Tires on the Crysta go flat, flat, flat!
- Anjali Panakkat
- Jun 12, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 30, 2022
"The carmaker has restored the Crysta with 17-inch rims that has tyres with a stiffer sidewall."
And the 2016 Crysta owners were not informed. Here is my story...
Last week, it happened again. It is July 2022, and I am scared of doing a night trip on my 2016 Innova Crysta 2.8 ZX . All because I don’t enjoy changing flat tires at night, or looking for a repair shop at 4:30 in the morning. Day light helps because you can look at the road and can try to avoid all possible ditches and curbs. In our Crysta, flat tires from even the smallest pothole, or bridge expansion joint is the norm. I no longer enjoy my usually awesome road trips anymore.
If you are living in India and are a proud owner of the fully loaded, top line Innova Crysta, the 2.8 ZX AT 7 STR, with 17-inch rims with the older tires, you are probably nodding your head in agreement right now. Does this mean Toyota did not know about this problem? Read this and you will know that they did. However, they never offered a replacement, or even informed the original owners of this potentially life-threatening flaw.
Innova has been Toyota’s bestselling SUVs in India for many years now.
However, most sales for Innova are driven by its use as a Taxi, thanks to its size and comfort on long distance drives.
With the launch of Crysta, Toyota moved Innova into the luxury segment. Back in 2016, when we bought our Crysta, soon after its launch, we paid close to Rs. 27L (37K USD) for the diesel version.
It had seven air bags, leather, bucket seats, fancy interior lighting system, navigation system, fully automated front row seats, volume controls from the steering wheel and several new colors to pick from. We picked a beautiful pearl white, which was waitlisted then. Our dealer somehow managed to get it for us, and we drove it proudly to Kerala, just in time for Eid. Oh, and we had just traded in our older Innova for this one. We had Toyota’s Etios, a sedan before that. So, we have always been loyal to Toyota, and Innova in particular.
For the first 2 years, the only thing I remember is the smooth, peaceful ride on this spacious and comfortable car.
We could easily access our baby's car seat from either side to ensure that it is snug and safely fitted.
During our long trips, when our then 2-year-old wanted some mom time, I could just walk back and calm her down. I could reach the trunk to get the essentials, easily store tens and hundreds of things for both my girls (then 2 and 7), and have them eat on the folded tables provided behind the front row seats. There was really nothing to complain about. Even now, when they are 7 and 13, they still sleep like babies in the second row.
Never ran out of trunk space
We grew up together. Crysta is family
However, as soon as we put two years and about 15k on the odometer, the curious case of recurrent tire punctures began. Recurrence wasn’t a lot in the beginning, and we always had bad roads to blame. Another year, and we started to blame the worn-out tires. This one time, we were so worried that we wouldn’t make it from Calicut to Bangalore, that we stopped at Mysore and got 2 out of 4 tires changed.
Last year, when the second Corona wave had subsided a little, we decided to take the entire family from Calicut to Kochi. The distance is not much. We were 8 of us, including 2 seven year olds. And the car was packed with luggage. I can proudly say that we were still quite comfortable. Kerala roads are narrow but usually well maintained. We almost reached Kochi and that’s when one ditch in front of the famous Lulu mall almost immediately got us a flat tire, and a messed-up rim. Middle of the night, with grand moms and grandchildren, luggage on the road, and we are trying to get the tire changed. The remaining 2 tires were changed in Kochi itself before we could attempt our trip back. Ashif, my husband didn’t want to take any more chances, so once we got to Bangalore, he got all the tires and the rims checked and serviced.
We are a family who like to travel at night. Mostly because kids can sleep in the business class seats at the back, and the two of us can catch up on missed conversations. While we thought, we had serviced all tires and rims, it happened again in the following trip. It took us 10 hours to get to Calicut as compared to our usual 6. For the first time in my life, I suggested we start our return trip after the day break. And believe me, I have never said “watch it” and “slow down” a greater number of times than this last trip. It was nightmarish.
Our Crysta has now done over 60,000km on Indian Roads, a lot of it is on city roads as well. We drop off and pick up our kids from school in it. Koramangala and Sarjapur road in Bangalore are decorated with construction material, unfinished and badly made roads, and ditches and craters worse than on Mars. I never worried once about such things earlier because of this giant and sturdy SUV that I drove. Lately, all that has gone for a toss. I am praying all the time that I don’t get a puncture on the way to school or back.
We have been lucky so far to not have hit someone or something during these sudden flat tires.
During this last drive, our brand-new tire ripped completely and we are left with no choice but to buy another tire before we do our return journey. This is when I chose to make this post public. We discussed this with Toyota service center last time it happened, and they said the best choice is to replace all 4 rims and all 4 tires. At our own cost. All this after we had recently bought 4 new tires
I love my Crysta. We all do. But I hate this unpredictability. I am surprised that Toyota hasn’t offered a fix for its top line Crysta customers.
We now have reviewed information from auto shop guys, other Crysta owners, and different online forums, all complaining about the Crysta’s inappropriate rim and wheels for that size of the car. There is an apparent design flaw, and the provided specifications of the wheels cannot bear the weight of such a heavy vehicle.
What is worse is when I search for SUVs that have the same space and comfort, I cannot find any to match the Crysta. Toyota’s Fortuner also doesn’t cut it. I am looking at some electric vehicles and some other 7-8 seaters including the Hyundai Santa Fe and Audi Q7, none have as comfortable a third row as Innova does.
I am not sure how writing this all down will help. I am 42-year-old, mother of 2 girls, a frequent traveler, and love driving my Crysta. But I am tired of spending so much money on replacing tires, servicing rims, and still anxious on all our drives.
We contacted Toyota dealers in both Bangalore and Kerala, and other than acknowledging the problem, they had no solutions.
What I am looking for is, I guess, some help from Toyota, and from those of you reading this, about how to address this issue. I really look forward to getting a solution that has been implemented and has been shown to work.