Stranded this morning

I know all brands are different but it's wild to me that seemingly dealers are throwing engines at trucks without an actually failure diagnosis. Like in GM dealer land the engine replacement has to be authorized and there are hoops to jump through for major power train component replacement such as engines, transmissions, differentials, etc such as quoting whether repair or replacement is cheaper, sending off the calibration of the control module to verify it's stock and in some situations calling and opening a case with a specific engineer which is often just leaving a voicemail until they can call you back from where ever in the continent they are. But no matter even if it's something like the engine is seized before the ball can start rolling you have to pinpoint the failure and cause of failure along with photos to Gm Canada(usa) so if the engine is locked up from lack of oil you need to send a picture of the leak/ oil consumption cause along with photos of the bearings and crank being thrashed or whatever along with your written story which in that case would be along the lines of "due to metal being circulated through the engine and the complete and adequate cleaning of all oil galleries not being guaranteed feasibly whole engine assembly will require replacement, all to proving and back up that the engine is not salvage-able

 

Fair enough, I just figured with a routine down it wouldn't be much to stick a camera in the valve cover or drop the lower oil pan and look for evidence of the engine actually being poached and not just a siezed solid alternator or something

 

Oh man that sucks! Love to know the reason. I love my Tacoma, but these are starting to make me question the longevity as I am over 80k trouble free on the engine and this is when it happens. Good luck!

 

Gotta ask, don't recall seeing anywhere if you have any mods or have done a tune on the engine?

 

What thread is that?

 

I read that CAFE standards were to blame. Small pickups have small footprints and therefore need to meet a ridiculous efficiency to be sold without a fine being imposed So instead of making a more efficient small truck, auto makers simply made the foot print bigger. The bigger the foot print, the lower the mileage the vehicle has to make.

 

At this point you got nothing to lose (other than the cost of a tow) to get a second opinion.

 

Thing with GM is then they'll refuse to fix it unless you pay cash even if under warranty, ask me how I know..grrr

 

I believe that most manufacturers have regional field engineers that can get called in to look at issues (there is one for another manufacturer that is a member here, he doesn't post much, though). What issues they get called in for seem to be prioritized based on potential risk to the company, so anything related to safety comes first (even if low frequency), and major component failures of higher frequency that may lead to expensive recalls and parts replacements not far behind those. Engine failures outside of warranty might take a while to reach the top priority, but a bunch of them will lead to reputational damage, which can be costly.

While it's probably not considered widespread, it does seem that there are similarities in the failures reported here that point to a defect. But as long as they haven't identified the defect (knowing but not doing anything about it) and aren't having to pay for repairs, there is no good reason for them to look into it deeper.

Failure rate on the 2GR is likely extremely low considering the number of vehicles it is used in. But for an individual with a single truck, failure rate is 100% if their engine blows, which sucks. Just hoping mine is one of the good ones. Hopefully OP makes it out of this one unscathed.

 

Darn, sorry this happened. Best of luck.

 

Not to mention individual maintenance , how well the truck was taken care of, oil change intervals, type of oil.

 

Unless they can point to how you specifically caused the failure and that it was from misuse/abuse/modifying then it should be repaired. Like a ball joint boot being torn on a truck with a leveling kit would be covered. A ball joint pulled out of the arm on a truck with a leveling kit that tops out in suspension travel because the ball joints are at max range of motion would be customer pay

 

Not really surprised after hearing what a buddy has been telling me lately that works on many of these Toyotas. It's just the luck of having a defective one out of the millions of these 3.5 variants toyota manufactures. Kind of makes me nervous now to.

 

That can and is said of any vehicle ever built. Nothing man made is perfect.

 

The new 3.5’s suck.
I had 4 come in with in a month just before I retired.
Sucked in valves or loss of oil pressure.

 

Beginning to think our domestic qc has now infiltrated toyota.