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Moms corolla blew up, reason?

R

Rifter

Lifer
So my mom has a 03 Corolla automatic with a 3ZZ-FE 1.6 L I4 16-valve DOHC engine in it. 102,000kms, has owned the car for 3 years bought it with 85,000kms on it. Lately has been loosing oil somehow, not leaking out doesnt appear to be burning it but loosing 1L every 2 weeks. Also has been having rough running issues. I figured it was just carboned up since her communte to work is less than 5 min and the car literally is never driven enough to fully warm up, she only drives for more than 5 min at a time like once every 3-4 months. Never speeds, nevers get it up over 40MPH. Has also been taking it to a really shady/bad mechanic to find the loss of oil issue, im tinking this bad mechanic is the problem.

Calls me up friday because its stalling on her. I go over to take a look and it sounds like its misfiring like crazy, stalls at lower than 2000rpm only way to drive it is to two foot it and keep the rpms up and its got no power(well it doesnt have any anyways but i mean like 30 seconds to get up to 30MPH), so i tow it with a rope behind my truck to her house less than 5 blocks away.

I pulled the plugs and # 1 and # 4 are so full of carbon there is no way they were firing at all, other 2 looked fine. So i ran a compression test on it and # 1 0psi, # 2 165PSI, # 3 165PSI, # 4 85PSI.

Since its now obvious it is a internal engine issue and something this new is way out of my range of knowlege(if it was a smallblock i would have had the head off and rebuilt and back on in 4 hours) i have it towed to a trusted mechanic. He got the head mostly off today but didnt have time to seperate it from the engine yet, he said that the valves were not opening and closing at the right times and he thinks either the cam is shot or some valves are cracked/broken and will know first thing in the morning when he tears the head apart.

He also mentioned that there was oil all over the place inside the valve cover/head in places there shoudlnt be oil and there are also some metal shards in the head mixed with the oil, not a good sign.

What would cause this kind of complete head failure on something with only 102,000kms(60,000Mi) on it? Since she bought it she has had a oil change every 3 months, had the trans serviced, and i changed the plugs for her when she bought it 3 years ago.
 
oil was full and clean(on the dipstick), she checks it every few days due to to the oil loss issue she has been having.
 
JulesMaximus said:
Neglect

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I agree, what i think happened is the guy who sold her the car, which is also the shady mechanic she has been going to see. Sold her a lemon knowing she doesnt drive it enough that by the time it failed it coudlnt be traced back to him, since its now 3 years later.
 
Rifter said:
I agree, what i think happened is the guy who sold her the car, which is also the shady mechanic she has been going to see. Sold her a lemon knowing she doesnt drive it enough that by the time it failed it coudlnt be traced back to him, since its now 3 years later.
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You agree it's neglect and you think it was a lemon when she bought it? Reasonably it can't be both of these. This is clearly neglect IMO. If it was a POS when she bought it it wouldn't have lasted 3 years.

I have been driving Toyota since early 1973 or so and to screw one up this bad at just over 100K miles you would have to work at it.
 
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pcgeek11 said:
You agree it's neglect and you think it was a lemon when she bought it? Reasonably it can't be both of these. This is clearly neglect IMO. If it was a POS when she bought it it wouldn't have lasted 3 years.

I have been driving Toyota since early 1973 or so and to screw one up this bad at just over 100K miles you would have to work at it.
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Remember though, she has driven it less than 17,000kms(10,000mi) in those 3 years, if something major was on the way out when she bought it then its not a strech that it lasted 10,000miles, I've driven a engine with a spun bearing longer than that, other than it sounding like a diesel it did ok till the rod let go 🙂

Edit its also 102,000kms now not miles, so 60,000miles on it now.
 
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My dad has driven his truck about the same amount of limited miles over the last 10 years or so (about 4k/year). We sold his '89 Toyota in 2007 with about 100k on the clock and it ran like a top. The replacement Tacoma has been absolutely trouble free even with the limited use.

I think I agree with the OP's theory that the car was damaged goods when mom bought it.
 
Rifter said:
Remember though, she has driven it less than 17,000kms(10,000mi) in those 3 years, if something major was on the way out when she bought it then its not a strech that it lasted 10,000miles, I've driven a engine with a spun bearing longer than that, other than it sounding like a diesel it did ok till the rod let go 🙂

Edit its also 102,000kms now not miles, so 60,000miles on it now.
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Oh missed the Kms not miles. Wow 60K miles and the engine is that bad. Somebody really worked at screwing that car up.
 
There's another distinct possibility. Could have been a production flaw that slipped through QA (easy to do with all of the automation in assembly). Every maker, even Toyota or Honda, sometimes has lemons that slip through. And that really isn't anyone's fault.

IF the motor always had oil changes and IF it wasn't overheated, then a severe motor failure at 60k miles is evidence of either some past abuse that went unchecked or a substandard part/original assembly issue.
 
Arkaign said:
There's another distinct possibility. Could have been a production flaw that slipped through QA (easy to do with all of the automation in assembly). Every maker, even Toyota or Honda, sometimes has lemons that slip through. And that really isn't anyone's fault.

IF the motor always had oil changes and IF it wasn't overheated, then a severe motor failure at 60k miles is evidence of either some past abuse that went unchecked or a substandard part/original assembly issue.
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True, I'll know more tommorow the mechanic looking at it now is a family friend My dad has known for 30 years so i'll get some honest answers soon enough.
 
Yeah I dont think its neglect. For the engine to disintegrate like that, it would take years of no maintenance.

More likely, its a single bad event, like overheating, or the failure of one component, say a gasket or something, that caused everything else to fail.
 
Rifter said:
True, I'll know more tommorow the mechanic looking at it now is a family friend My dad has known for 30 years so i'll get some honest answers soon enough.
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He isn't going to be able to tell you much more without tear down. If that is the case, i suggest a used motor swap. I dont know of 3zz, i know of 1zz and 2zz but if the 3zz is common, should just get one and drop it in. Better then spending the time and effort swapping a head gasket or w/e he will come up with.
 
T2urtle said:
He isn't going to be able to tell you much more without tear down. If that is the case, i suggest a used motor swap. I dont know of 3zz, i know of 1zz and 2zz but if the 3zz is common, should just get one and drop it in. Better then spending the time and effort swapping a head gasket or w/e he will come up with.
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I tried that angle but mom wants it "done right" and not to possibly drop in an engine with the same issue, cant say i can really argue with that logic, its her money.
 
Ancalagon44 said:
Yeah I dont think its neglect. For the engine to disintegrate like that, it would take years of no maintenance.

More likely, its a single bad event, like overheating, or the failure of one component, say a gasket or something, that caused everything else to fail.
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Yeah, that's the definition of neglect. I bought a used Isuzu Rodeo once many years ago. It had around 60k miles on it and was 8 years old. I fixed up a couple issues it had but it always had some ticking in the engine and lowish oil pressure. I could only find oil change receipts for 4 oil changes in the paperwork the previous owner had given me. Anyway, I changed the oil religiously and kept it for about 2.5 years until the oil pressure was down to almost zero and the oil light was on all the time despite being properly full of oil. It had around 95,000 miles on it when I sold it at auction for $700, the body and interior were both in excellent condition as were the wheels and tires. I only paid $2500 cash for it so I figure I got my money out of it.
 
Arkaign said:
There's another distinct possibility. Could have been a production flaw that slipped through QA (easy to do with all of the automation in assembly). Every maker, even Toyota or Honda, sometimes has lemons that slip through. And that really isn't anyone's fault.

IF the motor always had oil changes and IF it wasn't overheated, then a severe motor failure at 60k miles is evidence of either some past abuse that went unchecked or a substandard part/original assembly issue.
Click to expand...

This was my first thoughts too.
Those are durable engines normally..
 
Arkaign said:
There's another distinct possibility. Could have been a production flaw that slipped through QA (easy to do with all of the automation in assembly). Every maker, even Toyota or Honda, sometimes has lemons that slip through. And that really isn't anyone's fault.

IF the motor always had oil changes and IF it wasn't overheated, then a severe motor failure at 60k miles is evidence of either some past abuse that went unchecked or a substandard part/original assembly issue.
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my 76 impala had a piston bust a chunk off and take out the rings at 64k miles. the 4-bolt block in that sucker is bullet-proof usually, especially at that low mileage.

at some point in the 3 years id have pulled out those plugs just to check. especially knowing she rarely drives it. this problem was likely due to those two cylinders not firing, and likely could have been avoided with regular checking and cleaning.

i dont care how long plugs are supposed to last, i check mine in all my vehicles at least every 6 months. just in case.
 
bbs lm-r said:
2JZ Turbo swap 😎
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modp_1003_03_o+toyota_jz_engine+2jz_swap.jpg



😎
 
Well found out the issue. 2 shattered valves on the # 1 and 1 cracked valve on the # 4 cylinder.

Mechanic said he has never seen anything like that on a toyota engine with so little mileage before.

I hope the metal from the shattered valves has not done any damage to the bottom end bearings.

Also replacing piston rings as # 1 and # 4 rings were seized onto the piston.
 
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