rev up your engines, now Toyota is known for making cars that last a long time
engines that run good don't burn much oil, this 94 Celica has got a 1.8
liter four-cylinder engine and it only burns like half a quart of oil in
between the oil changes that's not bad for a car that's got 240,000 miles on it
that engine was made in Japan, and here in North America
those engines weren't made in Japan, they were
made in Kentucky and they didn't make them right, and in 2011 Toyota issued a
TSB a technical service bulletin that said some 2006 to 2011 of those 2.4
liter engines, exhibit abnormal oil consumption,
they had defective pistons rings that did not seal
the engine correctly inside, the pistons have various sets of rings
the top ones are for compression but the bottom are for oil control rings
and their suppose to scrap the oil off the engine
so that it goes back down into the engine instead of squeezing into the combustion chamber
and then burning and there's a spring inside that keeps them
seperated so they seal and between the rings and the inside of the
piston there are holes that let the oil go back into the
engine and in the problem of these toyota engines
either the holes weren't large enough or their weren't enough of them to drain the
oil right so their fix was to redesign the piston
then they had to replace them all now in a healthy engine the top piston rings
keep the pressure inside and the bottom ones
keep scrapping the oil off and putting it back into the bottom of the engine
so the oil is used over and over again and isn't burned
so needless to say toyotas fix is a very expensive one
the engine has to be taken out of the car and completely
disassembled new pistons put in and new piston rings
it's a very expensive fix and then toyota replaced the
AZ engine with a AR engine it's a little bit bigger and they haven't had
any problems with those, now the 2.4 the ones that burn oil they had a cast
aluminum block the cylinder block cast-iron liners and cast aluminum heads,
hey at least they did a better job than in the past with the Chevy Vegas,
cast aluminum block and they just coated it with some kind of teflon,
and then that wore off they burnt oil like mad, and their fix of course was to put
liners in aftermarket so they lasted, if you own one, their still good engines
and you could take it back to Toyota but they got a very limited recall, only
certain models they were kind of evil on that one, they should have
recalled them all, but they didn't so if you have one check the oil a lot and had
the oil, it can run perfectly fine otherwise, it's when people let them get
really low on oil, then the engines just destruct because they don't have enough
lubrication inside, and don't let your oil get dirty, personally I think some of
the problem was these guys thinking they can really do that 10,000 mile oil
change, and the engines wore out faster especially an engine that it has a problem
in the first place, if I owned one of those
I go back old style, I would change the oil and filter every 3,000 miles on one
of those, so as I said in 2015 Toyota offered to fix some of these
engines for free, it was a limited time period and a limited amount of models if
you want to check of yours is covered NHTSA the website the Highway Traffic
Safety Association website, and you can look it up by the VIN number to see if
there's anything that fits your model, but really as far as I'm
concerned, Toyota responded to that too little and too late, they built the
engines in the United States they obviously did not have the quality
control that they had in the Japanese built engine, that's what I like about my
old Celica, look at this Japan and in that case not just the engine, the whole
car was made in Japan, as far as I'm concerned that's why it's lasted so long
because if I want to buy a Japanese car, I want the thing made in Japan by the
people who made them best, and even the Mercedes, hey I'm not gonna buy one but
if I did, it would be that's one because look it's made in Stuttgart Germany, the
fancy ones they're still made in Germany, and
believe me they got a lot of technology in them, but they are the best
built ones that they sell, I would not buy one that isn't made in Germany, hey
take my wife's Lexus all made in Japan engine, body, everything made in Japan real
quality, so in this case the 2.4 liter engine that Toyota made in Kentucky for
the North American market, they obviously did not build them as well as they did
in Japan, now as I said if you've got one of these, check through any kind of
recalls any notifications National Highway Traffic and Safety Association
website like I said, maybe you'll get a free fix who knows, but if you own one
check your oil a lot, use quality oil and me as I said I changed the oil in them
every 3,000 miles just to make sure, now my own personal customers that had those
engine in their Toyotas, none of them had an engine ever go out because they were
checking their oil, and I'd say hey get 2 or 3 quarts of those plastic screw caps,
throw them in your trunk, so if you're somewhere and the oil is low just add it
once it gets half a quart down on the dip just put half a quart in, if you maintain
it you're really not gonna have any
problems, but of course being a Toyota one would expect them not to burn oil in
the first place, because I really haven't seen any engine problems in Toyotas
other than those Celicas that had that Yamaha designed engine and that was a
mistake on Toyotas behalf to use that Yamaha design, they should have just
stuck to their own designs and not gone to a high rev engine that only puts out
the horsepower at really high revs, but has an oil pump system that's worse
that won't pump the oil at those rpms fast enough and suck air, it's called dry
sump it sucks air, and then boom up went the engine, as far as I'm concerned
that's the only other real engine mistake the Toyota made was using those
Yamaha designed engines in the Celica, and really that pretty much led to the
end of Celica, Celicas were made for decades and then they put that engine in
they got a bad reputation and then they stopped making them, and to their credit
Toyota no longer makes this 2.4 liter 4 cylinder engine that had the problems
and the new one that they have, I haven't seen any problems in them at all yet, so
now you can separate fact from fiction, what's behind all this talk about Toyota
engines burning oil, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair
videos remember to ring that Bell