Toyota Lexus 2GR-FE Teardown! Premature Death Of Toyota's Most Reliable V6 Caused By Obliviousness!

last week I tore down a Honda j35 V6 which when it blew up it probably registered somewhere on the Richter Scale it was most likely the worst core we've seen on the channel and it might be the worst engine that I myself have ever torn down in my life which is hard to think about but instead of another horrifically blown up engine I wanted to show Toyota's counterpart to that I've gotten a lot of requests for this engine So today we're going to tear down a Toyota 2grfe this particular engine is out of a 2008 Toyota Sienna with about 170 000 miles on it yes details I know you guys asked for that stuff and this is a claimed bad engine now the 2gr was used in so many vehicles that I'm not going to list them so many things from the mid-2000s to way into the teens it was in the Camry the es the RAV4 the Highlander a lot of Lexus rx's I'm not going to list them all it was even used in the Lotus Sephora and this is a very highly loved engine a lot of people say that these are one of the best Toyota v6s ever made they make 271 horsepower or more depending on what the application is and for the most part you never hear anything bad about them but there's one thing I can't figure out and that is if they're so good and I'm not doubting that they are good but if they're that good wire used engines still fifteen hundred dollars when the three M Z's were never that expensive that was the engine this replaced so what gives why are they expensive view Toyota techs that watch this Channel or guys that work on cars all the time what kills these things now today we're gonna find out we'll kill this one hopefully and hopefully I'm not tearing out a good engine I'd like to take a moment and talk about business ethics these cores come from all over the place they come from repair shops and garages Sometimes they come from other salvage yards they even come from my own customers I'll sell them a good engine and in partial exchange I'll get their old one back and these cores usually look pretty bad usually they're locked up they're half dismantled or my personal favorite when you can see through them I like those the most and sometimes I go out hunting for course specifically for this channel which is how I got this 2gr and they look perfectly fine they turn over great the plugs may look good you can compression and leak down test them and find no problems you can even pull a pan and inspect bearings in the pickup and see nothing wrong but anytime an engine is suspected as bad like this one is and it's written on it in three different places I can't sell that because there is one thing that is more wasteful than tearing down a good engine and that is selling a bad one and wasting someone's time for them to install an engine just to find out it's actually bad all the tests in the world short of installing it into a car can't prove it's good and I can't hear it run so therefore even though it may be perfectly fine we're going to tear this engine all the way down like normal the first thing we're going to do is pull the plugs so then we got to pull the coils for the rear bank I need to remove this bracket foreign the plugs all look pretty decent there's nothing glaringly wrong I will say that they look like they're pretty worn I think the factory spec is 39 to 43 thousands when new and up to 55 is the maximum allowance but the feeler gauge in my eyeballs hasn't been calibrated in a while so I can't tell you if these are in Spec or not I will say that the tube seals were leaking pretty good now that the plugs are out of it we're going to turn this engine over and see how it feels feel anything terrible yet it does turn over pretty well it might be a couple tight spots there like right there I don't know the next thing I need to do is kind of clean this up a little bit we're going to get the cut wiring harness off of it so that we can pull the intake it doesn't look like I'll be able to uh take this off without taking the plenum off so that's what we'll do next and the harness is off now I'll just remove this lower plenum now this should just come right off well let's take a look uh-huh uh-huh hmm oh [Music] yep [Music] starting in the front Bank you can see there's definitely some debris sitting on top of that valve that one looks okay valves are open see any major issues yet and on the rear Bank that one looks all right same there but this looks like a bunch of melted stuff looks like melted plastic let's go look at that intake manifold well uh uh oh that's no good that's uh that's plastic it's melted well it looks like we're tearing down an overheat job here I've never seen these uh stalagmites and stalactites hanging out of an intake like that well I think that one's going in the scrap bin or I guess it's plastic so sadly not I'd like to peel the valve cover off but first we have to get this oil line that feeds the variable valve timing out of the way I know I'm not supposed to do that it's bad for my hand first look at oil coming out of this thing it's oil next I'm going to remove the VVT solenoids those look pretty decent that one does too I actually have to remove this oil line all the way so now just a whole bunch of tens and twelves did I miss one or is this just glued down that good there's a dowel on head right here oh does this smell bad oh oh why did they take such a deep breath oh you think I'd learned something by now this really doesn't look too bad in here everything's where it's supposed to be I can't come up with something that funny to describe the smell because it's just vomit that's the only word I could accurately describe the way this thing smells very same process for the rear foreign that one has a flexible section I read that they they make an upgraded line for this I don't know why they use rubber with uh oil that's interesting that one looks all right yeah these both look pretty good and move on to the bolts that hold the valve cover down foreign saw that blue well the inside of this cylinder head looks pretty similar nothing really jumping out at me Shane looks pretty good next I'd like to look at the bottom of the valve covers this valve cover looks nice and tidy this is the front cylinder head nothing wrong here but then you get to the rear cylinder head and what is this is this what I think it is milkshake caramel flavored I'm not going to taste test that but that is water and oil or coolant and oil mixed not what you want to find next I'm going to start cleaning up the engine cover preparing it for removal we're gonna have to flip the engine over eventually to get that off but let's start with all these pulleys and some brackets I'm actually going to get the rear coolant crossover out of the way it'll make things a little easier let's see if we can get this off of here okay I don't know what just came out of the cooling system but okay now let's see if we can get this thermostat housing is it just the three I think it's just the three oh and a hose clamp nope there's still some Toyota coolant in there we're just gonna keep turning this until it pops see see now let's get the water pump pulley out now it's time to remove the water pump a whole bunch of 10 millimeter headed bolts looks like a couple 12s all right I think the rest are 12s the following is made for mature viewers viewer discretion is advised okay we're leaking um this is shaped kind of like a um well let's just call it the trifecta so here's the water pump and it's clearly been leaking right here you can see there's the weep hole there's crusty red Toyota coolant could that have leaked enough over time to cause this thing to overheat I bet that played a major role definitely wouldn't want to use this water pump in any situation now let's look at the coolant that's coming out of this thing I mean Toyota coolant is red there's a lot of dirt a lot of junk in here coolant doesn't look uh as red as it does Brown now the coolant in the higher parts of the engine looked more red than this could just be the sediment that's right there now let's get this crank pulley out of the way man that's too easy I do need to turn this engine over so I have access to the bottom of the timing cover but first before I make a giant Exxon valve these on my floor we're gonna make sure that it's drained it takes just a second what it's drained it's drained just to be sure I'm going to remove the oil filter I think can I have my ratchet back okay give me my ratchet back oh there's oil in there I guess I've just donated my ratchet well that oil stinks and it's really sludgy wow well this is pretty crazy what I thought with sludge is actually looks like the filter is melted well give it to me let's go I think it's melted to the housing it is there like a thing that releases this did I do something wrong here come on I want to look at you nope that is uh that's one piece I'm gonna give it one more go come on just let go it just it it refuses come on just I'm making a mess now I want my ratchet back oh give it just would you come let all right I give up you give up it's not coming out give me my ratchet back I need that now it is time to flip this engine over oh there's a whole bunch of ploppy oil just gonna kind of let it sit on its side there do its thing well when I flip this thing over I made a giant mess this coolant that is coming out of this engine kind of looks like uh transmission fluid it's not supposed to do that we're just going to use some pigment here and clean it all up my guys go through this stuff like water now it is time to remove the lower oil pan okay now let's see if we can pop the sealant with this foreign yes oh is that sparkles The Forbidden glitter I did not expect that oh in the pickup bad well I expected a normal overheat after I pulled the intake manifold I did not expect to find this sparkly sludge in here Sparkle sludge is bad and uh well surprise is still and some of that is in the pickup kind of fine and there's no large pieces of anything I wonder where this came from before I go any further I need to remove the dipstick tube now it's a Toyota it may fight me it may not plus I'm going the other direction with it that's not what I meant what I mean is I'm I'm going down I should have pulled this when it was standing upright it's going to be fine this is gonna Boop right out oh I didn't even need to take that bracket out is it coming out oh I just oh not only did that hurt it sprayed me in the face this whipped that was bad now let's get this upper oil pan out of the way which for some reason I have bolts in on the engine stand oh boy why did I do this actually it's just one we'll be okay we're just gonna remove this Bolt you know perfectly fine three is good four is better I could have used this bolt hole right here what was I thinking now that I've got the stand situated a couple more 10 millimeter bolts back here it's gonna be like that huh now I should be able to pry this off the sealant looks like it's pretty strong so I'm not quite sure what it's going to take that's not too bad now what oh it's this tube foreign much like the lower Pan the upper pan has some signs of metal and forbidden glitter some chunky stuff there the last thing I need to do before I flip this engine back over is remove the pickup [Applause] before you start on the timing cover I need to remove this last vbt oil line foreign just a whole bunch of 12 millimeter bolts and 114. finally I'm really hoping this just comes right off there we are oh this is a very simple Timing System all the parts look really well made I don't really see anything wrong in here tensioner doesn't look over extended and then the rails look worn I don't see any bits of anything in here this all looks quite tidy now I'm going to get these cam gears loose the next thing I'm going to do is remove the timing chain tensioner I'm lucky for you guys safety tote has returned [Applause] I have no idea if that was violent or not but that's the beauty of safety toad now I think we can start pulling these rails off take a better look oh that thing looks perfect I guess these just kind of slide on these pins that one looks good and that one looks good does this chain come off easy oh that's fine don't worry about that uh look at that Chain man wow what a beauty I've got one more rail this one actually bolts on I dropped it without looking at it that's not as much fun somehow that survived the drop looks great I definitely reuse this before I go cramming these bolts loose I want to talk about the way I want to take this apart so in the past I just take all the bolts out and sometimes Parts go flying hopefully not in this situation because this is similar to the UR engines I've torn down where they have a top plate or I guess you guys call it a cam Tower and you guys told me you don't have to pull the cams out you can just pull the larger bolts out and then everything comes out with the cams which would mean I don't even have to touch this bridge chain I just can remove the top half of it with the cams in it and everything should be easy peasy so we're going to try that I have no idea if it's going to work but let's give it a whirl let's see if that works you guys were right see I do read all the comments that's so cool so one downside of pulling it apart that way is that we can't easily look at the cam journals so I may pull one of those apart just to take a peek but this does give us access to the rollers everything seems to be pretty good but there is a tinge of metal not too bad it's not the best looking in here but we've definitely seen worse before we take the main head bolts out we need to take these two front head bolts out oh come on you can do it maybe you can't all right let's get the breaker bar foreign [Applause] now we can break the main head bolts loose [Music] foreign it should be done leaking see here well I don't see anything terrible on the head gasket it's an MLs gasket so it does take a lot well the Pistons are pretty clean and if it was eating coolant that explains why they're clean but if you look closely there's some vertical scratches on the bore and then really bad ones right here that's uh not good I wonder if something got caught in there or what that was but I think everything's connected I don't have any reason to suspect that any of these rods are broken so we'll likely just move on to the other side after we look at the cylinder head the cylinder head doesn't look too bad obviously you need a straight edge to figure out if it's warped but I don't see any any big cracks or anything like that no major damage that I can easily see with the naked eye check out these knock sensors they're melted I wonder how hot it has to be before those melt I'm gonna go with so hot onto the rear head so easy similar story on this side a little more junk built up especially like down here in the corner some sparkles there but it's just about the same I don't see any issues with the valve train this head does not have any extra head bolts it's just the ones that surround the combustion chamber so we'll start on those [Music] foreign let's see what's going on here what what whoa whoa it's gone the boar is gone and the Pistons melted that one's full of plastic wow I guess uh what is falling in my shop okay I guess if it's hot enough to melt this of course it would be hot enough to melt the knock sensor I'm impressed I am I'm really impressed that is just amazing it just torched right through it I wonder what the rest of that piston is going to look like and that one that one is what a all of the plastic is just chewing on it I wonder if we're gonna see any damage because of that let's go look at that cylinder head that is that's awesome well it's very apparent where the breach was here I'm gonna spray this down and clean this up and then look at all the plastic it's stuck between the valve the valve seat this head's probably uh probably not ready to go back on I guess now it's time to flip this thing upside down start pulling the rotating assembly out I guess we're gonna leak some more not too much now let's get this windage tray out of here it's a lot different than the last engine I tore down that was a blow Edge tray that one's in good shape but there's definitely some metal deposits in here well this all looks pretty decent in here there's nothing loose but we didn't feel any rod knock when we were turning that crank back and forth at first now depending on how the rod bearings look we'll determine whether I pull the oil pump apart the rod bearings look okay I'm not going to pull the oil pump off that timing cover which would render that worthless essentially but if there's some damage to the rod bearing significant enough then we'll pull the oil pump apart now I need to turn the crank over so we can start at the front gotta be clean about this foreign to be jammed up in here why did that happen wow that practically fell out of the poor foreign just slip right out well that one's not falling out oh need help there [Music] foreign oh that one may have some trouble coming out [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign bearings look really good I expected them to look much worse considering the amount of metal we found in this engine the only one that doesn't look so great is this one right here and it's really it's on the cusp of being bad we'll have to take a closer look at that uh crank Journal when we pull that out but I'm hoping I get a good crank out of this let's talk about rods and pistons so one thing I noticed is that the wrist pins are pretty stiff not going to say it that's the Piston that chewed on some plastic but that'll all come off the more worrying thing is you see how that top compression Rings kind of loose in the land of rings not all of it but the second compression ring is it's like carbon locks or it's collapsed from overheating and then look at the amount of coked up oil in here that's crazy yeah these are supposed to be very easy to move and they are on some of them but not the way they're supposed to same deal on this the top ring first compression ring isn't bad looking second ring is bad then we get into the fun stuff these are the middle two cylinders these are really stiff and as you can see there's lots of damage to the Piston I think what happened here is this engine got so hot that these Pistons swelled and distorted and started transferring some of that aluminum to the bore they no longer are round that is pretty bad and then here's this next one as you can see it totally covers that compression ring it's only on that one part it's not I guess it is bad now for the coup de gras I said that wrong I'm sure that's not good that's torched through the Rings and even the oil ring there's a problem that got really hot in fact there's a powdered aluminum all up in the top of the piston this one is pretty much locked up this wrist pin now this one's not really melted but yeah so normally I'd try to be careful but since this is already off the cylinder head foreign what have I done here this was a poor choice maybe I can just take the cam gear off that's what we're gonna do the cams look pretty nice I don't know if they're worth anything and the journals and the cam Towers look good I was worried that some of that aluminum would have run through this but this all looks pretty decent a little bit of wear on the cam caps but it's nowhere near as bad as we've seen with some of the oil Star Motors before we get the main cap bolts we need to remove this rear main seal plate which I've already removed the bolts from I'll come back to that now I really don't have to worry about these uh main caps they just have to come out the main bearings actually look pretty good I didn't really suspect we'd find any major damage but they do look good not bad for 170 000 miles the crankshaft doesn't look too bad either all the journals look nice the one I wanted to pay attention to is going to be this one here that's the one that had the worst looking bearing and as you can see there is a few few marks on that journal but I bet that would polish out I think this might be one of the few sellable Parts out of this engine first we're going to start on the good side and when I say good it's uh it's all relative that's probably the nicest bore and then that one has a some pretty extreme damage there that one isn't as bad but still some vertical scratches now let's go to the other side more vertical scratches and then a lot of aluminum transfer that is all pieces of piston even on that side and then blown apart block so I looked down in there and I don't really see I really don't see what that where that metal went but I did hear a few things drop when I was turning this engine over so I'll look for that in a second but you can see that that is really pretty much not repairable not worth it I mean I there's these engines aren't that expensive it's got extremely hot those knock sensors well there's the piece I found and uh it looks like it would fit just fine broke the block I think I figured something out tonight anytime my wife finds something in the fridge that may or may not be good I'm always the smell tester and I always take the biggest deepest breath possible and it's always instant regret because it's rotten there's she doesn't need to ask me and this was the same way when I took a breath of this I already knew the first little tinge I knew this doesn't smell good but I took a deep breath of it anyway it's me I'm the problem or my wife just messes with me because she knows I'll take a deep breath either way this one stunk and it wasn't as bad as the Honda Fit I think that one was much worse but you know smell memories that was a long time ago this was right now so right now that seems like it was worse this just goes to prove that it doesn't matter how good anything is it doesn't matter if it's the most reliable bulletproof engine on the planet someone will kill it someone will do something ignore all of the signs Toyota siennas have a temperature gauge they could have seen it it was right in front of their face all they had to do was look and go hey that's not right and then I don't know maybe the steam or the pool of coolant underneath your vehicle when you park it because that water pump was leaking for some time and I I would suspect that that's what caused the overheat water pumps do fail it's a thing this one is a pretty easy one to do I don't think it's a terribly expensive job to have done so maybe they thought they could just get by with keeping it full and they took it on a long trip either way this thing was cooked it was hot and I doubted if it was going to be bad or not but oh yeah it was bad now there's not much to sell out of this unless somebody wants the rods of pistons for their desk I've been selling pretty much all of the bad parts out of these engines lately so if you like any of that or anything else off of this engine or if you want to buy anything off of my previous teardowns just shoot us an email or you can go to importapart.com and peruse our entire inventory if you don't see what you're looking for you can click the request a part tab which sends us an email of exactly what it is you're looking for I really hope you enjoyed this teardown as always I love all the comments all the feedback and even the criticism I love it all and I'll catch you on the next one

Channel: I Do Cars

Views: 481,340

Keywords: Toyota, Lexus, 2GR, 2GR-FE, 2GRFE, Problems, reliability, mpg, towing, hp, specs, Lotus, Evora, Exhaust, exhaust clip, sound, repair, VVT, oil leak, water pump, overheating, misfire, diagnosis, Camry, ES350, Sienna, Highlander, RX350, RX450, Rav4, 2007, 2008, Avalon, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, Venza, 1GR, GR engine, Engine, Motor, 3GR, IS300, GS300, Timing, chain, headgasket, valve cover, intake manifold, coils, AWD, won't start, I do cars, teardown, timing cover, replacement, removal, how to, fix, runs bad

Id: n-5PfENW5z4

Length: 41min 56sec (2516 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023