Toyota recalls nearly 600k vehicles for blank dashboard instrument clusters
Imagine you’re driving down the road when your dashboard goes completely dead—not your infotainment screen, but your gas gauge, speedometer, and every warning light in front of you. That’s a major safety concern, and 1.3 million recent vehicles are at risk.
Automakers are discovering that even if cutting-edge technology works in a concept car, it can be a nightmare to maintain in the real world. This year, multiple automakers have recalled over a million vehicles for software glitches or hardware failures causing screens to die. Normally, multimedia issues aren’t safety recalls. But with more vehicles leaving the factory with fully digital instrument clusters, simple software problems can render them un-drivable. The latest such recall affects 591,000 Lexus and Toyota vehicles.
- 2023-25 Toyota 4Runner (SUV)
- 2023-25 Toyota Camry (sedan)
- 2023-25 Toyota Crown (sedan)
- 2023-25 Toyota Crown Signia (crossover)
- 2023-25 Toyota GR Corolla (hatchback)
- 2023-25 Toyota Grand Highlander (crossover)
- 2023-25 Toyota Highlander (crossover)
- 2023-25 Toyota RAV4 (crossover)
- 2023-25 Toyota Venza (crossover)
- 2023-25 Lexus LS (sedan)
- 2023-25 Lexus RX (crossover)
- 2023-25 Lexus TX (crossover)
Note that this is not every Toyota model with a digital instrument cluster, or every model year with a digital instrument cluster. There’s a good chance we’ll see this recall expand as Toyota investigates just how deep the problem goes.
The automaker warns that when these vehicles fire up, their 12.3-inch instrument-panel driver display screen may be completely blank. This means you won’t see your gas gauge, speedometer, or a check engine light if something goes wrong. Dealerships will inspect this “combination meter” on affected vehicles, and replace it if necessary.
Toyota will warn owners by mid-November. You can always call your local dealership with your VIN handy. You can also call the automaker’s recall hotlines (Toyota: 1-800-331-4331; Lexus: 1-800-255-3987). Finally, you can punch in your VIN at NHTSA.gov.
The plague of blank digital dashboard recalls
This year, Ford’s recalled 355,000 F-Series pickup trucks for failing digital instrument panels, GM’s recalled 41,000 Cadillacs for failing digital instrument panels, Audi’s recalled 44,000 vehicles for failing digital instrument panels, and Hyundai’s recalled 35,500 Genesis vehicles for failing digital instrument panels. Last year, Mazda recalled 81,000 crossovers for instrument panel software issues, Kia recalled 14,000 SUVs for blank instrument panels, Jeep recalled 33,000 SUVs and trucks over failing instrument panel displays, VW recalled 79,000 crossovers over instrument panels failing because of a software issue, and Ford recalled 63,000 Mavericks for a faulty instrument panel cluster . That’s 1,336,500 vehicles recalled, across 10 manufacturers. This list doesn’t include the numerous models currently recalled for backup camera failures caused by software glitches in their increasingly complex infotainment systems.
