This Common Toyota V6 Problem is Often Misdiagnosed! Here's How to Check it

hello and welcome to the car care not chat this is a 2013 Toyota Sienna with the beautiful 2grfe but the beautiful 2grfe today is throwing a fit or as we call it in car World check engine light is on so let's let me walk you through this super common problem with the 2grfe and I've seen enough misdiagnosis for this issue that I wanted to make a video this is actually pretty DIY I mean all you need is a semi-capable scan tool to diagnose it accurately this engine in its early days had vvti problems gears falling apart Rattle and cold start but a 2013 we don't have those issues anymore they were all being resolved and this is the best version of this engine but what we do have that is a continuation of things is oil control valve issues and usually as a car owner when you get a check engine light you don't have a scan tool you're going to run to the power store let's get a code and the owner of this car did that and usually that code comes up with timing chain or timing is off or timing chain is stretched when you have code which this one has p0012 or for that matter every time you have a p001 something that's usually bad news codes for every other manufacturer bought Toyota usually depends on which engine you have it's usually something either the gear the oil control valves but in the o2gr I've seen so many misdiagnosis as it's a gear and you have to drop this whole engine out of this car across thousands of dollars just for it to end up being an oil control valve let's talk about both cases let me turn the scan tool on and you can first see what we got so now that we got the scan tool going I want to show you the codes that we have one of the codes that we have is poo12 very simple code that we talked about we're going to talk about it more in depth but another code that a lot of people ask about is p1604 now now 1604 it started building malfunction you have so many Toyotas with this code but no check engine light all this code means is you disconnected the battery you started the car and the immobilizer ECU and the computer and the engine computer have not had a chance to communicate properly so the symptom is you disconnect the battery you connect it start the car the car will run for two seconds shut off and then you start again runs perfectly fine that start and shut off initially set 1604 it means nothing folks basically what that means in certain very complicated diagnosis cases this means something but most of the time if you've just had your battery disconnected for whatever reason this is what that is but let's go back to the po12 vvti problem timing chain gears usually that's what mechanics jump to do because that's I guess what pays their bills and whatnot but the reality is does this car drive normally is it underpowered that's the first question you want to ask yourself because if the timing jumped you're going to drive this car it's going to be underpowered and all the time if the vbti gear is malfunctioning it's going to be underpowered because you won't be able to advance the timing retired timing as needed to have Optimal Performance but there's actually a way to test the vvti system in this case this particular code is bank one which is a rear Bank intake so if in the scan tool or any capable two-way scan tool this is a text stream we're going to go to active test we're going to test it we're going to test let's see test controlled VVT system Bank One and do that you have to have the car running we're going to start the car running perfectly fine when I activate the vvti system it's going to go full Advance at idle watch what happens to the engine let's do that again I want you to see it watch watch what happens to the engine when I activate it two so you can see that it does exactly the same thing this is Bank two watch what the engine does and we'll talk about what just happened this is what happened when you advance the timing all the way when the car is at idle not at higher RPM is going to want to stumble and die that's what engines do right now what the computer did you commanded it to go a full Advance when it saw that the engine is about to die it actually aborted the test and went back and the older ones it will kill the engine rise straight out on the newer ones a little smarter it's going to see that you're going to kill the engine it's going to back off you saw right now that both Banks did exactly the same so do you have a problem with your vvti gear that's broken not moving C stuck whatever the case may be I don't think so do we have a problem with the chains that has jumped tooth not really because if you have that case it would be a different code actually even though it's in a very remote possibility you could have this code and if the chain has jumped but it would be not the Big Chain on the 2gr it would be the chain between the two camps ask me how I know that been there seen that and that's what happens but if this engine has been running perfectly fine nothing has happened to it unless you've just put this Engine Back Together started and you have this code I don't think that changes jumps all of a sudden we're not talking about GM here or Chevy or whatever this is Toyota Land tough stuff are made well this chain will last forever unless you review TI gear something happens and it explodes so this is a simple diagnosis I will put on the screen the codes and where they correlate to and I'm going to show you where the oil control valves are because it's very very simple you have any of these codes you're going to get yourself a capable scan tool that could do bi-directional control or that active test that I just did you're going to active testing if you have that stumble on both Banks and you only have a code for one bag guess what everything is good if you are a DIY mechanic erase the code and see how long it takes to come back if it does come back within two three days you'll potentially have a problem with an oil control valve just sticking intermittently mind you not all the time and this does happen debris stuff gets in it it does happen has nothing to do with your maintenance habits this is something common with these here is the oil control valves and we're going to show you the ones on Bank two because bank one is usually the harder one you got to pull the plenum and whatnot but this is an oil control valve all this does if you want to know exactly what this does refer to the video we did on vvti but this controls the two timing gears that are here this one that is towards the intake manifold is the intake side on Bank 2. this one towards the exhaust manifold is the exhaust side on Bank 2. bank 2 on the 2gr engine is the front Bank left hand bank or also referred to as Bank two bank one rear Bank right hand or Bank One is the back one in all my career at Toyota doing probably hundreds of these ocv valves for some reason it's never the easy ones it's always the bank one that's just how they are it's one of these interesting things in some models you can actually get the ocv valve out of the back without pulling the plenum on this particular one on the intake side at least you have to pull the plenum out this is a plenum that we're talking about go watch the video where we do for the spark plugs saying exact procedure remove the cowl remove this just like you're doing spark plugs and it's right there you can actually see it you can get to the bolt but once you pull it it's just going to hit the plenum and that's where we stop so if you have a bank one which is more than likely you're going to have with these replace that life is good but you have to active tested because if you active test it and all of a sudden you hear all kinds of grinding and rattling that could be a vvti gear especially we're talking about an older one but if it's just stumble then it comes back up or stumbles and dies completely that is also normal on the older models this is just a sticky oil control valve don't try to clean these though and that's that's the key thing here you clean those and now you could have possibly introduced problems these are very delicate Parts here inside this line right here if you actually look at the valve cover you will see where these get fed oiled through this this line right here feeds these two this line gets oil comes oil here goes through this one and then goes across and goes to this one over here on this on the tip of this bolt there's actually a filter I'm yet to see one that is clogged or dirty but in the very rare chance that you're dealing with an engine that has had very poor oil change history and you can physically see sludge and stuff and you have codes for both of them you replace them it works for a few weeks then they're back pull this bolt all the way through sometimes the filter will stay inside you reach in it with a little needle nose plier pull it out and it's a small filter yay big it never gets clogged unless you have heavy contamination so folks I wanted to share this with you and actually this van has kind of a phantom problem that we've been dealing with for a very long time here the AC controls you start the car runs perfectly fine you hit Auto or try to operate the HVAC radio silence nothing wait for five minutes all comes alive life is good we've tried to diagnose this multiple times and every time I by the time it gets here it's working it's working and I check everything everything is fine until today I'll get to that that's very simple DIY job folks all right the ocv valves but let me show you what actually we discovered with this so let's turn the key on let's pay our attention to the AC data list we're gonna find our air conditioning air conditioner finally it's set a code ah see this time it didn't even set it and it's pretty interesting let's see if it's doing it still we're gonna pay our attention to drivers and passenger let's look at what we got here Air Max Servo Target and Airmax Servo pulse driver side and then Airmax actual and Target on the passenger side here's what's going on here one of these is where the computer wants that actuator that moves the door to change a cold hot in the AC the target is where the computer wants it to be the actual is where it is actually at so when you move the temperature here you want let's say let's make a hypothetical value here we're at seven you move it to full hot it goes to 103 well the target is immediately computer is commanding it's seven now now it's commanding at 103. it'll go immediate but the actual it'll take some time for that motor to kind of go through the motions to get to 103. so you'll see that in the scan tool that as it's progressing but when you have a stubborn Servo that the computer is commanding it to do one thing and it's just sitting on the beach on vacation doing nothing this is what we have here and if you look at the actual values here I will actually go in the car and activate them and I want you to see how they respond so right now the passenger side the actual is seven and the target is seven on the driver's side however the the target is 103 and the actual is 249. I'm going to move the passenger side for you to see it I put the passenger side all the way across right now the passenger side you see how that climbed went to 105 and climbed slowly now let's operate the driver's side there's the driver's side problems yes big ones because the Target on the driver's side is five and the actual is sitting on a beach on a vacation we have a bad Servo but why does the AC let me turn off the car now we're going to run down this battery but why is it doing that and what is the actual problem with this car have to do with this see every time you turn on the key on an automatic AC car it'll run a Servo initialization it'll basically move all the servos one position to the end of its travel and to the end of the travel to know what are these positions that's how the position sensor is calibrated but in this car it activates all of them they all swing perfect except the driver's side okay we're commanding it at seven it's at 249. let's wait for it to get to Seven wait for it it just hangs there for a while until it internally times out where now we're no longer waiting for it forget it this is now working let's just come that's why it takes so much time for that AC control panel to come alive this is how your diagnosis thought process should be what's going on don't just replace Parts the owner of this car loves this thing takes care of it original owner he actually went to the bottom control panel and that's the first thought of an owner oh it's just a control panel not working yet it has nothing to do with the control panel none of the other stuff is actually a potentially a Servo or and this is where this could actually unravel to more because it could be a Servo it could be the wiring in between or it could be the AC computer or in Toyota language AC amplifier just receive if the computer is receiving the signal but it's not displaying it there might be a problem inside so this is where this diagnosis is kind of going to take us and we're going to continue on this but always verify ask for the why whenever you diagnose a car whenever your mechanic diagnose a car and and he comes with the diagnosis oh you have a trouble code here poo12 the last 10 Chevys I had in the shop needed a timing chain because a 3.6 liter engine has a bicycle chain instead of a real car chain so this one is probably the same it's going to be oh five thousand dollars Thor you say yes ask him why because when I come here and tell you I have a problem with the gears and I do that test and they start rattling and shaking and you almost feel like they're gonna launch from the engine there's no question of a doubt I can show you that but while there is nothing it's an oil control valve and your mechanic can explain that just like I did very simple and clear the DIY folks this is your territory this is very simple diagnosis you need a very basic Scandal to do this not the most basic now we're talking a little bit Advanced maybe that X2 D7 we talked about can do this test this is why where you take your love skills to the next level but always verify don't just go replace Parts folks the world is full of parts replacement mechanics but if you spend time and have the patience anyone can become a diagnostician because you just need to understand how the system works and what am I looking for and use logic and Common Sense and you'll find these problems actually very simply folks I hope this video is helpful informative I hope you learned something new if you like it consider giving me a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber consider subscribing to the channel check out some other videos and until the next video folks may the Lord bless you and keep you and you have yourself a wonderful day

Channel: The Car Care Nut

Views: 213,077

Keywords: Common toyota v6 problem, p0012, p0016, p0021, toyota timing chain, 2gr-fe, toyota v6 engine, toyota 3.5l v6, lexus v6, lexus timing chain, toyota problems, toyota common problems, the car care nut, car care nut, how to take care of your toyota, toyota, lexus, scotty kilmer, toyota d4 engine problems, car wizard, toyota repair, toyota maintenance, tccn automotive, toyota mechanic, toyota technician, toyota dealership, car problems, car repair, car diagnosis

Id: QgmjKQHlZSU

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022