2015 Tacoma Prerunner 4.0 P0333 - DIY tips and experiences

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here but I've been lurking ever since I purchased my 2015 Tacoma over a year ago.

Unfortunately I now have a good reason to post.
I headed out to work one morning just before Christmas and the CIL and TRAC OFF lights came on. No 5th gear, reduced power, and no cruise control. Code scan revealed the really dreaded P0333 knock sensor failure. Local, very high quality shop confirmed rodent damage and is quoting ~$5000 to remove the heads and make the repairs. I'm very, very hesitant to allow the heads to be removed on an engine that has only 91k very easy miles on it and have decided to perform the repairs myself.

My question to all of you is:
- Has anyone experienced any adverse long term effects to cutting the coolant pipe brackets to access the knock sensors and wires?
- Has anyone every tried relocating the knock sensors? I did this on my old pickup, a 2000 Nissan Frontier with the VG33E V6 with a knock sensor in the same valley location with great results.

I've been studying the posts from @Styx586 and @Ripcord, thanks guys!

FYI: I've been looking around and the Toyota PN: 82219-0C030 is apparently the 2012-2015 knock sensor sub-harness. Can anyone confirm this?


Thanks all, I know that this topic has been covered in depth with multiple posts, but I haven't seen much about late 2nd gen's specifically. Additionally, I'm interested in the questions above and haven't found much about those either.

Thank you everyone!

-Paul