Reddish stuff in the engine bay

I hope they will fix it under warranty. The lady on the phone said they have to see it to make sure I did not do any damage to it. I told her its under the hood, kind of on top of the engine, how could I done damage to it, she wouldn't have it, they have to see it and make a call when they see it.

 

One minute you're finding coolant residue on your water pump, the next minute you're being disemboweled and eaten alive by radioactive zombies...

 

it will be interesting to see if they cover it under warranty. Or if they just look at it, tell you it’s normal, and charge you 145 bucks.

 

Good point - but no way would I accept them telling me that it is normal. It is 100% leaking. Its obviously a very minor leak (now) - but I would expect it to worsen over time. If anyone at the dealer told me it was normal and they didn't need to fix it - I'd be asking for their boss, and then the next person's boss, and so on until I got someone to tell me it was getting fixed free of charge under warrantee. I think they will fix it - there is no reasonable way they could conclude that the owner somehow damaged the gasket/flange where the leak is.

 

Well, you have a really good idea of when it started, which is good. It probably is something minor. I once had the tiniest grain of something under my oil filter gasket on a Gen3, and it lost oil in a hurry. The filter was tight, too.

Hope you get this fixed under warranty!

 

Is some of the weeping expected or it should never occur. I was just adding some coolant at lunch time and saw another area in front of the waterpump that has a rubber hose mating with a steel pipe it is clamped down but there is also some minor coolant crystallization size of milk chocolate m&m at the rubber hose end.

Also took a closer look at the water pump weeping and it seems the whole top of the water pump has this, kind of like from 9 to 3 on a watch face has the build up.

 

Not normal. My 2023 Limited is only a little over 6 months old - so nothing like this on it. However, I had a 2010 Tacoma TRD Sport with the 4.0 1GR-FE engine for 13 years/145K miles - and I never saw this. Not 100% apples to apples - but pretty close.

 

Toyota has published TSBs (technical service bulletin) for various leaks and what they consider normal or not. They have pictures to use as guidance when determining a normal seep or a leak. Some residue from the weep hole may be considered normal. However, yours does not look normal (looks like the gasket to me). Additionally, most Toyota water pumps will never show these traces of coolant, even after years of service. I think you will be taken care of and enjoy many years of trouble free ownership once the root cause has been addressed.

 

I absolutely agree with you. But be ready to escalate exactly as you said, and hope it doesn’t go down like that. I’ve been lucky and haven’t had to take a new car in for a warranty issue in the last 20 years. Imagine my surprise when I take my 4runner in for a intermittent noisy front diff needle bearing, they tell “could not reproduce” and charged me 145 bucks. Things have changed!

 

You might as well just get Toyota extended warranty whilst still under 3yr/36K. Right away.

 

I would check torque at that bolt and compare to spec. Entirely possible someone "touched" that very bolt. may be just stupidity, or may be dealership: for all warranty repairs, however "free", Toyota paid.

 

So dealer investigated, they said they cleaned off the areas and took it for a drive and they see a very slow leak. They recommend a water pump replacement under warranty. They ordered new pump and said it will be at least 2 to 3 days before they get it. Returned the truck as it is deemed safe to drive and will call back when the pumps arrives.
Having said that I took pictures before I dropped it off and it does not look like they cleaned it at all, the crystallized coolant is there same as before. In any case awaiting the pump to arrive and will see how it does after replacement.

 

What a cluster fak its turning into. New water pump came in. Dropped off car @ 7:30am for what I have been told 3 to 4 hour job. Than about 8:30am got a call that to change the pump it requires the front end to be taken apart to get to the pump. OK, so advised it will be around 2pm'sh when it will be ready.
@ 1:30pm get a call that they are having hard time to put all the parts together and some do not want to fit. Told it will be another hour, maybe 1.5 hour.
@ 3:40pm, got a call that its all put together but can't start engine as the belts to loose and they don't want to cause damage. They are looking into the tensioner.
@ 4:40pm, they can't get it fixed, allegedly the tensioner is seazing uop and belts are loose. They open till 6pm so I will get a call before then to see if it is good.
@ 5:52pm, no go they need 2 more days to get it fixed. Ordered new tensioner as well with hopes that it will fix it.

The advisor on the phone when told me they are having hard time putting it together had a little chuckle.

Hate to say it but not feeling confident about this, I think they screws something up and are trying to fix it. Especially since she said they had hard time fitting things back, probably forced something and it snapped or broke.

 

Well that sucks. Not sure what would have been worse. We can’t get it back together or we have leftover parts for some reason.

Hope it all turns out good for you.

 

So lucky your under warranty. Imagine if you were paying the hourly labor.

 

Basically, they’re not letting “doing the right thing” get in the way of a telling a useless lie. Sounds pretty typical.

 

Wow, that seems like over communication lol. Does a customer really need a play by play detailing the techs trouble doing this particular job for the first time? They need to leave the guy in peace to figure it out lol

Seriously, they’re probably pushing the tech to get it done in half an hour and just making it worse.

 

Wait until you get to manifold air injection pump and switching valve failures

With the year and mileage, there's nothing for a previous owner to screw up in terms of maintenance for the cooling system.

 

Next time, try to find a dealer that won't charge to check out an issue on an under warranty car.

I see you already went, but that was my first thought upon seeing the $145 cost. That's a little ridiculous even for a diagnostic; I'd be surprised if they even drove it.

 

Apparently this warrantee screening racket is what all the dealers do now before considering warranty coverage. It’s a quick way to make a buck off of customers under warranty.

It really doesn’t give them much incentive to try very hard to “hear” a noise or otherwise take necessary efforts to reproduce a problem. Quick spin around the block, say “cannot reproduce problem”, and send you on your way to the cashiers station with a bill.

It’s especially hard for a customer to be confident the dealer even attempted to diagnose anything at dealers that are very busy. Those places just seem to want to move people through “efficiently.”

 

That's crazy, but good to know.

 

It seems @sympley76 experienced this first hand, as he said it did not appear they cleaned anything upon later inspection. Somehow they came to the conclusion that a water pump was needed, but subsequently botched that job also.

 

At least in this case the dealer acknowledged the problem as a warranty issue (although they unnecessarily lied about what they did to diagnose the problem-probably just to jazz it up for the customer). In these situations, the dealer does not charge the diagnostic fee. They just send the bill for the repair to toyota.

The up-front diagnostic fee is a problem on cases where noises (like the front diff bearing), or when a problem is intermittent. In other words, if there’s a chance they can say “we can’t hear it” or “they all sound like that”. The customer leaves pissed that the problem was not recognized, still has the problem, and an is almost 200 dollars lighter.

 

Any update as to the repair being done already and how it went?

 

In what world is replacing a water pump at 33,000miles deemed routine maintenance? Perhaps if you're referring to GM, but these are Toyota's...

 

I think the association with Toyota pushes dealers to have less honesty than independents.

 

Routine replaceable part for service not at this mileage.

From lack of responses my previous question on service interval timing chain engine seems most don't pro actively replace until starts weeping.

 

Why would you pro actively replace? If it was underneath a timing belt, then maybe I could see doing that. It is just a waste of money to replace something that there is nothing wrong with. Besides, the weeping gives you an early warning just the same as a bad bearing in the water pump would cause the engine to start running a fever that would be indicated on the temperature gauge.

 

Yep my question was regarding timing belts. I have always changed the wp when doing timing belt and not had a wp failure. Timing chain need to keep an eye for it to go out.

 

I had a car with a Mazda 4 cylinder with a timing belt. Timing belt required removal to replace the water pump. While I never had a water pump failure, I did replace the water pump every time I did the timing belt. Kragen Auto parts had a lifetime replacement on the water pump, so I only paid for one, but received several over the life of the car.