Engine Sludge/Oil Gelling--Toyota's Customer Response - READ ONLY

877 messages, Last post on May 09, 2002 at 5:24 AM

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#51 of 877 by kirstie_h HOST Apr 04, 2002 (8:58 am)
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks to everyone for a great chat last night on the general topic of engine sludge, and a big thanks to bobtheoilguy for helping us with some of the technical ins and outs of oil, engines, sludge, and how things work. I'll be following this topic as I'm curious about any new information that comes out. I hope everyone continues the dialog in the same reasonable fashion as last night's discussion. Thanks all! kirstie_h Roving Host Edmunds.com
#52 of 877 when & how can I tell if 3.0 is a revised design by kclk Apr 04, 2002 (9:04 am)
Thank you host for a very informative topic. Few discussions or cars are perfect, so the more cummunication on a topic the better. Don't let the board members push you around, or you'll end up like Judge Ito in the O.J. trial! My wife is chomping at the bit for a rx300. I "will" by the car when the design problem is addressed. 1. How many months out can I expect to see the new rx300's with the design fix 2. How can I tell if the rx300 I am looking at has the design fix? Until the above questions are addressed, I am hesitant to buy the product. Oil changes more frequently than 5000 miles is not realistic for the amount of driving we do in S. California.
#53 of 877 USA Today Article by jj35 Apr 04, 2002 (9:10 am)
The USA Today article states: "Toyota says the problem is caused by going too long between oil changes, but nevertheless says it is changing the engine design to prevent a repeat." Questions for tmsusa1 - what is the design change that Toyota will be making? Why is a design change needed unless there is a design problem?
#54 of 877 when & how can I tell if 3.0 is a revised design by kclk Apr 04, 2002 (9:13 am)
Thank you host for a very informative topic. Few discussions or cars are perfect, so the more cummunication on a topic the better. Don't let the board members push you around, or you'll end up like Judge Ito in the O.J. trial! My wife is chomping at the bit for a rx300. I "will" by the car when the design problem is addressed. 1. How many months out can I expect to see the new rx300's with the design fix 2. How can I tell if the rx300 I am looking at has the design fix? Until the above questions are addressed, I am hesitant to buy the product. Oil changes more frequently than 5000 miles is not realistic for the amount of driving we do in S. California.
#55 of 877 drain intervals by krzyss Apr 04, 2002 (9:16 am)
As a side note. This problem is going to prove that 3000 mile drain interval is the only way to go, which I disagree. Everything depends on environment (temperature, humidity), how long engine runs, what RPM, load. It seems that oil change idicator (the clever one, which takes most of varaibles into account) will be standard in Toyota soon, just like it is in BMW. I would not object if every car has it. I am changing my oil (5W30 or 0W30, 4+ quarts per change, Mobil 1) between 7000 and 8000 miles. 72000 miles and a new head gasket (unrelated problem) later my Neon's engine works quite good. Krzys PS I admire Toyota steping up. They stil blame customers but in lawsuit happy USA I do not think that they have a choice. The engines seem to be poorly designed to handle neglect but they use small amount of oil for an oil change, deliver good power and torque. Toyota will build more user friendly version soon.
#56 of 877 The Chat by jj35 Apr 04, 2002 (9:33 am)
Can anyone who participated in the chat room last night give a synopsis? I wasn't able to log on until 9:30 p.m. EST and by then the discussion was over.
#57 of 877 YOu know what this means by 8u6hfd Apr 04, 2002 (9:36 am)
Now people can take advantage of this by: close to the end of the 8-year unlimited mile warranty, you can stop changing your oil, let it sludge and get a new engine for free!!! You just know someone is going to try it.
#58 of 877 A guy gets arrested... by xwray Apr 04, 2002 (9:42 am)
for a rape/murder. He is tried and sent to jail. 15 years later when they run DNA checks, the guy is found to not be the murderer after all. With much fanfare, he is released from prison. This otherwise happy occasion is marred because the authorities, while setting him free, blame him for the miscarriage of justice because he looked too much like the real murderer and couldn't prove he didn't do it. Would you blame this guy if he felt that this was a bittersweet victory. Would you blame this guy if he harbors contempt and mistrust of the "system" even though he got the freedom he deserved. Would you blame this guy for complaining that even though he was freed, he was made to feel that it was his fault and that the authorities accepted no blame. Would you believe the authorities when they told you they never jailed innocent people. Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but the sludge saga is much like this little story. That's why some folks are still irritated with Toyota...their here - take the money you screw-up attitude. Why is anybody surprised?
#59 of 877 by Mr_Shiftright HOST Apr 04, 2002 (10:08 am)
Im thinking here, trying to put myself in a "sludge victim's" shoes, that feeling insulted can only get you so far, especially concerning a car. After a suitable time for blowing steam, seems to me it's best to take whatever money is on the table and run. So Toyota didn't come to your house and say "I'm sorry". Foo on them. How's your blood pressure? Yeah, you got aggravated, but essentially for the vast majority of the few thousand people affected, things have been, or will be, put right. Not as good an ending as never having to deal with sludge, but still okay for Real Life. Think of all the people who had car troubles and got nothing over the years. And for those Toyota owners not directly "sludged", you have that 8-year warranty to put under your pillow at night. Being sent to the slammer unjustly is a true tragedy, since time is not replaceable and the issue cannot be put right. This does not, however, mean that the entire system need be discarded.
#60 of 877 Don't Forget - this is SOP in the Car Business by jeffmust2 Apr 04, 2002 (10:36 am)
Toyota is just a recent inductee in the "Automobile Corp Hall of Shame" for mishandling this mess. Two personal examples of other inductees: 1. Purchased a new 1979 fullsize Chevy Impala station wagon for my dad. Auto trans goes out at 4500 miles, 8500 miles, and 12600 miles. Why shouldn't it? - it was the same trans unit that GM designed for their Chevette, a vehicle that weighted about half what the Impala did, not to mention the extra torque of the Impala V-8. Anyway, first two rebuilds units are covered under that great 12mo/12k warranty (remember those?); the service managers comment at the time was, "Well, maybe you're overstressing the trans by all that weight in the back of the wagon..." The "weight" he referred to was a couple hundred pounds of drapery samples. Anyway, the breakdown at 12600 miles wasn't covered, of course. The rebuild unit we paid for finally fixed the problem. Years later, I received a little brochure from GM/Chevy (wish I still had it!) explaining what they determined the problem to be: "Modern automatic transmisions have thousands of parts..." In sum, their defense was that designing an AT was more of an art than a science. Maybe they should have hired Picasso to head-up their engineering group. Bottom line: Haven't purchased a GM product since, new or used, and I probably have purchased and influenced about 20 vehicle procurements in the last 23 years. Ross Perot was right about GM -just massive incompetency lead by the accountants. 2. Bought a new 1992 Not-So-Grand Caravan. Too many probems to list, but here's the best one...less than a year old, the welds and bolts holding the rear hatch door struts were defective. Now this is a door that needs two guys to lift; without both gas struts connected, it closes rather rapidly. As it did when one strut bracket cracked, nearly killing my wife as she was unloading some items. Service manager's response, after the obligatory "...never seen that happen before..." (must be true with how RARE these vehicles are): "Were you parked on a slope?" At the time one doesn't realize how funny these comments are...is there a class these guys take? Anyway, I of course added Chrylser to my list of don't-bring-one-home-ever-for-any-reason. Pretty soon, I'll be left with no American manufacturers. Except I do have to say that my son's Explorer has been reliable as was my wife's Mountaineer that she drove before her RX300. So Toyota gets inducted the same week that Ford is considering a massive F-150 recall and GM is going to recall 1.9 million vehicles for, I recall, an ignition fire potential problem. So put a couple thousand (or even more) sludged Toyota engines into perspective, wonder why it took them so long to put an extended warranty into effect, and move on into worrying about the Mideast situation. Hey, we might not have ANY oil to put into engines soon, gelled or not.