02 Tacoma Double Cab 82k miles. Thrown rod - repair options or sell as-is?

Our 2002 Tacoma threw a rod this past weekend. California truck that we got from my father-in-law in December 2008 w/ 17k miles. Drove it from Orange County to Cincinnati. Never seen snow, rust free and trouble free until this weekend.

We are now contemplating our options for either engine replacement or selling as-is. Truck is a stock 2002 Automatic 2wd Double Cab. We have put 65k miles Spring, Summer and Fall and park the car in the winter since it was a California truck as new and rust free. Block is shot so we are looking at:

-Junkyard 5VZ-FE (cheapest/gamble) $1k?
-JDM imported (mid range/gamble) $2500ish?
-Rebuilt/remanufactured (most expensive) $4500-$6700

Or Sell as-is, cut our losses and put that money into another truck.

While I can turn a wrench I don't quite have the garage space to do a swap. So it would be in my driveway and I don't think I have the motivation to take this one on. So add$2k for install and any extras?

Truck has been a 4th vehicle for us that we have used mostly for towing a motorcycle trailer as I play around with Motorcycles, scooters, etc and we have used it to travel to adjacent states to drag home the next project.

Looking for opinions on what to do. Thoughts on what would be a fair value if we sold as-is for both buyer and seller.

When we got her in 2008 (got a free Honda Helix too - drive from California to Ohio was fun)

 

not sure I would recommend a engine from a junk yard unless it was rebuilt- just too unknown if that engine was maintained well or not.
i had to do this with a f150 in my younger days- I opted for the Rebuilt/remanufactured because everything else on the truck was excellent to great it was probably the best answer for me- worked well until a Napa auto parts van driver decided to ram me head on doing 45 miles an hour.....
.... my brother in law chose a junk yard engine because of short on cash.... did not last too long

 

Yeah - if this was a quick bolt on , bolt off type of part or if I had the shop resources to DIY a swap I guess taking a gamble with a used engine might be the cheapest thing to do. But I agree hard to say the history of the engine.

 

1st Gen

Double cab

Low miles

No rust

Don't sell as is, that thing is worth way too much to give up on it so quickly

 

If you have someone to engine swap, you might post on 1st gen parts classified here, and you might get a bite on somebody's 5vz that never got installed......see them 5z's for sale all the time here.....

And what ever you think it's gonna cost.....add at least $1K or $2K more......

There's a lot of rusted out frames up north......only problem they want too much......most were blind sided on the rust.......

 

watching.... this would be a good TDI swap candidate

 

Yeah - I don't really follow things much beyond seeing the Thunderbolt Turbo LS1 on youtube. On Miatas that I"m used to - if the 1.6 blew up, it would be a great time to swap to a 1.8. And I guess the older Toyotas if your 4 banger or 3.0 blew up it would be great to swap to the 5vz-fe. But when I was researching motor replacements I didn't see much off the shelf plug and play upgrade.

 

Some additional photos of the truck and undercarriage.

 

Yeah, pictures aren't really necessary here.

The truck is worth being kept on the road. Just throw an engine in it.

 

Go rebuilt. Put $6000 in it and you’ll have a truck with 2-1/2 times that when you’re done.

 

Any idea why it threw a rod? I think I've only seen or heard mention of that on 5VZ engines three times or so.

 

Honestly there isn't a very straightforward upgrade, lots of kits to support swaps, it is a real surprise the 5vz let go with such low miles.

 

Thrown Rod - as I understand it can happen under basically two conditions.

-hydrolocked motor - water can't compress, something has to give. It's the rod.
-Over revving - mass of the piston moving at X rpm puts too much stress and things let lose

Guess a third could be caused by low/no oil and heating up of the rod bearing.

So we were going to Lexington on I75, towing our 400 lb motorcycle trailer- had cruise on as we headed up I75 cut in the hill. Has a 5% grade. Slow moving semis in right lane. I used the cruise accell function to get back to 65 or so that the speed limit is there. I believe the truck had downshifted to 3rd and then unexpectantly to 2nd as we were climbing the hill. I heard what sounded like a rattle (timing chain slapping - I know it has a timing belt or nuts in a blender). I get the cruise to disengage and she upshifts. All seems ok - we go another 10 miles stop at McDonalds. No knocking, no check engine lights, no oil lights, etc.

70 more miles we are outside Lexington, flat ground. As I accelerate briskly to pass a slow moving car merging she downshifts and that's all she wrote. I believe the damage was done coming up the hill when she downshifted into what I believe was 2nd and

 

We always made sure oil was changed. Every 5k miles or annually depending on if we were using the truck or not. Rotella T6, then I switched to Rotella Gas truck and last oil change was with Valvoline Advanced Full Synthetic ~ 900 miles ago. OEM Toyota filters only. I'm pretty sure it wasn't oil related.

 

Cruise control isn’t always your friend especially when going uphill AND towing. Turning overdrive off might have helped but any incline and I would’ve killed the cruise to control the engine manually.

Still good info to have. I hope you get it sorted out soon OP.

 

Yeah hindsight for sure.

 

How much do you want for it as-is?

 

We are currently leaning towards ponying up for a rebuilt motor from one of the reputable rebuilders. Yotashop quoted 8-10 weeks today when I called. Yota1 is 7-8 mos.

 

FWIW, people are selling 1st gen Double cab prerunners for $15-17k here on the west coast. Yours is low mileage and rust free. It’s worth fixing!