Smoking While on a Incline

Go find the lowest electrical connection with no rubber boot and mesure to that point.

 

I would be more worried about the ping sound than the smoke...

 

Agree. We have enough examples that we should be able to see how plugs look. If anyone checked that is. Anyone want to run a test in the name of science?

 

Lots of replies - here's my best at everyone's questions:

Yah this is one of my main points - it's very concerning. Toyota is riding on the Tacoma 1st-gen brand and the off-road community needs to hold them accountable. They label the truck "off-road" but won't stand by it if you hyrdolock it in inches of water.

Other manufacturers will commit (e.g. the LR2 "softroader" is 19 inches) and if you bring it in hyrdolocked, they know where to look (e.g. inside door panels) to determine if you've gone deeper than that.

CA is very strict on smog. See google.

In my case truck made it up 95% of hill, lost power and bogged down at very end. Turned off truck to air down tires / put down maxxtrax. On restart was smoking with low oil pressure warning. I have a video which I can upload later.

I thought about 2k...just looked up service records though (memory is foggy). 3422 when I brought it in (104 miles after the off-road incident). I was sure to break it in of course.

Yes for SURE. It's just easier to document the smoke than a ping. Others have reported a ping - I didn't hear one in my case, which is a little strange since the engine blew.

I link in the website to an image of plugs fouled with oil. I, unfortunately, didn't pull my plugs (it was 11PM when the engine blew). I regret it.

YES. Someone needs to convince an off-road magazine to try to test this and reproduce the issue...that's my next goal

 

There are many other vehicles that have suffered the same effects if you do a search a lot of vehicles popup. There is one of video of a Jeep smoking so bad you couldn't see it. Fords have suffered damage to the bottom end from lack of oil pressure. If oil is in the combustion chamber it's going to ping it burns too slow.

 

That's right. The question is - at what angle of ascent does this happen? From my experience - the 3rd gen taco engine isn't designed to climb a serious hill (35 deg or so). You'll get into oil issues before you lose traction, and that's a flawed design.

At the very least - Toyota should be upfront about that problem and put a spec on the Taco - like no hill climbs above 30 degrees. I wish I had known that. I wouldn't have attempted Truck hill in Hollister and blown my engine.

A friend on the trip just sent me a photo of my truck after the hillclimb - which I've attached.

 

How many 3rd gens have blown engines, I'm sure people have pushed theirs farther than you did. Maybe you just got a bad one, it's just disappointing Toyota didn't step up and admit it. Especially disappointing they made a bogus claim of hydro locking.

 

I had to take mine well past 35 to make it smoke. Im talking WELL past.

 

No engine oil analysis taken? That will answer many questions on why the engine failed.

Plenty of water fording here a few yrs ago. No issues with my 1st Gen 3.4.


Will add thousands visit and climb Hollister hills with their 3rd Gen Tacomas all the time so where are all the blown engines?

 

I don't know, where are all the videos of successful 3rd gen climbs of truck hill? I'm not saying it never happens in a 3rd gen, but based on my experience I wouldn't try it....

 

Whats this truck hill you speak of? I wanna try

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5En7C-OL268

 

There is no way that hill should cause an engine to blow. Something else must have happened. We’ve had a couple of 3rd gens come with us on Jeep trips and, except for some blown tires and minor body damage, they all eventually made it.

 

T
Ive been up worse than that without smoke


Edit: WAY WORSE !!!

 

I think fellas are putting oil in their engine until it’s right up to the fill cap. “I think it’s full now”. I call bullshit on most all of this nonsense (no offence). I’ve gone up and down super steep shit in my Taco. Didn’t blow my engine, or cause a smoke screen.

 

Nope, not what I did. Also, I doubt it's what BigMike did either: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/bigmikes-2016-tacoma-trip-trail-log.530297/page-3#post-16989436

 

You clearly haven't been to Hollister SVRA and actually looked at Truck Hill in person. With that kind of false bravado, it's easy to end up like this guy on truck hill, unfortunately.

If if you disagree - let's meet out there. Bring your 3rd gen taco and we'll run some experiments while we're at it.

 

Just because its new doesn't mean its good. It is possible to get defective new parts. Not talking about the whole engine but something in there.

 

I live on the east coast and arizona is as close to cali as i want to be. But id take my 3rd gen on any hill a 2nd or 1st gen can go up (as i do all the time). Only ever smoked my truck once and thats because i made it do it. Now once my catch can goes on it most likly wont ever smoke again

 

Yeah, and look at him now. Still going strong i believe.