2018 Tacoma 60k miles. blown cylinder and cracked head

And that’s just it. Toyotas shouldn’t grenade like this so early in their life. This is the kind of thing I’d expect to see from a new Nissan or a Ford or Jeep. Someone at Toyota should be embarrassed by these engine failures that the customer who paid for Toyota quality gets stuck with through sheer bad luck.

 

I am wondering if we should start changing radiator caps at regular intervals as preventative maintenance. Maybe every 50,000 miles?

 

Thats how I feel too, and the check engine light has ben been off the past few days, been running completely normal. The dealer reached out to me today and said they want to do a cylinder leak down test to determine whether or not Toyota will cover it. Whole thing feels a little wacky for a four year old truck.

 

Light offroading, some trail running here and there but nothing crazy. Mostly used as my daily driver and I've really babied this truck

 

I couldn't agree more! I've always loved Tacoma's mostly because they've been so bulletproof. I was hoping to get at least a few hundred thousand miles out of this truck. It's really disappointing

 

Were you able to get this issue resolved with your truck?

 

I mean no vehicle is perfect. I would’ve been very disappointed if that happened to me. The whole point buying Toyota/Lexus product is to get the most miles with very little issues.

There are a lot of Tacoma’s out there and it’s just the luck the draw. There are hundreds of thousands happy owners driving around.

My 07 ranger made it to 165k miles with 0 engine issues, and it still
Ran like new. I expect this taco to at least double that without any mechanical engine issues.

 

Agreed no vehicle is perfect. It would be such a good look for Toyota if they ponied up and did right by these folks that are otherwise hosed on what should have been years or decades more of smooth sailing. I’d love to see that. That would help perpetuate their brand integrity. And more importantly get these unfortunate customers back into the experience they paid for. One can hope, and it’s not even my truck.

 

I agree.

I did have some minor issues, not even mechanical, and getting them to fix it properly was a huge PITA. Customer service I received from corporate and my dealer was atrocious. I was shocked, honestly.

I would still buy another Toyota though, that’s if my engine doesn’t grenade at 60 or whatever K miles.

 

You know I love ya Dave, but there's really not alot of better options in my opinion. There's a certain risk factor with any purchase, but I personally feel that a Toyota has the least long term risk of its competitors.
These examples we've seen definitely suck, and I'd probably be furious if it were mine, but then I'd look around and wonder...what the hell am I suppose to buy?

 

I do like that Toyota has the D-4S or whatever it’s called. Port and direct injection. If that proves reliable over time and it takes care of carbon buildup, that’s a win. Most other brands are straight direct injection only now.

 

Remember when 2nd gens came out, everyone thought Tacoma was ruined and it won’t be reliable anymore. But it’s been proven 1GR is a very good engine.

I think it’s just the history repeating itself. Guess we will see. I mean 3rd gen has been out for 7 years and so far I’m happy with what I’m seeing.

 

I'm really on the fence about *all* new vehicles these days. The lengths they've gone to for cost cutting and fuel efficiency, on top of the wild and crazy times it has been for any kind of manufacturing business the last couple years just can't be good for quality. Makes me super leery about anything new.

Its also interesting because what I've experienced in my life and what i've seen on this site tells me that the least reliable toyotas are less reliable than the most reliable nissans. There is an overlap, which makes me think that the 'gap' in quality isn't as big as people might think.

 

Buy a 96-05 ish anything Toyota. Will be better quality overall.

 

So I should buy this?





If yes, please call my wife and tell her how badly I need it!!

 

I am starting to wonder / consider a similar opinion. My recent personal experience with Nissan (Armada and Altima) were mixed. Both Nissans had significant issues around 65,000 miles (just outside of warranty) - exhaust manifold crack on Altima and radiator “explosion” on Armada. HOWEVER, Nissan fully covered repair on both of these at no cost to me. Toyota should do the same.

 

I think Nissan might struggle with suppliers more than anything. My frontier has one of the strawberry milkshake radiators, and it had the burr on the timing chain issue. Radiator is still going fine, but nissan replaced the timing chains and guides at no cost to me. Other than a bad fuel gauge sender (which they also replaced, for free out of warranty), that thing has been flawless for 160,000 miles. It doesn't even smell like oil when you open the hood, everything is tight.

Really sucks when you're technically out of warranty but something breaks way before it should have. I think GM engines with the cylinder deactivation were in that same bucket, lasting through the warranty and then BOOM.

 

Toyota of 20 years ago might be embarrassed, Toyota today don't care. They're no better or worse than Ford, Dodge, Chevy. All the same shit. It's like all the reliability gains of the late 90s/early 2000s have regressed to the 1980s with peeling white paint and engines that grenade two weeks after the warranty expires.

 

This isn't going to help your situation but I've worked at three dealerships (not Toyota), two of which were considered top of the line and one that was a shyster.

Dealerships pay their techs to do fast work. If the (labor) book says a job takes ten hours to do, it is not uncommon for a good tech to do the job in two or three hours. All of the techs share strategies to get jobs done faster than book time. The tech gets paid for ten hours whether it takes them twelve or two.

And there are guys making not much more than minimum wage working in the back on the used cars. They solve all kinds of problems, and occasionally do some major surgery if the dollars to do the work (their pay) are justified by an expected return. They will do the same kind of work for pennies on the dollar that the front end ASE Certified techs do.

Dealerships are a money making machine. Most of the big ones regularly tear down their showroom and rebuild on a regular basis because new buildings help sell their product. The trappings of success sell cars.

So I don't feel bad for dealerships. If they are doing a job that they quote for 7K they are probably not putting more than 2K in the repair, and quite possibly less. In fact they make good money on warranty work, just not as much as retail jobs. It's my experience that small dealerships tend to treat their customers better. The big ones don't feel the need.

Good luck...