High-revving 3.5L and long-term reliability

I am curious if the high-revving nature of the new 3.5L will affect long-term reliability. I know that in cars, high-revvers can last a long time. Just look at old Honda Civics and other similar cars. These are passenger cars however and are not under load.
Do engines with more low-end torque have a dependability advantage over smaller high-revving engines? I don't tow often with my gen 1, but when I have to make it rev on the hills I always cringe a bit wondering if that is wearing my engine out more than normal.

 

Yes but like I said the Hondas are never under load.

 

i had to rev my old 3vze and 5vzfe's high just to get moving they were fine. Heck i have to rev my 1gr when towing. They're made to spin.

 

I mean a Honda Civic never has a trailer behind it. Pulling a trailer makes the engine work that much harder. Not talking about 2 adults with a sum of 350 lbs in the cabin.

 

Put 4 adults in a civic plus 500# in the trunk, the fenders rub on the tires and tell me people don't put load on them. i see it all the time. It's all relative.

 

They program rev limiters on engines for a reason. Rev away, it will be fine.

 

Yeah I just know getting a my Casita over I70 will mean it will rev to shit haha

 

You have a powertrain warranty to 60k miles, so rev the piss out of it, trade it in at 59k miles.

 

haha. If I get a 2016 I plan on keeping it for 15 years. My 2002 has 160k on it and runs like the day I bought it. I guess time will tell if the 2016 will be that reliable.

 

The primary issues I've seen on the GR series engine was vvti actuators walking off the cam and rubbing on the timing cover, primarily noisy on start up and idle. You'd know if that happens to ya, theres no mistaking that noise. That was primarily on earlier model 2GR's, seen in 2007-2010 Camry's and Highlanders. I've seen external headgasket leakage here and there.

 

Yeah I hope they address that. Reliability is the reason Toyota owners put up with lousey engine specs compared to other brands. I'd rather have a dependable engine than an engine that wins the spec race. Hitting 200k should be doable on all modern engines.

 

It is good to have experienced Toyota professionals like yourself here sharing information. Thank you!

 

Numbers are all fine and dandy until you get real world experience. I don't care who puts out what hp and who achieves what fuel mileage, at the end of the day, it comes down to what works the longest with the least amount of repairs. At this very moment I have a 2014 Chevy Impala in my bay with 37k miles and no heat on the driver side (dual zone climate). It's looking like its going to need a blend door actuator, which is a 3-4 hour repair plus the part. At 37k miles.... My mother has a 2013 Chevy Sonic with only 14k miles on it and it needed a new water pump, but that was under warranty. But still, at only 14k miles? Jeez, I thought Toyota was bad with water pumps.

Just trying to help. I see first hand stuff that a lot of people don't.

 

It really isn't that much more of a revver than the out going 4.0, peak torque is only 600 rpm more, barely noticeable.

Toyotas have always been a higher rev engine, compared to the old American V8's...now even the new V8's rev quite a bit more.

The 3.5 will feel night and day pulling your camper over your 1st gen.

 

I pulled my uncle's 2000 Buick Century with a uhaul car dolly, and aside from being crucified on the forum here for not having trailer brakes, it pulled like a freight train, no complaints whatsoever. Cruised 60mph on the highway in 5th gear. Went uphill very nicely too. I was thoroughly impressed, as I expected it to be more of a chore for the truck.

 

Worst post ever.

 

My friend used to tow his waverunner and have three people and all their camping shit in his civic. Never had any issues and this car was barely putting out 110hp.

Towed many times with my Mazda3, no issues.

People tow with small cars all the time.

 

I have an '04 Honda S2000 and it sits at ~4200 rpm at 80mph on the highway in 6th gear (redline is 8k). No issues with mine or others and these typically run well over 200k if taken care of.

 

My experience while working in R&D at a large OEM engine manufacturer, common practice to test new engine designs was to run the engine on the eddy current engine dyno at peak torque for 40hrs continuous. No breaks, no stopping. If peak torque was measured at 4600 rpm, then the test would be ran at 4600 rpm for 40 Hrs. Same if the peak torque was measured at 7400 rpm, test would be conducted at 7400 rpm. Immediately following, the engine would be disassembled and inspected/measured and NO part could be out of design tolerance or the test would be a failure.

Toyota is very thorough in their testing and design parameters. Their choice for this engine to be used in the Tacoma I'm sure wasn't taken lightly. The design of the 3.5 engine is such that 4600 rpm is not considered high rpm (heavily oversquare design of 94.0mm Bore x 83.0mm Stroke) with a piston speed of 2505 FPM @ 4600rpm (peak torque), the 4.0 engine was a very slightly undersquare design of 94mm Bore and 95mm Stroke, and had a piston speed of 2493 FPM @ 4000 rpm (peak torque). So with this comparison it is easy to see that both engines run at nearly the same speed (piston wise) at their point of peak power.

On the other hand, one interesting thing to note, one of the main killers of an engine is detonation. And even with the relatively high 11.8:1 compression ratio, the engine is likely designed to tolerate 87 octane fuel, by trimming back ign. and cam timings when knocking is detected, high load duties (such as towing and hauling) would surely benefit from quality higher octane fuel (91) as the engine would be able to deliver power to its full potential without having to limit timings due to knocking.

Edit: After reviewing the white paper specs of the 2GR-FKS engine, I see that the MIN recommended fuel octane rating is 91 or higher.