blown head gasket, then warped head, now new engine

[michaelreed]

So what'd you do with the old one? I'd be taking that sucker apart to learn.

I would too, for sure!

 

[sonerick]

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.

Thanks for the followup, this is good info. I'm at about 107k right now on my v6, and need to do an oil change soon. I'm going to grab a sample when I do the change and get an oil analysis done just to make sure there's no issues that I'm unaware of. I'll probably also pull the #6 plug and check it out.

 

[galactic_04]

galactic,

This isn't the only one, and I haven't seen a single report of this issue or any systemic issue with the V8.

WTF is wrong with you V8 vs. V6 people? A man is asking for help in the thread and it always turns v8 vs. v6? Get over yourselves and throw in some help for the guy unless you just don't have useful experiences or advice to throw in there. It's invasive and not helpful to the OP's thread. Start your own thread voicing your garbage there for his sake.

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.

Honestly, that's probably the route I would have gone given the situation. The technology they put into the engine is great, but this engine as well as all the other Toyota engines that are sleeved (almost all of them) have been built so that they really don't have the option of being fixed if warped. Sleeves have limitations. They do have better heat dissipation seeing as the cylinder is basically fully surrounded by coolant so you don't have hot spots. The downside is the head gasket has less surface area to seal with. Heads can be replaced, but a sleeved block can't be rebuilt the same as old-school blocks.