Imminent Crankshaft Position Sensor (CPS) failure in 2016s?

My cat absolutely failed at the same time. The smell of rotten eggs was distinct.

 

UN-burned or raw fuel has long been the culprit of fried cat-convertors, but for them to burn out after just one instance or in such a short period is new to me. They must be making these things a lot cheaper now.

 

Several minutes of misfires is enough to kill them in my experience. But ymmv

 

Well... My CPS failed. It went to the dealer. They diagnosed it as a bad cam gear and solenoid. Replaced those. 47 miles later it started mis-firing again, and that is when the smell made me wanna hurl.

 

Rotten egg smell?

 

And I was just thinking the newer cats are made different as of a few year ago according to something I read. In other words, looks like we're fooked!

Hope that helps
Cheers!

 

Yup. That's what it smells like when a cat fails. http://www.carsdirect.com/car-maintenance/engine-smell-what-it-means-and-how-to-fix-them

 

According to chief Tacoma engineers Mike Smeers, our cats are made smaller. Now I hope that's not a bad thing, but I have to wonder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoOPtIE3bw

 

Yes it can, but that engine would have to be severely misfiring for a good long amount of time before it gave up the ghost. A few feet of driving while the CKP is failing should never have killed a cat converter if it is a quality one. Now if it is el cheapo made in China junk, that is a different story.

Rotten eggs indicates an overly rich condition. Which tells me that as the CKP fails, spark is the first one to go, fuel trails right after. What you smell is mostly raw gas being spit right out of the exhaust pipe. If your cat failed at the same time as the CKP, that would tell me one of two things, either you had a defective one, or the cats they are putting now on these 3rd gens are just that cheap.



Edit: Wait hang on. These new engines are DI. A misfire even a for a short amount of time could very well be detrimental to the cat converter.

 

DI plus the cats are mounted very close to the cylinder head. Doesn't take much to kill them

 

For those that have had the CPS failure but no cat work, would it be good to ask for a warranty extension on the emissions control system (beyond 8 years or whatever it is by default) due to the apparently high risk of contamination when misfiring?

 

I haven't had any problems yet, but it might be time to start shopping for an extended warranty...

 

10 counts that we know of people active on this forum. I believe the number is a lot higher. Let's say you have about 900 active 3rd gen owners on the forum and 10 reported the issue. Seems like the problem is more widespread.

 

If our sampling is representative, then it would be 1 out of every 90. So if 500,000 sold, that would be about 5,555 of them failed. That's a lot. One would think if they have seen 5K failures, they should be well aware of the issue. So why are dealers having trouble diagnosing?

 

I would think that 8 years would be sufficient time for it to manifest itself, but any extended warranty (for free) is a (very) good extended warranty.

 

Why? DI doesn't inject more fuel than MPI.

 

Maybe it takes some time from corporate to get a TSB going. Nearly every single automatic transmission had issues which led to more owners complaining and getting that TSB 2 weeks ago. Or maybe Toyota doesn't have a long-term fix at the moment for the CPS issue so until then dealers are on their own until Toyota comes out with a fix.

 

The CSP sensor may be a supplier issue. Somewhere down the line during manufacture, and depending on the type sensor, a component such as resistor, shield, diode and such is most likely out of specs.
Moreover, by this time Toyota should have identified what it is and how many maybe affected.
They better not let this go on for years like the cheap faulty GM ignition switch did to save a few cents, because we are very aware.

Cheers!

 

OK, so it takes a while to develop a TSB. That's OK. But shouldn't they at least send the dealers an advance notification or something like that to assist in diagnosis? Maybe something as simple as:

"Hey dealers, we are beginning to see a higher than expected number of CPS failures. Typical symptoms are blah, blah, blah, and include these codes. Please perform the following steps to test the CPS before disassembling the engine."

If my dealer had not disassembled the top half of the engine on my SR5, and replaced the cam gear and associated solenoid, (meaning they also had to: replace the cylinder head gasket, fuel pump gasket, drop the oil pan to check for any foreign debris, and replace the oil pan gasket) and instead had simply replaced the CPS when it failed, then the cat wouldn't have failed on the second incident (in fact, there wouldn't have been a second incident 47 miles later), and I would still have the SR5, and they wouldn't have a problematic truck that had been in a very minor accident that they will likely have to take a loss on to resell.

All of that said, I am happy with the new truck, and how the dealer handled it. Full details are here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/engine-issues-on-my-3rd-gen.441399/

 

The massive pressures which DI injects is much more than MPI though. It may be the same amount of fuel going in, but the presures going in alone could spell trouble in the event of an unplanned, and untimely misfire. I don't really know much about DI, but from what I do know about it, it could spell trouble for other parts of engine emissions systems (the cat in this case) or the tech working on it. (Ruptured line has enough pressure to injure said tech supposedly)