Motor went Lastnight

[RUSHIIII]

Ok pull up a seat, because heres another episode of a GTS motor that blew up. Lastnight I was doing the cruising thing here in Austin. Well around 3am I decide its time to head home. Well I stop at the light waiting for the green. I go and start to build up speed to get on I-35, started in 1st shifted at around 7500 into second landed at 6000 and started to climb and then BOOM, it blew. Sounded like rocks in the motor, all the lights came on the entire car was ingulfed in smoke. No mis-shift or anything, just blew. The cars been acting funny for a couple of months before this happend and when I took it to Toyota for the Maintence I told them about it and said it was regular injector noise not to worry about it , thats normal they said. So now I'm pissed that it happend. So now the car is sitting at Toyota and Monday I have to call in at work to go to Toyota and explain to them what happend. Lets just say this hasnt been a fun weekend. Wish me Luck........

Laters
Chris

[DaksGT]

how man k u got on it? it just blew?

[GTS LAID]

ran out of oil??

[RUSHIIII]

yeah I did get on it as I was getting on the highway to enter traffic and then boom, and there was plenty of oil, I checked the level the day before plus when it blew there was a big trail of oil the followed the car. When the tow truck came and moved the car there was a big pool of oil too, so its not that. My guess is a rod broke, wont know until they look at it.....

[DaksGT]

Dayumn man, thats ****ing scary.

[BillWS6Formula]

Sorry to hear about the trouble! Over the last few years I have seen occasional posts (rare, but there have been a few) about main bearing failure causing catastrophic engine failure. Might be something to bear in mind, good luck with the dealer!

[Keyshawn]

Damn, sorry to hear that. That Toyota dealership better fix it under warranty, and give you a loaner car while they fix it. Good luck.

[oldster]

I believe the same thing happened to Yakkosmurf's friend only his caught fire. He might be able to provide you with some more information. Good luck.

[RUSHIIII]

Thanks guys. I go up to the dealership in the morning to get things going. I'll keep everyone up to date as things progress. The only thing that makes me mad is all my friends that have blown their motors the Dealership likes to take their time on fixing the car. I had one friend that had his car there for 3 months before they finished it and another took him 2 months before he saw his again. We'll see

Laters
Chris

[nyoneway]

There must be something really wrong with your motor if you shift at 7500RPM and land on 6000RPM (Are you sure it was'nt 8500RPM you rev to at first gear?)

The only explaination is that you may have accidentally misshifted and overreved the engine months ago and caused your engine to act funny. You may had bend valves and it just eventually failed on you that day.

[MilinGTS]

just be glad you were ok. cars can be fixed, and when you fix it, build it stronger. you can't do that with people.
hope to see you at next TCC meet though.

take care

[Miguel GTS]

man rush that sucks i know that then i misshifted my car they didi not fix it right and like less than a 100o miles later it threw a rod and i ended up getting a no motor out of it b/c it was there fault

and yeah it was yalkkos friend whos car caught on fire the guys name is mark

[yakkosmurf]

Keep us up to date. I'm going to guess a connecting rod bearing failed. It sounds like you had the same failure my friend did. His engine blew while coasting in 6th as he got off the freeway. Rod went right through the bottom of the block. It too had plenty of oil and was running just fine before the problem.

[yakkosmurf]

Originally posted by oldster
I believe the same thing happened to Yakkosmurf's friend only his caught fire. He might be able to provide you with some more information. Good luck.
Yes, it was. His fire was a freak accident. It was apparently caused by the oil that spilled from the bottom of the block when the rod let go. That oil ran along the exhaust pipe and found the hot cat or muffler in the back and ignited. The whole sequence was started by the motor blowing while under normal operation. I'll see if I can get a hold of Mark tonight and see if he remembers the exact part they attributed his catastrophic failure to.

[t2000gts]

that fire thing is pretty crazy, i had my drain plug in the oil pan fall out while driving (dumb dealers can't even do an oil change) and i heard a loud clattering as the plug ricocheted around for a second and then tons of smoke out the back. the oil covered the entire exhaust system but didn't ignite...just lots of smoke. i was just cruising on the highway too.

[yakkosmurf]

Yes, it was a freak thing. But the engine does have issues.

[komar]

Chris...

i remember in Feb. when we all were at the meet in San An. you told me that your car sounded funny...and that toyota said it was normal. That gurgling sound, was not normal...they should give you a new engine under warrentee. then you can break it in all over again. See what happens keep us up to date.

Kareem

[RUSHIIII]

Hey ppl good news. Went up to the dealer Tuesday and they said they have ordered me a new short block and head. They dont know the exact cause of the motor blowing yet, of course everything points to the connecting rod breaking making a nice hole in my block. I took some pics the night it blew, glad I had my camera with me. I'll post them soon. It was nice to go in there and have my arguements with the dealer after hearing about everyone elses horror stories, guess I got real lucky. Not sure how long it'll take them to put the new motor in, so in the mean time I got a free rental out of it. As for the next TCC meet guys I might not be up for one til May.

Laters
Chris

[atehrani]

"But the engine does have issues." Right...:rolleyes:

[yakkosmurf]

Originally posted by atehrani
"But the engine does have issues." Right...:rolleyes:
That's what I think of an engine that has connecting rods breaking when it's driven within its specifications...

[t2000gts]

you mean all 2ZZs or just those handful that actually had the problem?

it doesn't need to be said, but that's an insanely one sided ratio of rods going bad compared to engines with rods not going bad.

[yakkosmurf]

Yes, the percentage is low. But from a design perspective, that's a high number for a catastrophic failure such as that. With today's manufacturing processes and design techniques, that is no longer acceptable. It's one thing for a machine to fail. It's another thing for it to fail breaking into so many pieces and dumping hot oil everywhere.

[t2000gts]

well it isn't a cast-iron block, and usually when rods go completely bad like that, all hell will break out

[yakkosmurf]

It's also not the only aluminum block engine on the road. Changing the block to better contain rod failures would be one option. The other would be better designed rods and rod bearings.

[marcus_GTS]

I'm curious as to when the cars which have failed because of this were built. I'm thinking this is more of a build quality issue than a design issue, especially if the earlier cars are the most failure-prone. It seems to me that if it were a design flaw, it would happen a whole lot more often.

RUSHIIII, Yakko, what are the build dates for the cars where this happened?

[acilecdps6]

I have an early 2000 GTS (built Oct 99) with 40k on the odo, and the engine appears to be fine, shifter too. No misshifts and no engine problems (except the belt tensioner). I have the oil changed every 3k miles with standard 10-30 Castrol. everything is stock, and yes I am ADDICTED to the 6k rush.

I think it would be interesting to find out what kind of OIL was in the engines that blew, how often it was changed, what kind of intake/filter, what the driving conditions were: outside temp/dirt/dusty roads/geographic location etc..

I see on the Club RSX board they have some similar engine issues as well (plus an oil consumption issue).

[Dealer Xing]

I was at a dealer auction earlier, they had several GTS for sale, but all with engine/tranny damage, or they were factory buyback.

[RUSHIIII]

Well if I remember right my "born on date" was in June of 2000 and I had 51,000 miles on the odo. All highway miles really.....

[yakkosmurf]

I don't know the build date of my friend's Celica, but he bought it in March of 2000. The car was running Mobil 1 5W-30. It was broken in properly and had an oil change every 3000 miles. It also had never been misshifted.