Tacoma’s New Struts: Perfect Solution for Hood Alignment and Stability

NoMerciTaco · 2026-04-28T22:27:03+00:00

Bought a new 2026 Tacoma Trailhunter about 6 weeks ago. Currently at 355 miles. I had a professional install two Motohorn train horns, Gasoray kill switch, fang lights, two auxiliary lights, and a heads-up display. I dropped it off to get PPF wrapped. When I picked it up and started it, the RPMs were fluttering up and down, almost dying, then fluttering again. When I tried to leave the parking lot, I had no acceleration at all and had to coast to a stop. The dash showed: • Hybrid System Stopped • Steering Power Low Dealer scanned it and the hybrid battery is only showing 12%. The tech said he’s never seen this before and there are no diagnostic codes stored. He explained that because the kill switch completely powers down the entire truck, the system can’t keep any codes stored — the system needs to stay powered on / running in the background for diagnostic codes to remain. They’re telling me they might need to order a special Toyota hybrid battery charger, that I may have to pay for a license to use it, and that I shouldn’t expect the truck back by this weekend. They also want me to approve 4 hours of diagnostics ($920) before they’ll even start working on it. Has anyone seen this on a new hybrid Tacoma, especially with a kill switch installed? Any advice is appreciated.

h4ngman tacoma

Active Wheeler

Jul 27, 2025

#1

Sometimes, I like to spend a couple of hours hooking up different parts and add-ons under the hood, mostly for the fun of it and to keep myself occupied.

More than once, I realized that my hood struts weren't holding up as firmly as before. For safety measures, I had to find new hood struts to lift and keep the hood up safely.

At first, I had trouble putting them in because the hood did not line up correctly. So, I chose to swap out the struts and adhered to the guide closely when I reinstalled them. The end result was great.

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