper on it and forget about it.

 

When the Toyota body shop guy looks at it and immediately asks whether I bumped into something...seems like a bad part of the truck to have panel alignment issues in terms of resale.

 

Just loosen the 2 hood bracket bolts and move the passengers side back a bit. It's fine! All it needs a bit of adjustment.

 

get a bra for it bro

 

Is the headlight mounting position at all adjustable?