blown head gasket, then warped head, now new engine
- Thread starter straightjacket
- Start date
galactic_04
New member
The "aluminum and plastic" design you refer to is now in every Toyota engine. Weight savings is a big thing among all manufacturers now. Hell, the same technology is used in the 2gr-fe which has been pushing 330HP in the Evora and even in the Aurion in Australia for years reliably... Toyota took the track record of the 2gr and 1gr and incorporated that new technology into the new 4.6 V8's that replaced your archaic engine. It's an out of date enigne that was updated with the dual VVTI, aluminum, and plastic of the higher-technology used to increase power-band and fuel economy... but that's probably a junk engine too
ClockWork
Banned
Time will tell if the new design is as reliable as the 2UZ. Your V6 with all that modern jazz you speak of is not.
LOL, what the **** is plastic of the higher technology?
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It isn't just Toyota and it isn't just this engine. Aluminum has a totally different expansion cycle.. it sucks at it. 
Every metal has a pro and a con.
Iron blocks are just simple and reliable. Iron expands at a set way and is very relaxed about it. Like steel. Designed properly, a steel or iron product can be designed to withstand a lifetime of thermal expansion cycles.
But, it comes at a cost. It is heavy. Very heavy.
Aluminum is light. It dissipates heat better, but it is more fragile to extreme heat cycles. This means that if something is off just a bit, it will warp much more easily.
Modern cars are about light and fast, this is what people want. People want a v6 that produces twice what it once did 20 years ago, with half the weight and double the fuel economy. This means light and hot. It is a learning curve. If you consider the first, real, modern car to be built around the early 1900's, then you also see it really wasn't until the 1950's that you start to see anything I would consider to be semi-reliable.
That is a 50 year span of countless generations to get there. It will take time, but.... aluminum is the future but there are learning pains. You can't expect an aluminum block to handle temperature swings like an iron block. When you pump up the output on an engine and you get a thermal variation that an old iron block would shrug off, you get warping in the aluminum.
Anyway.
Every metal has a pro and a con.Iron blocks are just simple and reliable. Iron expands at a set way and is very relaxed about it. Like steel. Designed properly, a steel or iron product can be designed to withstand a lifetime of thermal expansion cycles.
But, it comes at a cost. It is heavy. Very heavy.
Aluminum is light. It dissipates heat better, but it is more fragile to extreme heat cycles. This means that if something is off just a bit, it will warp much more easily.
Modern cars are about light and fast, this is what people want. People want a v6 that produces twice what it once did 20 years ago, with half the weight and double the fuel economy. This means light and hot. It is a learning curve. If you consider the first, real, modern car to be built around the early 1900's, then you also see it really wasn't until the 1950's that you start to see anything I would consider to be semi-reliable.
That is a 50 year span of countless generations to get there. It will take time, but.... aluminum is the future but there are learning pains. You can't expect an aluminum block to handle temperature swings like an iron block. When you pump up the output on an engine and you get a thermal variation that an old iron block would shrug off, you get warping in the aluminum.
Anyway.
galactic_04
New member
You haven't got into the engine much, there's high-temp plastics everywhere in the newer engines. Hell, they've been using plastics since the 22re's timing chain guides, possibly before that. Synthetic plastics of all sorts are used now. Aluminum blocks have been used since the 70's, it's not like it's a new technology, but new for the people on this board apparently. See what DC Runner said above. Oh, and don't be saying my V6 is an issue, no issues since new and it's over 111k so far... same year as the PO.
If you like your iron block, stay with it. I could care less. Leaving crap about the V6 having tons of issues from the 5 people having them on this board and scaring people into not driving their vehicles is just stupid. There's no known issue of the problem re-occuring or popping up everywhere. Search FJ boards and tacoma boards and it's a very reliable engine.
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ClockWork
Banned
Yes, I'm well aware but WTF are plastics of higher technology? Do you mean composites, and resins?
There have been at least 15 reported HG failures on the V6. Nothing like this about the V8 here and nothing on Mud, the Cruiser forum where 100's have been around since 1998.
Exhaust manifolds wont leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Just sayin'.
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Technically speaking, neither will a head gasket failure.
You can usually continue to drive on a head gasket. Sure it gets worse and worse, but it won't leave you stranded. This isn't the 70's when cars loved to throw rods. Hell, even then, the blues brothers managed to get that money to the tax man and saved the Church!
!
You can usually continue to drive on a head gasket. Sure it gets worse and worse, but it won't leave you stranded. This isn't the 70's when cars loved to throw rods. Hell, even then, the blues brothers managed to get that money to the tax man and saved the Church!
!
sonerick
New member
I have a question for the OP. How long did you drive on the blown head gasket? What symptoms, if any, were there other than the misfire code? Do you regularly check coolant? Did it just blow up all of a sudden?
Instead of turning this into yet another USELESS V6 vs V8 thread, let's try and get some more information about how this HG failure progressed from a small leak to a ruined engine. I'm interested in this, and so should the rest of the V6 owners who are approaching higher mileage.
Instead of turning this into yet another USELESS V6 vs V8 thread, let's try and get some more information about how this HG failure progressed from a small leak to a ruined engine. I'm interested in this, and so should the rest of the V6 owners who are approaching higher mileage.
This, my friend, is the 1000 dollar question. HG's can be huge or they could be small. Usually you don't blow a head gasket, instead you have warped the heads and as a result they deform and the gasket is no longer making a good seal. You can blow a head gasket, but with modern gasket material and the accuracy of the robots placing it; I think this is becoming less likely.
From my read, the issue with the v6 is that a temperature variation in the heads will cause deformation and warp-age, which will cause the seal to be lost. When this happens, the coolant starts to seep or flow into the cylinder.
In this instance, once you even know what is going on; the damage is done. By the time you start seeing the product (codes, smoke, coolant loss) the cylinder wall has been eaten up. The deformation is there.
Instead of attempting to close the barn gate once the horses have fled, it is a much better attempt to keep the gate closed; so to speak.
The issue is in extreme temperature variations. Keep your cooling system maintenance. Ensure that good coolant is in the system, as old coolant looses its ability to maintain temp.
Don't push the truck. I suspect part of the problem is problematic cooling design. It appears that cylinder 6 has issues in heating, due in part to the cooling channel design. Very similar, I might add, to the 3.0.
You avoid this lethal combination by not stressing the system. You can't totally prevent it from ever happening, but I suspect driving more conservatively and avoiding spiking the RPM will do as much as is possible to avoid it.
From my read, the issue with the v6 is that a temperature variation in the heads will cause deformation and warp-age, which will cause the seal to be lost. When this happens, the coolant starts to seep or flow into the cylinder.
In this instance, once you even know what is going on; the damage is done. By the time you start seeing the product (codes, smoke, coolant loss) the cylinder wall has been eaten up. The deformation is there.
Instead of attempting to close the barn gate once the horses have fled, it is a much better attempt to keep the gate closed; so to speak.
The issue is in extreme temperature variations. Keep your cooling system maintenance. Ensure that good coolant is in the system, as old coolant looses its ability to maintain temp.
Don't push the truck. I suspect part of the problem is problematic cooling design. It appears that cylinder 6 has issues in heating, due in part to the cooling channel design. Very similar, I might add, to the 3.0.
You avoid this lethal combination by not stressing the system. You can't totally prevent it from ever happening, but I suspect driving more conservatively and avoiding spiking the RPM will do as much as is possible to avoid it.
sonerick
New member
I understand everything you're saying, it's all good info, but it's generic. I'm more interested in isolating what exactly contributed to this specific HG failure. What did the OP do that may have caused it? Did he drive the truck hard? Did he see his coolant was leaking slowly and ignore it? Did he smell coolant in the engine bay? Did he see excess smoke coming from his tailpipe a few weeks before he brought it to the dealer? How long was the CEL on?
michaelreed
New member
OP, what ended up happening with your engine? I'm in the same boat at this point..
straightjacket
New member
The funny thing about my situation is that my truck never overheated. Not once during the whole ordeal. The only symptom was the sputtering at idle and the misfire code. I had just recently had the coolant changed at around 106,000 miles. Shortly after that I developed the misfire.
After the original diagnosis of the blown head gasket I dumped a bottle of that "miracle in a can" head gasket repair in the radiator - don't remember what brand it was. That bought me another 1,000 miles or so. During this time, the misfire was gone and the truck was running fine. Then all of a sudden it started with the misfire again. That's when I took it in to the dealer thinking I was just going to have the head gasket replaced.
After they had everything torn apart, they said the heads were warped beyond repair. So I ended up getting a used engine with 37k miles from Used Auto Parts - Car Parts - Truck Parts - Body Parts - Engines - Wheels - Bumpers - Lights which the dealer installed for me. Been running fine ever since.
straightjacket
New member
See my followup above.
As is the case with a lot of the reported head gasket failure threads on this site the OP is someone with a very low post count who never gives a history of their car and then disappears after making a head gasket failure thread.
There are a few on here that seem legit but a lot of these head gasket threads are probably made by a certain troll that keeps getting banned form these forums.
lol, I stand corrected. I guess you responded as I was typing. My point still stands, though, that there have been bogus HG failure threads made by a certain individual.
michaelreed
New member
Yeah.. believe me I've seen him around. I think he just got banned again, hopefully for good. It's really quite annoying when you're trying to find out what's wrong with your truck.
michaelreed
New member
Thanks for the link. How much was the engine if you don't mind me asking?
straightjacket
New member
I paid $2150 for the engine. There's no core charge either, so I didn't have to return the old engine to them.
So what'd you do with the old one? I'd be taking that sucker apart to learn.
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