Prognosis: Engine sludge. :(

[ozone]

Hello Gangis,

I'm from Orlando, but I live in Melbourne now. Just curious, you said they exposed the crankshaft, but you only have pics of the camshafts. Did you just make a mistake or is there sludge on the crank as well? I'm not sure I understand the whole sludge thing. Do oil passages get clogged or something?

If it's a design flaw, how come my wife's 1999 doesn't have it after 180,000K, I wonder. The 2002's have the same 1MZFE don't they?

Sorry to hear about your problem. I hope they cover it for you. They really are great cars.

[dominoSLEV6]

Good luck with everything.

Pics of sludge?

-chris

[NeFaRiOuS_SLE]

I cussed the salesman out on the phone a couple of weeks ago.

I thought you said you were hard of hearing in the introduction...? Well, that's not important... What's important is that there is a campaign that is outside of normal warranty for all Gen1 and Gen1.5 cars (i.e. you).

[lilmike2069]

there was like a recall or something for engine sludge on the gen1's.... maybe not a recall but there were several posts about it. I had to stick something in my glovebox that i got in the mail.

[Gangis]

I cussed the salesman out on the phone a couple of weeks ago.

I thought you said you were hard of hearing in the introduction...? Well, that's not important... What's important is that there is a campaign that is outside of normal warranty for all Gen1 and Gen1.5 cars (i.e. you).

It was a relay call. (operator says what I type, types what the other person says)

Yep... I'm still waiting for that phone call. The district manager still hasn't gotten back to the service writer.

[Gangis]

Hello Gangis,

I'm from Orlando, but I live in Melbourne now. Just curious, you said they exposed the crankshaft, but you only have pics of the camshafts. Did you just make a mistake or is there sludge on the crank as well? I'm not sure I understand the whole sludge thing. Do oil passages get clogged or something?

If it's a design flaw, how come my wife's 1999 doesn't have it after 180,000K, I wonder. The 2002's have the same 1MZFE don't they?

Sorry to hear about your problem. I hope they cover it for you. They really are great cars.

I'm sorry, that was a mistake on my part. It's the camshaft. I'm not that knowledgeable about cars, but I try! From what I understand, synthetic oil doesn't sludge (easily, at least) so if you've been using Mobil 1 synthetic or something like that and keep up with oil changes, I don't think there would be any sludge problem.

In my case, I had just bought the car three months ago and I have no clue what the service history is. I'm hoping that'll turn up in my favor with the distriict manager's decision.

[Gangis]

I received the verdict from Toyota today. They've approved the engine replacement! I asked them if it was really a replacement, or a rebuild. They're providing a brand new engine with ZERO miles on it. That is pretty good news!

One catch is that since I'm at 73k, I need to pay for a new timing belt, water pump and spark plugs. They quoted me $788... About $200 worth of parts, yes, but personally I disagree with the fact that I would have to pay labor. If the parts were newer (like say, 30k) they wouldn't charge me labor for pulling these parts out of the old engine and put into the new one. If you think about it, I'm getting charged for labor while saving them HALF the labor because they don't have to pry these parts out of the old engine.

At any rate, I really should count my blessings, go ahead and pay for the $788. Beggars can't be choosers, right?

[JMSinMaryland]

In no way are you a begger, Toyota built a faulty motor and you should not be responsible for 1 penny. They have no way of knowing if your plugs weren't done at 60k and timing belt/waterpump/thermostat is supposed to be done at 90k. Even all the aforementioned shouldn't be more than $500 at a Toyota dealer. I still wouldn't agree to a penny based on the principal of the matter.

[ozone]

I agree. I don't think you should be held responsible for any of that. If the engine hadn't broken, it would have been your choice at the time of replacement on how you wanted to do that. Timing belts are only about $30.00, if you do the labor.

Anyway, I was at the dealership today picking up a part for my Corolla and I think i saw your car there, parked by the service deparment. Too bad it's in the shop, today was a nice day to go top down!

Good luck.

[crispone]

^^^ On the "contrary"... NOT knowing the past maintenance history... they could have "claimed/argued" that it was POORLY MAINTAINED, and that TOYOTA has NO responsibility. If they are ONLY charging you the "standard pro-rated" service items that "would" have been done to the car... you may just want to "TAKE IT", since you get a FRESH MOTOR.

Not the worst outcome... but if you think you can get it for $0, then certainly, GO FOR IT!



Hope it all works out!


-crisp

[Gangis]

I agree. I don't think you should be held responsible for any of that. If the engine hadn't broken, it would have been your choice at the time of replacement on how you wanted to do that. Timing belts are only about $30.00, if you do the labor.

Anyway, I was at the dealership today picking up a part for my Corolla and I think i saw your car there, parked by the service deparment. Too bad it's in the shop, today was a nice day to go top down!

Good luck.

I wasn't at the dealership yesterday. I swinged by there on Friday during my lunch break to talk about that $788 charge. There's not too many gen 1.5 solara drop-tops in the area that's white/taupe, I've noticed.

I get the feeling that I probably should be grateful that they're only asking me for $788 and not the whole $6000 charge for replacing the engine... I know it's not right, but my gut tells me not to make waves.

[MCOjerry]

I'm in agreement with Crisp here. They could have just as easily turned your request down due to not having service records. In the end, you might have won if you took them to court or something, but you would have to had spend a lot of money.

True, you shoudn't have to pay a penny, ut $788 for a nw engine that will last a long time to come is great. Think of it this way...you will basically have a brand new car, and it should last as long as a new car.

Congrats, and good luck! Don't procratinate in getting it done, or they might change their mind.

[ozone]

On the CONTRARY back. I agree that they simply could have said, "No" and he would have had little recourse. But they said yes. With that as a given, then they should not be charging him for the other things. I'm certain that they are just trying to get their chunk of change for the work and this is how they are doing it. Toyota is paying for the engine, not the dealership, but the dealership is installing. They don't want to let him walk out the door without paying a dime. This is understandable, but that doesn't make it right. I speak of right and wrong. I don't know about the spark plugs but the water pump and timing belt certainly come with the engine, so flat out, they are charging him for labor they are not peforming.
Toyota signed up for a certain level of customer service when they started selling cars in America and there is no need for the customer to understand it's problems. The customer didn't set up this system. We just live with it.

I also agree that $788 is probably getting off light compared to what it could have been, but why be so kind to Toyota. I know of a guy who put 115,000 miles on his Honda and NEVER changed the oil. That's right, he just kept adding. Occassionally he would put on a new filter too, but the only oil that ever came out was what was spilled with the filter and what went out the exhaust pipe! Amazing. So it could be argued that if they didn't build a sludge prone engine, the whole thing could have been avoided.

And before someone tells me that is not really a problem and how if the maintenance is done in a timely fashion then sludge isn't a problem. I don't buy that. If there is a TSB or if it is reported that a particular model car has a high incidence of a certain failure, then that is a design issue. If it is not, then I would like to know why my Corolla and my Spyder aren't being reporting back with the same level of sludge failures.

Also interesting to note, the oil change interval in Europe is twice that of America!

(gets off of soap box, brushes off his collar and steps off stage)

[MCOjerry]

^^You may be correct, but by forcing the issue, they CAN change their minds. I doubt anything is in writing.

Rather than risk it, it's probably worth the $800, don't you think?

If they change their minds, he's SOL.

[JMSinMaryland]

A company can't just change it's mind after agreeing that his engine is covered, this isn't a game, it's a business. I would still contact Toyota corporate and find out what their perspective on the matter is, the dealer is trying to put some extra $$ in their pockets, they don't like performing warranty work to begin with, let alone a new engine.