I have a 2011 Toyota Sequoia with about 95K miles on it. Love the car. Have not had a single problem. In the last couple of weeks I have noticed that the leather interior right below the driver's side window was tacky. In the last week it has actually started melting to the point it stains my shirts if I put my elbow on it. You can manipulate the leather when it is hot essentially like you could clay, but it stains your fingers. I have the "Platinum" extended warranty so I took it into the dealership. They called me back and said that it was wear and tear and that they wouldn't do anything with it. Service Manager was quite rude. But he did say that he wasn't going to sign anything that said melting was wear and tear.

I have a hard time believing that melting leather is wear and tear. If I wore it down and caused a rip, sure. If I wore it down and the grain disappeared, sure. But melting????

Any help is appreciated. I plan to send a letter and photos to regional and then national if I can't get any resolution. Any other thoughts?

go to a different dealer and see what they say

Is this a limited or platinum with factory leather or a SR5 with dealer or GST leather?

Also most door panels will be vinyl, not leather.

Make an appointment with the service *director* and you should have some luck especially if you serviced it there.

This is a quality issue not an extended warranty issue.

Talked to service director. No help. It is a Platinum. Called Toyota directly they act like they might help. Will know more today. Regardless I will never deal with Gene Messer Toyota in Lubbock again.

That's unfortunate since the directors have quite a bit of flexibility on what they can do for you. I bet corporate makes it right.

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Talked to service director. No help. It is a Platinum. Called Toyota directly they act like they might help. Will know more today. Regardless I will never deal with Gene Messer Toyota in Lubbock again.

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Must be Lubbock dealerships. Alderson Lexus sucks as well.

I have a 2015 Sequoia Platinum and it's doing the EXACT same thing.

Found this post when I did a GIS for this problem. I was initially told that someone may have damaged my car and repaired it, without my knowledge, while it was being serviced.

I contacted a company to repair this and the guy I spoke with told me this is an issue with Sequoias. I also found the same issue with Tundras.

Basically, I think this is a petroleum-based pleather. It's the driver's side door, exactly where you put your arm/elbow... skin oils get deposited on this area. Combine that with the heat of Houston and you get a perfect storm to degrade this material.

This is a known issue by Toyota and Lexus. Both of my parents drive a Lexus and both have the same issue on the dashboard. Both have been in to the dealer regarding it. One was fixed and one was not due to age. But, the dealers know all about it. If your dealer claims ignorance, take it to another. A google search will bring up lots of info on the topic.

I contacted Toyota directly today and they claim it is out of warranty for that issue. The car was purchased in September 2015 and has 62500 miles on it.

However, the dealership that I took it to didn't document but they looked at it or what they thought it was. As a result, Toyota didn't really have all the information necessary to make a decision. So I need to take it to a different dealership and hope that they say it's defective.