The 2025 Toyota Tacoma has 34 of the 48 complaints NHTSA has filed under interior door handles this year

This edition covers NHTSA's owner complaint file dated Oct 6, 2026, with complaints received through Oct 4, 2026. NHTSA files each complaint under the parts of the vehicle it concerns, and one of those labels is the interior door handle. We counted that label for every make and model. Then we read the complaints about Toyota's pickups and truck-based SUVs one by one. See each complaint in the table or download the table (CSV).

The tables and CSV files on this page are free to reuse with credit to Model Years and a link to this page (CC BY 4.0).

The 2025 Tacoma, month by month

Complaints about the 2025 Toyota Tacoma that describe an inside door handle that broke or a door that no longer opens from inside, by the month NHTSA received them.

Sep 2026: 10 complaints

NHTSA's file ends on October 4, 2026. It has no complaint about the 2025 Tacoma received in October 2026.

Show as a table

Inside door handle complaints about the 2025 Toyota Tacoma, by the month received

Month received	Complaints
Oct 2025	1
Nov 2025	0
Dec 2025	0
Jan 2026	0
Feb 2026	0
Mar 2026	0
Apr 2026	2
May 2026	2
Jun 2026	6
Jul 2026	8
Aug 2026	10
Sep 2026	10

Key findings

1. One truck accounts for 34 of the 48 complaints NHTSA has filed under interior door handles this year. The 48 cover every make and model, from January 1 to October 4, 2026. 34 of them (71%) are about the 2025 Toyota Tacoma, and no other model year has more than one. The label first appears in NHTSA's file in 2021. From then to 2025, NHTSA filed 41 complaints under it in all, and no model year had more than two in a year.
2. Read one by one, 39 of the 2025 Tacoma's 100 complaints describe the failure. Five of the 39 are filed under another label. NHTSA received one in October 2025, then none until April 2026: 2 in April, 2 in May, 6 in June, 8 in July, 10 in August, and 10 in September. In August and September, 20 of the 23 complaints NHTSA received about the 2025 Tacoma are among the 39.
3. Owners describe an inside handle that breaks or goes slack, and a door that no longer opens from inside. 20 of the 39 say that to get out they lower the window and use the outside handle. Five say a plastic part broke, and five place the break at the cable that links the handle to the latch. 30 of the 39 name the driver's door. Ten give a mileage, and each is 10,000 miles or less.
4. 18 of the 39 say the replacement part was on back order. Some pass on figures they say they were given: "1,600 door handle mechanisms on a national back order" in one complaint, a waiting list that "reportedly exceeds 2,000 vehicles" in another. We could not check those figures. Four say a repair was made: a handle assembly replaced, a cable replaced, a door fixed after several weeks, and a handle moved from a rear door to the front. Five describe a second handle that broke, or a handle that broke again after a repair.
5. The same failure appears on Toyota's other trucks, in small numbers. Of the seven other complaints, three are about the 2024 Tacoma, two about the 2025 Sequoia, one about the 2025 Tundra, and one about the 2026 Tundra. Four of them describe more than one failure, and one Sequoia owner reports three handles in 12,000 miles. No complaint about the 4Runner or the Lexus GX and LX describes it. One about a 2024 Land Cruiser is unclear and is not counted.
6. NHTSA's files show no recall, no investigation and no Toyota bulletin for it. NHTSA's recall file dated Oct 6, 2026 lists seven recalls of the 2024 and 2025 Tacoma, and none concerns a door handle. Its investigations file of the same date has no investigation of these trucks' door handles. NHTSA's files of manufacturer communications, the newer one dated Oct 6, 2026, hold 711 Toyota documents for these trucks. None of them names a door handle. The newest of them is dated Aug 24, 2026.
7. For scale, Toyota sold 274,638 Tacomas in the United States in 2025. 39 complaints is a small number next to that, and a count of complaints is not a failure rate: not every owner with a problem files one. What stands out is how concentrated the pattern is: one model year has 39 of the 46 complaints, and all but one of the 46 arrived since April 2026.

We asked Toyota for comment on Oct 7, 2026. Any response will be added here.

The label, year by year

Complaints NHTSA has filed under interior door handles, for every make and model, by the year it received them. The last column is the most that any one model year drew in that year.

The first complaint under the label was received on Jun 16, 2021, so 2021 is a part year.

If it happens to your truck

• File a complaint with NHTSA. Use "Report a Safety Problem" at nhtsa.gov, with your VIN, the date, the mileage and which door. NHTSA reads owner complaints when it decides what to investigate.
• Take it to the dealer and keep the repair order, even if the part is on back order. Ask for the date the part was ordered.
• Tell everyone who rides in the truck which doors open from inside, and how to get out of the one that does not.
• Check for open recalls by VIN. How to check a car for recalls.

The 46 complaints

Every complaint this study counts, by the date NHTSA received it. Each number is NHTSA's own and opens the complaint at nhtsa.gov. The last column gives the truck's mileage where the owner states one, and "back order" where the complaint says the replacement part was on back order. Download the table (CSV).

How we counted

• Source. NHTSA's owner complaint file, dated Oct 6, 2026, which holds every complaint NHTSA has received since 1995. The newest in it was received on Oct 4, 2026.
• The label. NHTSA files each complaint under one or more components. The one counted here is written STRUCTURE:BODY:DOOR:HANDLE:INTERIOR in the file. A complaint with several labels counts once. The label comes from NHTSA's list of components, not from the owner's wording, so a complaint about the same failure can sit under another label. For other makes we counted the label only. We did not read their complaints.
• The reading. We read every complaint about the Toyota Tacoma, Tundra, Sequoia, 4Runner and Land Cruiser and the Lexus GX and LX, model year 2022 or later or with no model year given, that carries the label, names a door and a handle, or says a door could not be opened from inside: 54 complaints. 46 describe an inside door handle that broke or a door that no longer opens from inside. 36 of those carry the label. The Land Cruiser and the two Lexus models are not on this site.
• Two that differ. Two of the 39 say the door opened from neither side (complaints 11757331 and 11759280), and the second names the door's latch assembly, not the handle. NHTSA filed both under the interior door handle, and they are counted.
• Read and not counted. Eight complaints: one general statement about these trucks that describes no incident on the owner's own, two about a smart key that locked the doors, one about a tailgate, one about a truck that rolled away, one about a seat belt, one about a water leak, and the unclear one about a Land Cruiser.
• The date. The date NHTSA received the complaint, not the date of the incident.
• What owners say they were told. Back-order figures and waiting times are the owners' accounts. We report them as said and could not check them.
• Crashes and injuries. NHTSA's file marks none of the 46 as a crash, a fire or an injury.
• Toyota's documents. NHTSA's manufacturer communications files for 2020 to 2024 and for 2025 and 2026. We searched NHTSA's summary of every Toyota and Lexus document tagged to these trucks, model year 2022 or later (711 documents, 15 of them with no model year given), for a door handle. Of those, 16 mention a door: they concern paint on door frames, ice between a door and a fender, a window moulding and replacement labels. Manufacturers file with a delay. The newest Toyota document for these trucks in the file is dated Aug 24, 2026, and NHTSA added it on Sep 9, 2026. So the file shows nothing Toyota has issued since Aug 24, and a bulletin issued in the weeks before that may not be in it yet.
• Sales. Toyota's own figure for calendar year 2025, all model years on sale. It is here for scale only.
• Counts, not rates. We do not know how many 2025 Tacomas are on the road or how many handles have failed.

Caveats

• NHTSA does not verify complaints. They are owners' own reports, and some owners file more than once.
• The numbers are small. 39 complaints can show a pattern. They cannot show how common the failure is.
• Complaints follow attention as well as failures. Four of the 39 mention a forum, a Facebook group or other posts online. TorqueNews published three articles about single owners' 2025 Tacoma door handles, on June 23, July 4, and August 3, 2026. A law firm's page dated July 21, 2026 asks owners to contact the firm and to file a complaint with NHTSA. The data cannot separate attention from failures.
• Owners whose trucks were fixed quickly are less likely to file. The share that mention a back order says nothing about how long most repairs take.
• The 2025 Tacoma is a new truck. More of them were on the road, and older, in 2026 than in 2025.
• This is a dated edition. NHTSA adds complaints every week, including some filed earlier, so each model year's own page, linked from the table, has the latest counts.
• Spotted an error? Tell us through the corrections page.