I am a long time RX-8 owner buying from the original batch. However, I have a serious issue with my wife's 4Runner and was hoping someone could give solid advice.

I purchased a 2002 4Runner new from the local dealer in early 2003 (Liked the older body style). I had all the major services done at the Toyota dealer and had oil changes done at a local shop which never exceeded 5000 miles.

The car is right at 5 years old and has 81,000 miles and never had a problem. The car made a noise and stopped as my wife immediately pulled it off the road on Saturday.

It ended up being that a rod was thrown through the block. I had it towed to a mechanic I trusted first. I then called the Toyota dealer and he said to tow it there and he would look and see if he can determine what happened and try to help even though it is over the powertrain warranty (in miles only).

I spoke with him in person and he was really a jerk even though I remained nice. He said it was probably caused by some other shop putting too much oil in since we didnt have all the services done at Toyota even though all major ones were done there. He is saying it is going to cost 500 or so for them to determine what happened and probably will be 10 grand to replace the short block.

Look, I know the car is out of warranty but that car had great care taken of it and Toyota is basically trying to rape us at this point. The 3.4L V6 is supposedly one of the most reliable engines on the market.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? The car was just paid of and worth about 9 grand bluebook value.

Would youo recommend trying to find a remanufactored engine, a short block from somewhere else? The mechanic that is my friend said that the oil level was perfect and looked clean. He suspects that I just got a bad engine which happens.

Any advice on the most cost efective way to proceed would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dean

Junkyard engine, dude... Do the entire stinkin' thing, and don't try to reuse the parts from that failed engine, no matter what someone says. The Toyota engines were known to have weak head gaskets, and that could have led to an overheating issue which ultimately caused the engine to fail.

BTW-I've been a service writer at a dealership, and I've yet to see a situation where someone put in so much oil that it threw a rod through the block.

That's so weird. Myself, and two of my friends in high school had late 90's 4runners. None of us EVER had a problem with that car. My buddy must have flipped it 4 times, always dogged the hell out of it, and it still ran like a champ. The thing is a tank and you MUST have gotten a bad apple if something like this happened.

This happened to me when I had an Eclipse. It was 4300 to replace the short block from the dealership. I ended up buying it online for 300 bucks and installing it myself.

Just look into ebay or a 4runner forum to look for a used block. I'm pretty sure you can find it for a lot cheaper and have your friend install it.

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/ Ask them.

That sucks, man. Get a used engine, and have somebody "reasonable" install it.

Ten grand. Right. Tell that jerk to kiss your ass.

I agree with Photomunky,

If overfilled, the head gasket would most likely go.... not a rod.

Stealerships are exactly that because they want to steal your money and buy their new Lincoln towncars. The car is paid off so whatever you spend is out of pocket. Sorry to hear about your loss but now you have room for a 20B in the budget!!!

I agree with Photomunky,

If overfilled, the head gasket would most likely go.... not a rod.

Stealerships are exactly that because they want to steal your money and buy their new Lincoln towncars. The car is paid off so whatever you spend is out of pocket. Sorry to hear about your loss but now you have room for a 20B in the budget!!!

Thanks for the responses guys. The service center is supposed to call this morning to get my permission to do diagnostics to find out what happened. I am refusing the service. I am having some buddies call around junk yards and other sources (Jasper for example) to come up with a better option.

Maybe that engine was assembled at 4:30pm on a Friday. The reason I bought my wife that car is because I planned on getting about 160 out of the engine and then still being able to sell it for a fair amount.

The 4Runner is a great but local service centers will try to screw you after something very unfortunate happened. The service manager lost all credibility with me when he said it was probably overfilled with oil. He also commented that he had NEVER seen a Toyota engine fail (any engine) that was not the consumer fault. Look up some of the old Celica engines for goodness sakes but he said that was because the kids didnt know how to drive them.

Dean

To my surprise, the Toyota service manager called and said Toyota of NA agreed to pay for a new engine because all the fluids were perfect and the car was maintained well. I still have to pay around the 2500 labor but since it is out of warranty, I am happy to get a new engine from Toyota.

This beats Mazda as I couldnt even get them to fix an item under warranty at my local dealer.

Dean