Wow, scary stuff. As others have noted, glad all are OK.

Anyone hazard a guess why it looks like both sliders are basically gone? Are they plastic now?

 

Anyone hazard a guess why it looks like both sliders are basically gone? Are they plastic now?

tap the door panels if you have one, they are mostly plastic with frames, like the rear hatch. the sliding side doors are incredibly light. like, the rear hatch, its a frame with plastic and skin that is also likely plastic.

 

To the OP: I'm sorry to hear about the vehicle loss but glad to hear everyone got out OK.

To the majority of the people involved in this discussion: Any time we pack a lot of stored energy into a confined space, there is a low level risk that the genie can escape the bottle. It happens.....

To those that misbehaved in the course of discussion: Grow up.....

 

Anybody have a dent in the panel? Plastic is no going to dent like metal.

 

Yea, from an 8 year old punk at Legoland. It looks and feels a little different from the one on the rear hatch from Disney World.

 

I had a saturn with the plastic doors, plastic can dent.

 

Yes - I confirmed with a magnet that the sliding doors, rear hatch and hood are not made of steel. Most likely aluminum.

 

My 2021 Toyota Sienna caught on fire while driving it last week (12/28). There was no collission. The check engine light came on, followed by "Hybrid System Malfunction" then a message to pull the vehicle over immediatley. We pulled into a parking lot right away and got our two kids out of their car seats before the smoke turned black and we saw flames coming out from under the hood. We called 911 and the people in the business we parked in front of came out with fire extinguishers and a hose to help until the fire department got there. Wondering what Toyota found out about your vehicle fire? Ours had less then 25,000 miles on it and was regularly maintained at the Toyota dealership. Thank you for any information!

 

Wow, I cannot imagine how scary that must have been! I'm so glad that you were able to pull over and get the family out of the car safely.
Can you provide more info on your situation? Did any determine the cause of the fire? Was it put out with a fire extinguisher and hose? Did the entire van catch fire?
Is your car being towed to the dealer, since it's so new and under warranty? I'm sure Toyota will need to do a deep investigation on this.
I won't begin to speculate on the cause, but the fact that you got a notification of a hybrid system failure and message to pull over immediately, that should certainly help to pinpoint the possible causes. There are probably programmed events/alarms/faults/parameters that would give those specific alerts to you as the driver. You certainly did the right thing by responding so quickly and pulling over to safety.

Please keep us all posted on what is found. Again, I'm glad you are all safe.

 

Sorry to hear that. You got lucky. Was your gas tank empty or full? Don't they do rear end crash tests? It doesn't take much to ignite an empty gas tank.

I have to do some welding on my project car and I'm considering taking the gas tank out. I read and heard a lot of stories about people blowing up their gas tank. A 12V battery is dangerous if it arcs and can weld steel. I can also see the wires to the fuel pump creating sparks if damaged.

 

Sorry to hear that. You got lucky. Was your gas tank empty or full? Don't they do rear end crash tests? It doesn't take much to ignite an empty gas tank.

I have to do some welding on my project car and I'm considering taking the gas tank out. I read and heard a lot of stories about people blowing up their gas tank. A 12V battery is dangerous if it arcs and can weld steel. I can also see the wires to the fuel pump creating sparks if damaged.

this is off topic, but as long as you don't have fumes blasting at your welding work, it will be fine. also, unless you were pumping fresh air into the tank, there isn't enough oxygen to actually cause much of a fire at all, just a woosh that self extinguishes and scares the hell out of you. you have wires running into your fuel tank for your fuel pump, and this has been the standard way of doing it for a very, very, very long time, and very few fires are attributed to it when the tank works properly and pulls a slight vacuume to pull the oxygen out.