as mentioned by car care nut regarding the UR-series engines.
My LS460 had water pump leak at 55k miles.

 

Seems like I'm starting to see more V8 problem videos from him. Having 2 vehicles with the 4.6 in our household is concerning. Already had valley plate x2 repairs and now an oil leak on one of them. Not very happy. Hoping the oil leak is just valve cover gaskets. All manufacturers have their issues, but these are expensive repairs.

 

I think the valley plate may also be a contributor to this, when the plate leaks you get air pockets up high in the heads and that may result in hot spotting lifting the head. The area the failure is occurring is where I would expect to see it, middle of the head at the hottest part.....

Outside of that I really wonder if the head bolts are maintaining TQ or not, it would be such a shame if the final Toyota V8 ended its run and reputation as a failed design.

I'll personally be angry since the whole reason I bought these was to avoid problems and still have a resonantly powerful engine with high refinement. I like the uniquely smooth and laid back experience of the LS enough that an XF40 will be apart of my collection and I don't want this issue hanging over my head

 

Toyotas have had HG problems since corollas were rwd manual cars and before, the 3VZ 3.0L being the worst. The block decks would erode because of it on the worst ones and short blocks were being replaced under that campaign. The only new-ish thing here is that it's now happening on the V8's.

 

Please say you are joking? Damn it man haha! I don't want to hear that this is a thing, I thought it was limited to the VZ and certain 4 cyls

 

This video is pretty darn clickbait, if you ask me. Did he test the coolant? Where did all those head gaskets come from?
So, a 200,000 mile engine has a problem - and that’s a trend?

His YT channel is in the business of making money, right? He isn't making those videos out of the goodness of their heart.
Kudos for him attaining the Master Tech status, but that does not make him 100% correct all the time.

 

Those farthest cyls are hottest. So.. Yea. Ordered some fresh coolant.

PS. Do not diss CCN. Do not.

 

It mostly was for that era, 5 and 7mge were pretty good, The 3B in the older landcruisers were very good...didn't make much heat or have much power though. At 200k miles I don't have many expectations from any vehicle either, they're usually a smoking oil leaking piece of crap.

 

Are you threatening me

 

Ah, and yeah I generally agree with that. I have been surprised a few times though with high milers that have been doing unusually well. My current record holder for "how is nothing wrong?" is a 2011 A8 I first saw at 198k miles, I thought it was a SUREFIRE money printer but damn thing doesn't even have an oil leak somehow!

 

My understanding was that in that era, it was bad bearings in the pump causing the issue. Big problem to IS and GS w/2GR-FSE). The one in our 09 GS went out ~51k miles in 2013. Newer replacement pumps do not have the defect. Was this the same cause w/the LS models?

 

You know why the composite HGs fail? In large part due to using crappy coolant for example, clearly the generic coolant ate away at the HG. Good news is doing a 3VZ HG job is relatively simple, I've done several of these none of them had any damage to the block or heads.

 

That looks like it's in pretty rough shape, also looks like a Camry engine not a 4runner, pickup or a T100. Camry's were not part of that campaign. The basic job only paid like 7 hrs so yes it was fairly simple.

 

Well alum heads, steel gasket.....add 2 volts and you know what happens. I just figured Toyota would have put a good enough coating on it and coolant to avoid this. Or something....

 

i think there's actually a lot the owner can do to head off such major problems, changing the coolant is one of them. Let's face it, all of the "extended interval" fluid changes Lexus recommends, are not done for the long-term health of the car, they are done to keep owners happy with one less thing to think about, and to keep warranty maintenance costs down. There are NO fluids, whether oil, ATF, or coolant, that have been improved to the point where they never wear out and need changing. And probably most if not all recommended change intervals for all of them are far too long.

Even though the cooling system is supposed to be sealed, coolant breakdown can happen long before the recommended change interval and you'd never know it. There is oil analysis for the engine but nothing even close for the coolant, and it is just as important. So the only smart thing to do is just change the coolant every 2 or 3 years (Lexus says use only the pink "super long life" coolant "or equivalent") Even a simple drain and refill every couple years will do wonders for the long-term benefit of your cooling system.

I don't understand people that can actually go the whole life of their car and never think to question the automaker's long long recommended change intervals, for any fluid in the car. Because even an otherwise first-class company like Toyota, screws things up once in a while. I got my 2002 Camry V6 in 2005, a couple years before Toyota announced the infamous "sludge engine recall". Meanwhile though, I always changed my oil at 3000/3 months and just ignored Toyota's 7500 mile "recommended" oil change schedule. But later on it turned out that the 1FMZE V6 engine, and several other engine types, had a design flaw that caused there to be inadequate PCV system venting of oil vapors from the crankcase. So people that just went by the 7500 mile/6 month oil change recommendation, were finding their engines were sludging up badly because of said design flaw. Some engines were sludged up so bad they wouldn't even start. So Toyota was replacing all the engines that had been damaged or even destroyed by the sludge, and they were doing it by the thousands. So if you had done the smart thing all along, and just ignored Toyota's too-long oil change intervals for a shorter one, your engine was far less likely to develop sludge.

That's my favorite example of why and how even big corporations, even good ones like Toyota, can still get it completely wrong (about something so basic as engine oil change intervals)!