rev up your engines, now Toyota is known
for making cars that last a long time engines that run good don't burn much
oil, this 94 Celica has got a 1.8 liter four-cylinder engine and it only
burns like half a quart of oil in between the oil changes that's not bad
for a car that's got 240,000 miles on it that engine was made in Japan, and here
in North America those engines weren't made in Japan, they
were made in Kentucky and they didn't make
them right, and in 2011 Toyota issued a TSB a technical service bulletin that
said some 2006 to 2011 of those 2.4 liter engines, exhibit abnormal oil
consumption, they had defective pistons rings that did
not seal the engine correctly inside,
the pistons have various sets of rings the top ones are for compression
but the bottom are for oil control rings and their suppose to scrap the oil off the
engine so that it goes back down into the engine
instead of squeezing into the combustion chamber and then burning
and there's a spring inside that keeps them seperated so they seal
and between the rings and the inside of the piston there
are holes that let the oil go back into the engine
and in the problem of these toyota engines either the holes weren't large enough
or their weren't enough of them to drain the oil right
so their fix was to redesign the piston then they had to replace them all
now in a healthy engine the top piston rings keep
the pressure inside and the bottom ones keep scrapping the oil off and putting it
back into the bottom of the engine so the oil is used over and over again and
isn't burned so needless to say toyotas fix is a very expensive
one the engine has to be taken out of the car
and completely disassembled new pistons put in and new piston
rings it's a very expensive fix
and then toyota replaced the AZ engine with a AR engine it's a
little bit bigger and they haven't had any problems with those, now the 2.4 the
ones that burn oil they had a cast aluminum block the cylinder block
cast-iron liners and cast aluminum heads, hey at least they did a better job than
in the past with the Chevy Vegas, cast aluminum block and they just
coated it with some kind of teflon, and then that wore off they burnt oil like
mad, and their fix of course was to put liners in aftermarket so they lasted, if
you own one, their still good engines and you could take it back to Toyota but
they got a very limited recall, only certain models they were kind of
evil on that one, they should have recalled them all, but they didn't so if
you have one check the oil a lot and had the oil, it can run perfectly fine
otherwise, it's when people let them get really low on oil, then the engines just
destruct because they don't have enough lubrication inside, and don't let your
oil get dirty, personally I think some of the problem was these guys thinking they
can really do that 10,000 mile oil change, and the engines wore out faster
especially an engine that it has a problem in
the first place, if I owned one of those I go back old style, I would change the
oil and filter every 3,000 miles on one of those, so as I said in 2015
Toyota offered to fix some of these engines for free, it was a limited time
period and a limited amount of models if you want to check of yours is covered
NHTSA the website the Highway Traffic Safety Association website, and you can
look it up by the VIN number to see if there's anything that fits your model,
but really as far as I'm concerned, Toyota responded to that too
little and too late, they built the engines in the United States they
obviously did not have the quality control that they had in the Japanese
built engine, that's what I like about my old Celica, look at this Japan and in
that case not just the engine, the whole car was made in Japan, as far as I'm
concerned that's why it's lasted so long because if I want to buy a Japanese car,
I want the thing made in Japan by the people who made them best, and even the
Mercedes, hey I'm not gonna buy one but if I did, it would be that's one because
look it's made in Stuttgart Germany, the fancy ones they're still made in Germany,
and believe me they got a lot of
technology in them, but they are the best built ones that they sell, I would not
buy one that isn't made in Germany, hey take my wife's Lexus all made in Japan
engine, body, everything made in Japan real quality, so in this case the 2.4 liter
engine that Toyota made in Kentucky for the North American market, they obviously
did not build them as well as they did in Japan, now as I said if you've got one
of these, check through any kind of recalls any notifications National
Highway Traffic and Safety Association website like I said, maybe you'll get a
free fix who knows, but if you own one check your oil a lot, use quality oil and
me as I said I changed the oil in them every 3,000 miles just to make sure, now
my own personal customers that had those engine in their Toyotas, none of them had
an engine ever go out because they were checking their oil, and I'd say hey get 2
or 3 quarts of those plastic screw caps, throw them in your trunk, so if you're
somewhere and the oil is low just add it once it gets half a quart down on the dip
just put half a quart in, if you maintain it
you're really not gonna have any problems, but of course being a Toyota
one would expect them not to burn oil in the first place, because I really haven't
seen any engine problems in Toyotas other than those Celicas that had that
Yamaha designed engine and that was a mistake on Toyotas behalf to use that
Yamaha design, they should have just stuck to their own designs and not gone
to a high rev engine that only puts out the horsepower at really high revs, but
has an oil pump system that's worse that won't pump the oil at those rpms
fast enough and suck air, it's called dry sump it sucks air, and then boom up went the
engine, as far as I'm concerned that's the only other real engine
mistake the Toyota made was using those Yamaha designed engines in the Celica,
and really that pretty much led to the end of Celica, Celicas were made for
decades and then they put that engine in they got a bad reputation and then they
stopped making them, and to their credit Toyota no longer makes this 2.4 liter 4
cylinder engine that had the problems and the new one that they have, I haven't
seen any problems in them at all yet, so now you can separate fact from fiction,
what's behind all this talk about Toyota engines burning oil, so if you never want
to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that Bell
