Check Engine Light Was Flashing

Hello guys,

I recently bought a 09 Toyota Tacoma V6 4WD. I got it inspected and the mechanic who inspected it said it was good, so I bought it. Hour later the check engine light turns on and i take it to get checked and they said I have misfiring cylinders. I drove it home and then the next day when I tried to start it again to get it checked, the check engine light started flashing so I turned it off.

I thought maybe the spark plugs are bad, so I change those. When I was switching out the ignition coils they looked fine to me except that 1 or 2 of them had a little bit of oil on them.

At the time I didn’t know that was a bad thing so I just wiped the oil off and installed the new spark plugs & put the ignition coils back. I started up fine so I reset the check engine code and drove it a bit like an hour. The light didn’t turn back on.

This morning I tried turning it on and it was cranking but not starting. After 3 attempts I got it running but it was shaky and rough so I turned it off.

I did some extra research and found out that oil isn’t supposed to be on the ignition coils. And now I’m think it might be valve cover gasket that’s damaged but I don’t know. Some other things I noticed was that the engine oil cap had like a milky substance, but the engine oil looked fine on the engine oil stick.

Im going to get it to a mechanic tomorrow but has anyone with a Tacoma had this problem before? Mine has 182k miles. If so, what ended up being the issue? And what do you guys think this will cost to fix?

 

You need to read the codes and find out if it’s one cylinder or multiple. Any other codes would be helpful too

 

valve cover gaskets are leaking...
driving it with a CEL flashing is very bad as it dumps fuel into the cats & KILLS them....
at this point hopefully your new plugs & coil boots aren carbon tracked from the oil.
Tech will just be able to swap out your vc gaskets & clean oil residue from the sparkplug wells, also from the coils with brake clean & compressed air...

Do you know if the mechanic that initially inspected it for you did a compression test?
If he did, thats what brought this all on, by removing the plugs & coils, that caused the oil to get between the top of the plug & into the coil boot.
He closed his eyes to it & just wanted your cash for the inspection.
He should have advised you, theres good techs & bad....
you have a bad one there...

 

Yeah I didn’t drive it with the light flashing, do you think of the tech does what you said would it fix it?

and the inspection sheet he gave me did not indicate he did a compression test.

 

The milky stuff on the oil cap is condensation, I’m told it’s nothing to worry about. (Mine pictured below)

My truck had the valve cover gasket leak early into my ownership. I brought it to a shop I thought was good but I wish I had done it myself, when I got home I pulled the plugs and they didn’t even clean them off after changing the gasket, same with the coils. I went through and also found a valve cover bolt not even hand tightened as well as many not torqued down. (I hate shops ).

if your willing to put the time in, it’s a job you could (and should) do yourself, there are videos and write ups here walking you through it.

Don’t dish out your money to people who care less about your vehicle than you do.
For me that is anyone.

 

Hey man, thanks for the reply!

So did you also have misfiring cylinder codes because do that leak? If so, did that resolve your issue?

and don’t trust myself doing this type of job and I also don’t have the tools for it. I’m just gonna have to be really picky about who I choose to work on this for me.

 

I did not, I got lucky, the spark plug well had a ton of oil. However it can 100% cause misfire if the oil is getting into the cylinder. Sorry I can’t be more help. I know a ton of people hate the “stealership”, but they have done good work for me when I do need something done .