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Our good buddy Mike Levine over at Pickuptruck.com has updated his report on the story surrounding the failure of 20 camshaft in the 2007 Toyota Tundra's 5.7L V8 engine. Levine noticed that Toyota has already posted on two internet forums expressing regret to Tundra owners over the incident. Though the author's name was not provided, identical posts were published by "TMSUSA" on ToyotaNation.com and TundraSolutions.com that address customer concerns and provide this expression of remorse:

"Although the number of affected Tundras is very small, we very much regret that even one of our trucks was manufactured with a camshaft processing flaw and certainly any inconvenience caused to our customers."

Meanwhile, Levine also tracked down a consultant who confirms the estimate we originally reported that it will cost $5,000 to swap out each engine that experiences a failed camshaft. Toyota will certainly pay the estimated $100,000 to repair the 20 trucks already known to have experienced a camshaft failure, but the looming question that's yet to be answered is how many more trucks might need to have their engine replaced? Toyota Spokesperson Bill Kwong told Levine, "Our dealers have approximately 1,600 new Tundras nationwide for disposal as a loaner vehicle while a customer's truck is being repaired, and that doesn't include older Tundras and Tacomas." While meant more as an assurance that the company will do whatever it can to help out customers who find themselves with an affected engine, that statement also implies Toyota is at least prepared for the number to grow.

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According to Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong, the automaker was aware back in February that there was a problem with the camshafts in the Tundra's 5.7L V-8. So far only 20 actual failures have been reported in which the camshaft has actually snapped in half, but those are very expensive failures. Given some of the problems that Toyota has suffered recently with engine sludge and other quality shortcomings, it looks like it is seriously considering a quick recall of the trucks to replace the engines.

If Toyota does end up replacing all 30,000 5.7L V-8s that have been built so far, it will be very expensive. With a very conservative estimate of $5,000 per truck, the bill could easily exceed $150,000,000. That's certainly not a good way to launch a new vehicle. If the problem turns out to be from the camshaft supplier, they will likely bear most of the financial burden for the recall, and we're not aware of many suppliers that have $150,000,000 lying around.

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Out of a run of 30,000 5.7-liter V8 engines, Toyota has had reports of 20 camshafts snapping -- a minuscule number in light of the total (0.06 percent, as a matter of fact). Toyota says the outside supplier of the camshafts has discovered the problem, which was "a metallurgical defect in the casting," and the company is trying to figure out how many of the remaining 30,000 engines could also be affected, though because of the company's production method, the final number is not expected to be large. The camshafts have been designed to prevent collateral damage in case they break, but Toyota will replace a customer's entire engine if the camshaft failure should occur by sending a new 5.7L via airfreight to the nearest daeler. Apparently some Toyota execs believe that the new number one global automaker has been growing too fast to maintain proper quality control. Yet with the Tundra being a new truck with a new engine in a new market for Toyota, there are going to be teething problems, as we've seen. What remains to be seen is if, or for how long, these problems will continue.

Thanks for the tip, Tracy!

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