I posted this in the sticky but have the feeling that isn't visited much anymore. When I look through that long thread, the last update to the chart of failures seems to be in 2016 at which time there were only three 2003 V6 cars that had suffered the failure. It was mostly 04 vehicles with a scattering of 05's. Following that thread from the last update, I found only two additional 03 models, all the rest were 04's and 05's. So out of over a 100 reported failures on here, only 5% were 03's.
The sales numbers in 03 were actually higher than, or equal to, subsequent production years when the V8 was still an option and maybe in 03, they sold a ton more V8's than V6's but I don't think so. I believe 2003 was the first year for the 4.0L V-6 so did they make a running change that actually created a problem rather than solved one?
I care because I'm the original owner of my 03 and plan on keeping it another 15 years and do as much preventative maintenance as humanly possible but the head gasket failure doesn't seem to rely much on maintenance, how it's run, etc. - seems to be more of a defect in manufacturing although Toyota won't ever acknowledge that fact. I know overheating is the curse of death but my temp gauge has never varied one iota. When I do compression and leak down tests, everything is solid across the board.
So, any thoughts or reasoning on why the 03 is "safer" than 04's & 05's? I did try and search for a similar topic without any luck.
The sales numbers in 03 were actually higher than, or equal to, subsequent production years when the V8 was still an option and maybe in 03, they sold a ton more V8's than V6's but I don't think so. I believe 2003 was the first year for the 4.0L V-6 so did they make a running change that actually created a problem rather than solved one?
I care because I'm the original owner of my 03 and plan on keeping it another 15 years and do as much preventative maintenance as humanly possible but the head gasket failure doesn't seem to rely much on maintenance, how it's run, etc. - seems to be more of a defect in manufacturing although Toyota won't ever acknowledge that fact. I know overheating is the curse of death but my temp gauge has never varied one iota. When I do compression and leak down tests, everything is solid across the board.
So, any thoughts or reasoning on why the 03 is "safer" than 04's & 05's? I did try and search for a similar topic without any luck.
