Bookmarking
Auto on Info pages
Home or
Site Layout or
Site Index or
Quick Jumps or
Search Engine Directory or
The Mart or
The LinksVisitor
Comments and Site Manager CommentaryToyota
Engine Reliability, Oil Changes, and Sludge
|
Auto on Info Toyota Engine Reliability, Oil Changes, and Sludge Visitor Comment: October 9, 2003 [P]erhaps you should mention the recent [T]oyota problems with "sludge" in the lower part of their engines? This is a huge problem that caused one of my friends to have her entire engine rebuilt. Both her and my trust in Toyota has been severely damaged as a result. Commentary In an April 3, 2002, article of the USA Today, entitled "Toyota to repay customers with oil-sludge problem," there is a summary of the oil sludge occurrences in some of Toyota's engines. The affected engines, per the article, are the 3.0-liter V-6 and 2.2-liter four-cylinder engines in 1997-2002 Toyota Camrys, Avalons, Highlanders, and Siennas and Lexus ES 300s and RX 300s. Toyota has maintained, per this article, that the accumulation of sludge was due to failure to change oil per the maintenance schedule. One dealership contacted by site manager stated that in all instances it has encountered the owner has been unable to provide any evidence of routine oil changes and in one instance the owner was unable to provide any proof of an oil change within the preceding 36,000 miles. Nonetheless, per the article, Toyota has decided to replace the engine, should sludge occur, and has modified the V-6 engine to provide for a greater margin of error by the owner. Site manager decided first to check out the reliability of the affected engines versus the reliability of the engines for each of the motor vehicle lines for which data are available. This would give a measure of the frequency of all problems with the engines of the affected models versus the frequency of all problems with the engines of nearly all of the auto lines sold in North America. Using the methodology for ascribing values to Consumer Reports' five reliability classifications found on the Methodology Page and restricting the counts to those "engine" rows rated for at least four of the six affected years, as listed in the above referenced article, we obtain, after division by the number of model-years for which data are available, engine reliability values for the various lines of automobiles, with two or more models ratable, and the affected models, per the article, as follows:
As may be seen, the affected models place 5th from the top on this reliability measure. The infrequency of problems with the engines of the affected models buttresses Toyota's position that oil was not changed with the recommended frequency. Nonetheless,
Source for affected models and model years: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2002/04/04/toyota-sludge.htm |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
