We have two 3rd Gens and are currently in the market for a 4th Gen with the V8 to pull the horse trailer.

Drove over to the Sacramento Valley to test drive a 2007 Sport Edition(Auto trans & 170k miles), air temps in the mid 60's, and all seemed well on start up, no puff of smoke(steam) out the exhaust on start up and car seemed to drive okay. There was a little hesitation in the final shift of the transmission at about 50mph and around 2k on the tach but I digress. After driving the car for about 10 miles with about 5 of those on the freeway we pulled over and I started checking things out. First thing I noticed is there was no coolant in the over flow tank and was able to open the radiator cap because there wasn't any pressure in the radiator hoses. I did a little more checking and there was the telltale water/oil white slurry under the oil fill cap. Didn't have time to to dig in any further and told the owner we couldn't buy it. Owner said he knew nothing about any issues but he doesn't work on cars at all and would take the car to a mechanic this week to have it checked out.

I know the 4.7l V8 is a solid motor and you don't see many head gasket issues at all but what are your thoughts? Anything else you can think of?

Thanks!!!

Wow. I wonder if it overheated sometime in its past.

I'm not even close to an expert on the 4.7, but I currently have two trucks with it.

My 4Runner has 134.5k and Tundra has 226.4k. Two weeks ago I towed a 17' enclosed snowmobile trailer (loaded) 4 hours each way with the Tundra.

Only thing I've done other than regular maintenance is exhaust manifolds. I've never even had to deal with the air pump failure.

Only cooling system issue I remember on any of my Toyotas (Lexus) I can think of was on my old 2000 LX470...the thermostat housing would leak no matter what I tried.

Forgive me...I don't know California/Nevada at all..is it cold at night where you are? I get milky stuff under the oil caps on our vehicles when we drive them a lot for short distances in the winter. Did you see any sign of it on the dipstick?

Thanks for the response Cooper30... Here in Northern Nevada we routinely get down in to the teens at night this time of year and the days may not get out of the high 30's/low 40's but where this 4Runner is 32degrees overnight this time of year is cold.

I asked the owner if they took short drives and at first he said no but when I told him what I found he said they do drive down the street a lot to take their dogs to the park but this time of year their temps during the day routinely get in to the 60's and low 70's(especially this warm year) so it's not what most would call cold. The owner also said he just had the oil changed at a Jiffy Lube 3 weeks earlier and they top everything off so this car has gone through all the coolant in that period of time. I could potentially explain either low coolant or the oil/water mess under the oil filler cap but the two together seem more than a coincidence.

Yea. That's a huge red flag to me too.

The engine is trashed. No coolant in the overflow means the engine blew all the coolant out of the exhaust because the head(s) are warped. A dealer is attempting to hide this by filling up the overflow tank before every test drive and hoping the buyer doesn't notice.

Good news is: if you get a reputable dealer to fix the engine, Del's machine shop happens to be in Sacramento and they are a specialist with regards to the 2uz-fe. They do every 2uz head in the area for all dealers and it doesn't cost that much. I would say you could get both heads redone and the engine put back together for under 5k. Or do it yourself and have Del's do the heads for $600.