SOLVED! Post 2853 Leaking Injectors, Dealer Techs Rock! Extended Cranking after Engine Swap 3.4L 5vz

Dented cam sensor and failing injectors....

We'll have to add these to our piston and spark plug collection.....

 

Have been heavily discussing exactly that K! Will likely start with this route, as attorneys charge fees, whereas CC companies don't.....

 

Thanks for the pics. That definitely received some blunt force trauma.

 

Whoa, just found this insight on another Taco World thread. I wonder if we've been driving it in this fail safe mode (alternate fuel timing mode) that Bama referred to on this guy's thread?

Our mechanic said he couldn't even get a reading on our cam sensor, that's how badly damaged it was....

 

Just searched the thread and looks like my old buddy Matt is the first one that called checking the cam sensor. I think Steve 4x4 just recently suggested this too.

Matt and Steve, good job using your crystal balls to look into our Taco's damage at the hands of those VERY NICE QUALIFIED MECHANICS!

Calling my old buddy now to tell him the news!

 

You can't install a piston from the bottom of an engine properly. There is no way to get the rings compressed properly for the install.

Bolded statement speaks wonders, as you know. Injector pulses are ONLY directed by the CMP sensor output. A bad crankshaft sensor will not cause failed injector pulses. Just a little FYI.

It is not uncommon at ALL for a sensor to work fine when cold, and fail when hot. Just like many plug coils can operate great with a cold engine, but then misfire when the engine (and sensor) get hot.

Sounds like the guy may have finally found the problem. Lets cross our fingers!



On a side note: I see a lot of people saying that the mechanic that did the rebuild should have replaced all of the sensors. That is more of an opinion there. If I were to replace all of the sensors in a rebuild that I was working on it would end up increasing the cost of the job by between $500 and $1000 easily. It is actually NOT a common practice to replace the sensors on an engine when doing a rebuild simply because it seriously can increase the cost of the job. They are inspected and tested, and if they pass manufacturer specifications then they are cleaned and reinstalled. There is no need to replace a sensor if it has not failed. I have seen camshaft sensors as well as crank sensors and knock sensors outlast 2 engines! In this case the sensor itself was not bad, but was apparently damaged. If the sensor was NOT damaged I bet the OP would be cruising all over town with her new engine running just fine, with no problems from the CMP sensor.

 

Love everything you said Bama, and agree with it all too! Thank you as usual!

 

Must resist posting in reference to the crystal balls. I'll behave. ;-)

 

Yikes, just saw what you meant. Err umm, that didn't come out right exactly.

Nonetheless, good job using your crystal balls guys Those are some amazing balls you used, wow!

EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it, while I'm grateful to every single person on here, I should also give credit to all of you as far as "making the call" because everyone, including me, was operating under the assumption that the engine guys had CHECKED AND RECHECKED ALL OF THE SENSORS A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS. Right? That's what they were telling me at least, and so that's what I was posting on here. I bet a lot of you would have said to check those specific sensors if it wasn't for that misinformation. Another reason I REALLY LIKE THOSE GUYS A LOT RIGHT NOW. THANK YOU FOR LYING TO ME ABOUT WHAT YOU CHECKED AND RECHECKED.

 

Oh great. My only faithful Yotatech guy just saw the pics, and he's saying, "I hope this does it, I'll keep my fingers crossed, we will see." Argh. I have already started celebrating, this has got to be it darnit! Hopefully he's just being a cautious skeptic, but secretly thinks it's the fix?

 

I agree, but ....

there in lies my point, so far nothing has shown he gets the benefit of the doubt on anything that he has done so far has been done properly, in fact circumstantial evidence suggests everything he has done hasn't been done properly. just saying, it take a few minutes to clean a filthy intake befoe you bolt it back on a brand new engine but it wasn't done, then the injector area was filthy and full of crap when he removed and had them redone and reinstalled, and the follow up mechanic said it looks like they were never cleaned so what if anything has he done so far that was done properly?

and if you aren't worried about doing it the proper way you can very easily install a piston and rings from the bottom if the crank is out and I have seen it done many times. I wouldn't do it but some people do.

 

All this for a cam sensor? I was hoping for a T.V. mini series. Way to go OP, I gotta hand it to you; you hung in there.

 

I don't think this will work, you cant "not pay", they have your card and you agreed to the work so the charges were made in good faith. the rest must be argued in small claims court, you don't need a lawyer for that just have evidence for anything you wish to dispute.

you can file small claims court and bring pictures and mechanic statements and such and im sure the judge will adjust what you are obligated to pay. how much is a question mark but the work you can show wasn't done or wasn't done right and the damaged sensor along with related cost to diagnose should be deducted from the bill and force them to give you a refund.

I dunno, maybe you can claim the credit card was stolen and someone else charged an engine on it lol. too bad it wasn't a finance thing where you still owe on it.

if you get on judge judy, make sure to tell us so we can watch it that day.

 

Actually, just spoke with the CC company. Explained the details to them. Things are looking up. That's all I'm going to say about that right now....

EDIT: Will keep y'all posted if I have my moment in the spotlight on good ol' Judge Judy Keakar! You know I wouldn't leave you guys in the dark about something like that!!

 

Thanks Steve! Hoping its the end of this nightmare, should know for certain very soon, hurray!

 

I hope you can dispute it, I was under the impression they cant do anything in situations like this where its he said she said

 

Nope. Go Visa!

 

That would be a first. I have never seen a piston capable of being installed from the bottom with any success. It usually breaks a ring (Seen it tried before, but never worked) and if you break a ring, you will know it.

I know we all want to sit here and bash the engine guy and say he was a hack, but NONE of us know. Making assumptions like this only succeeds in making all mechanics look bad. It is very possible he did a GREAT job on the engine, and simply had accidentally damaged the sensor. Too many people jumping to conclusions here to be honest.

 

I agree, I still believe we received a great engine - I suppose no one really knows except the person that built it, but at this point I have no reason to believe otherwise and plenty of reasons to believe that it is indeed a great engine. And that was the primary reason I chose their business, and I will shout it on top of every mountain that my engine from their business is great as long as I'm never given a reason to believe otherwise.

However, regarding the injector services and the damaged cam sensor, I feel strongly that they are at fault and I cannot see any way to believe that they aren't. And trust me, I'm trying to, even as frustrated as I am, I want to be fair and give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm willing to believe that the sensor was damaged by accident - heck, of course it was, why would someone purposely damage it? But it was not an accident to then reinstall the damaged sensor, and it certainly was not an accident to watch us bring our truck back to them 2x and never admit to us that they knew that sensor was damaged. And if they were somehow unaware that they'd damaged it, due to its location and the order they were installing things? I still feel strongly that they AT THE VERY LEAST should have shown more interest and concern for correcting the issue that was not present prior to the work they performed. And there was essentially zero interest in that. The last time I communicated with them, after taking it back twice for the undiagnosed hard warm starts issue, the owner of the business said to me, "that must be frustrating for you, because so many of your starts are going to be at that ~30 min interval, when you are grocery shopping and running errands." I'm sure some will disagree, but trust me, if you'd been a fly on the wall of that conversation, you would know just how ridiculously patronizing his remarks were, particularly since I'd explained to him many, many times by that point that we could care less that the truck occasionally takes a few extra seconds to start - our ONLY concern is that we are not letting something slip under the radar that could end in some sort of catastrophic damage/major repair expense.

Clearly, the injectors being either incorrectly serviced, or perhaps not serviced at all was not the sole cause of the hard warm starts by itself. But we paid for those injectors to be serviced, and something went amiss there - honest mistake or not, at the very least, they should have shown more concern at finding the solution to the problem during the multiple times I reported that the issue was still present. And by the way, thank goodness our new mechanic had the sense to take a close look at the injectors and recognize that we should have them serviced again (or for the 1st time?) - even though he'd been told that this was just done a few weeks ago. I don't even want to think about where this could have wound up if he'd not caught that, and instead just found the damaged sensor & replaced it, resolved the hard warm starts, and we'd continued driving it with failing injectors. There's a sequel in the making for ya!

And as of this moment, we are still waiting to hear whether the damaged sensor was indeed the cause of the hard warm starts. But either way, there is no excuse for blatant dishonesty like that, in reinstalling a part that was damaged, whether the damage occurred by accident or not.

IMHO, publicly venting about it does not make all mechanics look bad, but rather it makes dishonest mechanics look bad.

And I understand your concern - people then make generalizations and are more skeptical of ALL mechanics, because they don't know who is being honest and who is not, which is terribly unfortunate and I can see how it would create more headaches for the good guys, as they have to work that much harder to prove their honesty and integrity.

But the fault for this (making other mechanics look bad), lies with the mechanics who are deceiving their customers - not the customers who are calling them out on their deception.

 

And on a much more positive note, our current mechanic is just ridiculously honest, which I absolutely love.

He just called and in a very guilty voice told me, "I got sidetracked watching the Superbowl and missed the 1 hour mark to start it, is it OK if I keep it one more night?"

He said he started it at 30 min and also at 90 min, and it started great both times. Fingers still crossed - will sleep with them crossed!

He got his plane ticket to go visit his ill brother in Florida on Tuesday, so the plan is to pick up tomorrow evening when hubby gets home from work - assuming I get the call in the afternoon tomorrow that all is good.

We talked a bit about what we owe him, not going to announce the details publicly yet but let me just say this guy is truly an angel with not a deceptive or greedy bone in his body - more than I can say for most people, including myself. Wow. Wish vendor/customer relationships could always be this honest and fair and awesome.

He's going to provide us with a detailed invoice showing everything that he essentially had to clean up after the sloppy details they left behind, and said he'll be sure to put his ASE Master Mechanic license number (I think that's what he called it, I'm sure you guys know what I'm referring to) on the paperwork he gives us, so that we can show our credit card company or whoever that the work was performed by a qualified person.

Things are definitely looking up guys.