In December of 2010 my VVT oil line burst, only my AC light was indicating a malfunction. While enroute to the dearlership the car would not accelerate and was making odd noises. Once in service I was told that the line burst and there was no oil in the vehicle, and that there was a recall (which I had never been notified of). Repairs made at no charge at 60,000 miles. They kept the car overnight and assured me no engine damage. Now 11 months and 15,000 miles later my engine has to be torn down. Has anyone else encountered this and what was the remedy. Please help!
Engine Damage due to VVT oil line failure-(SOLVED)
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Search this site for that issue. You are not alone.
I would also goggle it. I believe there's a site called Edmunds.com
Seem to recall a lot of yack about this over there too.
In my opinion - Toyota went ahead and did the TSB(trouble service bulletin) after they were hit with a pile of suits resulting from oil-starved motors. The rubber line gives way and 6 qts. of oil are out of the motor in a blink.
If you drove w/o oil you likely damaged your motor. The dealer who told you all was well did you a disservice which comes as no surprise to me.
I would also goggle it. I believe there's a site called Edmunds.com
Seem to recall a lot of yack about this over there too.
In my opinion - Toyota went ahead and did the TSB(trouble service bulletin) after they were hit with a pile of suits resulting from oil-starved motors. The rubber line gives way and 6 qts. of oil are out of the motor in a blink.
If you drove w/o oil you likely damaged your motor. The dealer who told you all was well did you a disservice which comes as no surprise to me.
Thanks...I found some info on google, but will definetly check Edmunds. Haven't found anyone on here...yet. Tried a search but came up empty, hoping some more replies will come through.
So far the dealer is helpful and willing to go to bat for me with Toyota. Seems like a no-brainer, but somehow don't think it will be that easy.
Just in from Toyota
Well, just got off the phone with the Toyota Service Manager. The specialty tech just got done inspecting my vehicle and stated no damage. The problem is a VVT-i controller that is causing gear noise. Short explanation is that there is/was a pocket of air in the oil seat and per the tech this can take awhile to make noise. They are calling it a "goodwill repair". I confirmed again no damage to engine and was told the tech inspected it (but really how do you know? Asked if they would warrant the repairs and vehicle if something similar happened again and was told yes. I will not drive off without some kind of guarantee.
Thanks for everyones input. New to this site and very helpful!
Well, just got off the phone with the Toyota Service Manager. The specialty tech just got done inspecting my vehicle and stated no damage. The problem is a VVT-i controller that is causing gear noise. Short explanation is that there is/was a pocket of air in the oil seat and per the tech this can take awhile to make noise. They are calling it a "goodwill repair". I confirmed again no damage to engine and was told the tech inspected it (but really how do you know? Asked if they would warrant the repairs and vehicle if something similar happened again and was told yes. I will not drive off without some kind of guarantee.
Thanks for everyones input. New to this site and very helpful!
Amazing this issue keeps coming up
OP states recall notice never received. Common complaint which has come up before in this forum and others. That and Toyota paying for post warranty repairs and ancillary damage relative to ruptured oil line.
See:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=369664
and
http://sites.google.com/site/toyotav6oillinescandal/
OP states recall notice never received. Common complaint which has come up before in this forum and others. That and Toyota paying for post warranty repairs and ancillary damage relative to ruptured oil line.
See:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=369664
and
http://sites.google.com/site/toyotav6oillinescandal/
Joined
·
2 Posts
Same issue just recently, everything happened the same way with no warning and now Toyota wants $6k to fix my engine damage, I have a case number with Toyota and I know they know about this problem, this car was bought brand new from Toyota and all maintenance has been performed at Toyota, I will not pay for their Incompetentance. I posted everything below on their corporate Facebook page and all over my own, if I don't get the answer I want by Tuesday 28 June 2016 I will email president of Toyota in the US and located in NY as well as going to my local news station to do an investigation and I will obtain as lawyer, I will not lose this battle and will update as things go along.
I have a 2008 Toyota Highlander and my (rubber) oil line ruptured and oil leaked out of my car completely. A warning on the screen popped up really quick saying low oil pressure and it quickly went away. It came on again a few minutes later saying the same thing and went off quickly again (no check engine light) and the third time it stayed on so I could read there entire warning that said pull over immediately. The engine didn't seize but only because I was just around the corner from my mother in law's home when that final message stayed on for me to read it in full. I checked the engine oil and the motor was bone dry, nothing on the dipstick, all the oil was underneath the car and on the back side, I had it towed to a mechanic and he found that the rubber oil line had failed causing all the oil to quickly drain from the vehicle, my mechanic changed out the line with an all metal line. Good to go right, no, after picking up the vehicle and driving it for about an hour the check engine light came on spit out a bunch of codes that are a direct cause of the oil line failure. Now my vehicle is at Toyota not being repaired because I now have a case# in order to have Toyota pay for my now $6k engine issue because of a problem Toyota already knew about and didn't inform all customers about (which is explained below), I had the original oil line replaced but that was literally a band aid for the bigger issue and should have been replaced with the all metal lines:
UPDATE AS OF SEPTEMBER, 2011
The primary purpose of this site was to force Toyota to do a recall of the 1.6 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles affected by a poorly designed oil line "assembly" that was causing unexpected engine damage or failure. The body of this site has not been edited since March 2010 once Toyota issued the hoped for recalls, albeit with many flaws. If you are here in this site and think you have an issue with the defective oil line, here is a summary of where it stands now:
Problem: A defective design of the VVT-i oil line is a rubber hose which routes a high pressure flow of hot engine oil outside the engine block. The rubber deteriorates over time and miles and can unexpectedly break or rupture causing engine oil to rapidly drain from the engine. This can happen anywhere from about 20,000 to over 100,000 miles and can lead to very expensive repairs. Most owners report getting no warning from the from the oil or check engine lights before they realize they have a problem.
Vehicles affected: Any 2005 - 2009 Toyota or Lexus with the 3.5L V6 2GR-FE engine manufactured worldwide prior to April, 2008.
Manufactuing fix: Replace the defective metal & rubber oil line "assembly" with an all metal oil line.
Recall fix: Change out faulty rubber hose in the oil line "assembly" with a higher stregnth rubber hose. The rubber hose was not replaced with an all metal oil line as was done in the manufacturing fix was becasue in some but not all vehicles afftected, the job is very labor intensive if the engine compartment is a "tight fit" which could (but not in all cases) require removal of the power steering pump, sepentine belts, etc depending on how "tight" the engine compartment is.
Key problems with Toyota/Lexus recall notices: (1) The cheap "band-aid" fix (one rubber hose replaceed by another ) may not last the life of the rest of the car, (2) The recall was VIN specific and due to apparent glitches in Toyota computer systems, not all affected vehicles received the recall notice (3) The USA version had no sense of urgency attached to it (unlike the Canadian version) so many owners paid no attention to it. In the USA, the letter says essentially "offer good until March 2013" with no mileage limit specified while in Canada, the letter essentially said "bring it in right away." To make USA matters worse, the notices came in the same envelope - unattached - as the "sudden acceleration" recalls and could easily be ignored by the recipient, and most important - (4) although implicit in the wording of the USA recall, all post 60,000 mile warranty repairs for ancillary engine damage should be covered, although treatment amongst dealers is inconsistent and many have to "fight" to get repairs covered, especially where there is severe engine damage.
Since this site was created there have been hundreds of more posts in assorted forums and blogs citing the same problems already noted. If you follow the links provided or just do Google searches using the key words that apply to you, you can probably find a way to get your issue resolved. The most important thing to note here is that Toyota will pay for ancillary and/or post warranty repairs relating to engine damage (there are already several cases noted in the body of this site). While some are wating for a class action lawsuit or otherwise trying to get relief from Toyota. The latest evidence that such repairs will be paid for by Toyota can be found in the third generation Avalon forum where Toyota has paid for damage to the engine that occurred after the expiration of the standard 5 year 60,000 mile powertrain warranty - even in cases where the oil line broke during the factory warranty but the ancillary engine damage did not show up until after the factory powertrain warranty had expired. The person who started the following thread in that forum asked for help finally got his problem resolved finally ..... and there are others other who had gotten refunds, too.
Everything I read about this issue just is infuriating, this vehicle since being bought was maintenanced by Toyota, my mother in law bought it new from Toyota in Arizona and sold it to her daughter and me. All oil changes are from Toyota and never was this issue brought to our attention, this is a failure to let customers know the truth. Toyota must accept responsibility for its failure to make this a recall under safety because if this happens on a freeway going 70mph and the engine happens to seize it could inevitably injure or kill someone. I will happily change my rating and change this post if Toyota takes responsibility for this known issue, to makes matters worse I am military and literally moving to a new duty station, I had my family in the vehicle driving from Maryland to Arizona before going on to San Diego and just had the vehicle in the Toyota shop. This could have easily happened in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, again I have notified Toyota and have a case# but am waiting till Tuesday for a reply, so right now my car is sitting at Toyota waiting on a 5 day $6k engine rebuild simply for a faulty oil line that Toyota knew was in need of all metal lines.
Do the right thing Toyota!
I have a 2008 Toyota Highlander and my (rubber) oil line ruptured and oil leaked out of my car completely. A warning on the screen popped up really quick saying low oil pressure and it quickly went away. It came on again a few minutes later saying the same thing and went off quickly again (no check engine light) and the third time it stayed on so I could read there entire warning that said pull over immediately. The engine didn't seize but only because I was just around the corner from my mother in law's home when that final message stayed on for me to read it in full. I checked the engine oil and the motor was bone dry, nothing on the dipstick, all the oil was underneath the car and on the back side, I had it towed to a mechanic and he found that the rubber oil line had failed causing all the oil to quickly drain from the vehicle, my mechanic changed out the line with an all metal line. Good to go right, no, after picking up the vehicle and driving it for about an hour the check engine light came on spit out a bunch of codes that are a direct cause of the oil line failure. Now my vehicle is at Toyota not being repaired because I now have a case# in order to have Toyota pay for my now $6k engine issue because of a problem Toyota already knew about and didn't inform all customers about (which is explained below), I had the original oil line replaced but that was literally a band aid for the bigger issue and should have been replaced with the all metal lines:
UPDATE AS OF SEPTEMBER, 2011
The primary purpose of this site was to force Toyota to do a recall of the 1.6 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles affected by a poorly designed oil line "assembly" that was causing unexpected engine damage or failure. The body of this site has not been edited since March 2010 once Toyota issued the hoped for recalls, albeit with many flaws. If you are here in this site and think you have an issue with the defective oil line, here is a summary of where it stands now:
Problem: A defective design of the VVT-i oil line is a rubber hose which routes a high pressure flow of hot engine oil outside the engine block. The rubber deteriorates over time and miles and can unexpectedly break or rupture causing engine oil to rapidly drain from the engine. This can happen anywhere from about 20,000 to over 100,000 miles and can lead to very expensive repairs. Most owners report getting no warning from the from the oil or check engine lights before they realize they have a problem.
Vehicles affected: Any 2005 - 2009 Toyota or Lexus with the 3.5L V6 2GR-FE engine manufactured worldwide prior to April, 2008.
Manufactuing fix: Replace the defective metal & rubber oil line "assembly" with an all metal oil line.
Recall fix: Change out faulty rubber hose in the oil line "assembly" with a higher stregnth rubber hose. The rubber hose was not replaced with an all metal oil line as was done in the manufacturing fix was becasue in some but not all vehicles afftected, the job is very labor intensive if the engine compartment is a "tight fit" which could (but not in all cases) require removal of the power steering pump, sepentine belts, etc depending on how "tight" the engine compartment is.
Key problems with Toyota/Lexus recall notices: (1) The cheap "band-aid" fix (one rubber hose replaceed by another ) may not last the life of the rest of the car, (2) The recall was VIN specific and due to apparent glitches in Toyota computer systems, not all affected vehicles received the recall notice (3) The USA version had no sense of urgency attached to it (unlike the Canadian version) so many owners paid no attention to it. In the USA, the letter says essentially "offer good until March 2013" with no mileage limit specified while in Canada, the letter essentially said "bring it in right away." To make USA matters worse, the notices came in the same envelope - unattached - as the "sudden acceleration" recalls and could easily be ignored by the recipient, and most important - (4) although implicit in the wording of the USA recall, all post 60,000 mile warranty repairs for ancillary engine damage should be covered, although treatment amongst dealers is inconsistent and many have to "fight" to get repairs covered, especially where there is severe engine damage.
Since this site was created there have been hundreds of more posts in assorted forums and blogs citing the same problems already noted. If you follow the links provided or just do Google searches using the key words that apply to you, you can probably find a way to get your issue resolved. The most important thing to note here is that Toyota will pay for ancillary and/or post warranty repairs relating to engine damage (there are already several cases noted in the body of this site). While some are wating for a class action lawsuit or otherwise trying to get relief from Toyota. The latest evidence that such repairs will be paid for by Toyota can be found in the third generation Avalon forum where Toyota has paid for damage to the engine that occurred after the expiration of the standard 5 year 60,000 mile powertrain warranty - even in cases where the oil line broke during the factory warranty but the ancillary engine damage did not show up until after the factory powertrain warranty had expired. The person who started the following thread in that forum asked for help finally got his problem resolved finally ..... and there are others other who had gotten refunds, too.
Everything I read about this issue just is infuriating, this vehicle since being bought was maintenanced by Toyota, my mother in law bought it new from Toyota in Arizona and sold it to her daughter and me. All oil changes are from Toyota and never was this issue brought to our attention, this is a failure to let customers know the truth. Toyota must accept responsibility for its failure to make this a recall under safety because if this happens on a freeway going 70mph and the engine happens to seize it could inevitably injure or kill someone. I will happily change my rating and change this post if Toyota takes responsibility for this known issue, to makes matters worse I am military and literally moving to a new duty station, I had my family in the vehicle driving from Maryland to Arizona before going on to San Diego and just had the vehicle in the Toyota shop. This could have easily happened in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, again I have notified Toyota and have a case# but am waiting till Tuesday for a reply, so right now my car is sitting at Toyota waiting on a 5 day $6k engine rebuild simply for a faulty oil line that Toyota knew was in need of all metal lines.
Do the right thing Toyota!
Jeff, they probably did not even perform the service - common
Here is the more a more likely scenario:
They did not replace the hose or replaced the hose with the incorrect part. There are zero documented cases that I have found where the proper replacement part was used and subsequently ruptured. (I am the author of the toyotaV6oillinescandal.com google based website and spent MANY hours on this subject and wrote letters for two people who got new engines).
Here is how you tell: Go take a good picture of the ruptured oil line. If it has a yellow stripe on it ..... it is the correct part.
See my post #4 here:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/274-2nd-generation-2004-2010/805490-help-vvt-i-oil-line-recalled-replacement-has-broken-again.html
More important ....... look at this from the Highlander forum:
This guy had the exact same thing happen as happened to you.
See my post #4 ..... I told him to take a picture of it. See his picture at post #7. Sure enough, even though the dealer had supposedly performed the LSC 90K replacement service ...... the oil line had in fact NOT been changed as is evident by the fact that the line is all black with no yellow stripe.
(Same thing happened to the gal with the Rav4 I wrote a letter for and is referenced therein and she got a new engine.)
Many dealers were so incompetent and negligent that all they did was "inspect for leaks" and if none were found they did not perform the replacement service. If that is your case, the dealer could be sued for gross negligence.
Click this link to my photobucket account and the picture of my LSC 90K oil line replacement hose.
http://s586.photobucket.com/user/Pablo0767/media/OilLineLSC90K.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4
My yellow line is on the top and very visible and looks more like the one shown in the Rav4 forum post #15.
http://www.rav4world.com/forums/96-4...warning-2.html
Keep us posted. If yours does in fact have the yellow line and ruptured, I'll update my website ....... and have mine replaced with the all metal line (which I planned to do anyway at 100,000 nukes, Mine was replaced at 25,000 miles and the car has 90,000 miles with no prob.ems.
At what mileage was your oil line replaced and what is the mileage on the vehicle now?
************************************
Here is the more a more likely scenario:
They did not replace the hose or replaced the hose with the incorrect part. There are zero documented cases that I have found where the proper replacement part was used and subsequently ruptured. (I am the author of the toyotaV6oillinescandal.com google based website and spent MANY hours on this subject and wrote letters for two people who got new engines).
Here is how you tell: Go take a good picture of the ruptured oil line. If it has a yellow stripe on it ..... it is the correct part.
See my post #4 here:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/274-2nd-generation-2004-2010/805490-help-vvt-i-oil-line-recalled-replacement-has-broken-again.html
More important ....... look at this from the Highlander forum:
This guy had the exact same thing happen as happened to you.
See my post #4 ..... I told him to take a picture of it. See his picture at post #7. Sure enough, even though the dealer had supposedly performed the LSC 90K replacement service ...... the oil line had in fact NOT been changed as is evident by the fact that the line is all black with no yellow stripe.
(Same thing happened to the gal with the Rav4 I wrote a letter for and is referenced therein and she got a new engine.)
Many dealers were so incompetent and negligent that all they did was "inspect for leaks" and if none were found they did not perform the replacement service. If that is your case, the dealer could be sued for gross negligence.
Click this link to my photobucket account and the picture of my LSC 90K oil line replacement hose.
http://s586.photobucket.com/user/Pablo0767/media/OilLineLSC90K.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4
My yellow line is on the top and very visible and looks more like the one shown in the Rav4 forum post #15.
http://www.rav4world.com/forums/96-4...warning-2.html
Keep us posted. If yours does in fact have the yellow line and ruptured, I'll update my website ....... and have mine replaced with the all metal line (which I planned to do anyway at 100,000 nukes, Mine was replaced at 25,000 miles and the car has 90,000 miles with no prob.ems.
At what mileage was your oil line replaced and what is the mileage on the vehicle now?
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Update as of today 28 June 2016, regional Toyota authorized to pay all repair costs and once they started work said they only needed to clean the valves and screens and that we were lucky there was no engine damage. I have the line that ruptured and it doesn't have a yellow line. It's all black with metal ends and basically house clamps. I will post pictures of the house later cause it's in AZ and I'm in CA, I'm in the middle of moving (military). My wife actually picked the car up today, we are looking to trade it in most likely. It happened with 89,400 miles and it's the same until my wife picked it up today.
Typical dealership BS. If that line ruptured, the only way to know if the engine is damaged is to tear it down - all the way. The problem with this is you'll eat the cost if the dealers says there's no damage and they'll most likely tell you that whether it is or isn't damaged.
When Toyota finally recognized this problem, I took my '06 Avalon in for the new hose. It was indeed replaced as I examined the old one before hand. Some claim the replacement was an all metal line. Mine was not. It was the same material(in appearance) as the old, but definitely a new hose. This was done somewhere around 60K-80K - don't recall exactly. I'm at 209K now and have had no issues related to this problem.
I would dump the car asap. Who knows when this thing could rear it's ugly head.
And in closing, thank you for your service to our country.
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