Toyota 3.4L TT recall

I know the 4Runner doesn’t have this engine but many members have expressed interest buying a new Toyota with the 3.5L power plant.
Don’t shoot the messenger…..
3.5L recall message from Toyota.

EDIT: should have been 3.4TT….

https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota...022-2023-toyota-tundra-and-lexus-lx-vehicles/

 

So it’s now officially not anecdotal anymore. Toyota is doing the right thing. I am not happy they are having these problems but I am glad they are resolving it as I hoped they would.

And before everybody jumps in and raves how much better Ford is let’s not forget that Toyota is doing this voluntarily meanwhile Ford had to be forced to after an NHTSA investigation was launched:

https://www.motor1.com/news/689613/ford-bronco-engine-failure-investigation-expanded/

 

What is the "fix they are developing" for debris in an engine? I assume this means replacing the engine, right? How else would you be certain there aren't debris?

 

Like everyone else we can only speculate. For the effected vehicles my guess is the engine gets pulled and either repaired at the dealer, or better yet sent back to the factory.

My best guess is that repair involves a complete teardown, flushing out to remove any debris and an inspection to make sure everything is sitll within tolerance before reassembly. That inspection would probably include inspecting the cylinder bores for wear/scoring, inspecting the valve seats and seals, checking the crank bearings for wear and clearance, compression and leak down testing, etc etc. Not a small job.

For future production the fix would include an investigation to determine if lax QC allowed the debris to get missed in assembly and inspection (the blocks would be thoroughly flushed and cleaned after finish machining and before assembly so that's a big miss) OR if its some design flaw maybe some really tight or right angle oil passages leaving trouble spots to accumulate debris.


Ive never done a tear down rebuild of a Toyota v6 so hopefully some of the guys who have have better ideas than I do will chime in. For those of you who have never seen the internals at all there are lots of Toyota teardown videos on youtube to give a taste of the complexity involved.

 

Over a century......








Oh yeah, totally the same thing. totally.

 

I think they are replacing the entire short block and in some cases the heads/cams too.

 

The 3.4TT already a sh@t show from the start. Started with turbo waste gate issues, main baring issues, and the show continues. I bet 2.4T show is coming soon.

Surely Toyota leadership nuts seems to be loose nowadays.

 

I feel like an idiot, because it's probably obvious, but doesn't the 4Runner have this engine? It's the 3.4L (twin) turbo, not 3.5L?

 

I will never own any brand of car 2020+, and if i ever get another Toyota, it MUST be assembled in Japan

 

I mistakenly put 3.5L down instead of 3.4. The new 4R isn’t slated for the new V6(so far).

 

@2ndGen22re, my bad, I confused 2.4L and 3.4L. What's that smell? Brain fart.

 

Yeah no V6 in the new Runner though. I wouldn't buy the first year to 3 of any brand.

 

I can smell mine too!

 

At $20-$30k per recall X 100,000 plus trucks, this will get very expensive.

 

That is a staggering amount of money. The unknown dollar amount will be how it hurts sales and reputation.

Sort of like Subaru quietly stopping the commercials claiming that 90% of their cars up to ten years old were still on the road.

 

I find it curious the recall applies just to "conventional gas model only" engines which would suggest they are not having this problem on Tundras with the hybrid option with essentially the same motor.

 

technology - noun - “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.”


If you really think there is nothing different between a cast iron side valve carbureted engine that had tolerances you could fit your pinky through and a modern engine, I’m not sure we are even speaking the same language.

Yes, something screwed up somewhere. The thing is neither you or I are Toyota engineers so we can’t know why. Could have been some goof in assembly. Could have been a bad batch of some sub component part. Could be some scenario that came up after xxxxx miles of driving they didn’t accurately simulate in testing.

we won’t know until they release more info. I don’t understand why you are so jell bent on assuming the worst.

 

4 Runner has neither of these.

Gen 5 4Runner has 4.0L v6
Gen 6 4Runner has 2.4L turbo 4.

3.5L v6 was gen3 Tacoma.
3.4L twin turbo v6 is what is in new Tundra, LX600 and GX550

 

@jharkin, really, that's incredible, or incredibly well-known.

 

It will be expensive, no doubt. But AFAIK the $30k figure is an internet rumor - a guess from an indie mechanic what they would charge, not anything announced by Toyota. Most likely their internal costs are lower. If that number were legit, it would represent $3Billion over 100k cars, or about 4 days of Toyotas gross global revenue.

Yes the reputation hit will cost more, but it can’t be anywhere near the reputation hit Ford is suffering from NHTSA investigations.

 

That could point to the root cause being a process issue specific to documentation for the affected engine or to workers trained to build it.

 

Absolutely. The engines are probably $5k and the R/R is probably less than $5k at the warranty rate.

I bet a tech could do an engine swap in 13 hours labor at $65/hr, so ~$1k.

 

That would be good news as far as design stability goes.

 

lol giving Toyota a pass due “complexities” of modern engine, thus they failed qc on how to properly machine a block of metal?

 

I am fairly confident the 3.4TT is a design issue..

just like how yota is stubborn with the needle bearing issue and just keeps replacing failed needle bearings with a new diff that has the same design deficiency.

 

Unfortunate developments. This reminds me of Honda/Acura’s slow spiral years ago. Honda still makes a good car, but they’re not known for their reliability anymore and sales have suffered.

I’m old school. I bought our 2023 Limiteds new to keep a long time. If they still made the 5.7 Land Cruiser, I’d have bought at least one instead. The 4R Limited was as close as I could get to the LC set up with FT4WD and some other options. The Limiteds are far from perfect, but good enough, and the 4.0L/5speed does the job for us. At this point, I’m glad I pulled the trigger on these.

 

Where did I say I was giving them a pass? - Im just not ready to consider the entire brand a sinking ship due to one recall. This website needs to change its name to 4RunnerHaters.com.......



Somebody else claimed nothing changed in 100 years... which is obviously not true. Just illustrating

 

“certain machining debris may not have been cleared from the engine” …

They probably will just change the oil and filter. And maybe examine it for excessive metal bits.

 

I bet the engines are a lot more than $5k and the body has to come off.

 

Is it possible that instead of everyone car maker screwing the pooch, it's the regulatory standards that is forcing everyone to get creative and in the process things are failing when not working in optimal laboratory conditions or falls outside of increasing narrower design parameters with little margin to hit a certain mpg or emissions score?

Nah, it's much easier to blame car makers. After all, Toyota is so well known for unable to produce reliable engines, they just need to take responsibility like others have said in another thread. How hard can it be?