Toyota Tundra OUTRAGE: A Technical Explanation

Perhaps I can add a bit of insight into what might be going on with Toyota. I am in aerospace manufacturing but have industry insight into some automotive. Aerospace holds first and foremost to quality of machining. These parts are going into assemblies that are in up in the sky ie NO room for failure. Any failure of component could be catastrophic. Automotive is quality to some extent but COST above and beyond. All those touch screens instead of physical buttons? Cost. Manufacturers would argue over half a cent cost on this button vs that. How does this apply here? Yes, the machining is done by robotics. This is not an error in the robot, this is most likely due to changing the program when the engine is now used in much higher volume than with LS. Changes how? This can be many things. It could be as simple as before they changed cutting inserts after every 5 engines milled/bored/honed. Now to save PENNIES they are running the same inserts for 6 engines. Whatever system Toyota was using to clear chips, a flush of some sort probably, was optimized for the amount of debris those inserts made after at most 5 engines. Now at engine 6 the inserts are much more worn and the chips for that engine have changed in a way that the programmed flush does not clear all FOD. To further reduce costs Toyota might have reduced the number of inspection checks or even removed them completely. "All engines were 'clean' before, why not now?" Changing the process slightly can have MASSIVE differences in machining.... I believe in the end this issue is simply Toyota 'optimizing' the production line TOO much and it has resulted in engines getting out with FOD still inside. I do not think this is a massive engineering failure but a dollars and cents failure that had unfortunately resulted in loss of reputation that will be FAR harder to get back. To be clear, I am not a Toyota owner, worker, ect. Purely my speculation from being in a similar industry.

Still waiting 6 months to get my 2nd key. How long do we think it will take to get a new engine?

I’m an engineer and without all the Toyota answers it comes down to the fact the bearing rides in those journals. There’s no space in there EXCEPT for the oil and the bearing. When metallic junk gets in there it’s simply going to cause wear in a space that no contact is actually supposed to happen. The design is supposed to be the bearing riding in the journal and oil is supposed to be between the surfaces of the bearing and the journal. When your oil breaks down wear accelerates. When there is metal in there the bearing will wear extremely fast After a short time the wear will cause complete failure.

Seems weird to call it “trash”. I think machining debris sounds a lot more accurate…

The camshaft’s on the top end use the same oil as the bottom end. They are not replacing the upper engine. No way only the lower bearing oil is getting contaminated with the upper cam bearings being spared.

Occam's razor goes out the friggin' window when I'm driving around in a 64K ticking time bomb. Toyota needs to step up to the plate and do right by their customers. Full engine replacements, free rental cars, suspension of payments under repair period and extended warranty effective the date of engine replacement.

Toyota is lying this is the same excuse Kia and hyndai. How did you get same trash in different manufacter Japan and Alabama

It’s like a differential gearbox. The bigger the torque or wheel diameter size, the bigger the physical ring gears are needed. No way around it even if it’s soaked in 90w oil. Imagine putting a tundra differential for a semi truck, it’s not going to last. Tundra with 600 lbs/ft torque has reached the physical limitations of the 3.5 v6. High torque needs more engine displacement to distribute those torque wear evenly throughout those bearing surfaces. Turbos high pressure fuel/air mixture will dilute engine oil. Turbo works for semi because semi has three critical things 1) diesel (natural lubricant) 2) huge displacement (for more metal wear surface) 2) 15w-40 engine oil for ultimate wear protection

I've posted my educated opinion elsewhere, but here's some additional foresight. Problem 1 with the debris 'explanation'; these engines have been failing in irregular numbers and rebuilt by dealers. Some owners are on Multiple engines already. There's a lot of room for finger-pointing for a dealer to be doing subpar work vs factory conditions, but the fact remains that even rebuilt engines have failed in the exact same way. Problem 2, if the first model year that was scrutinized did have additional issues With debris, the first time it was started--at the factory--it was already damaged before ever going to the lot or in dealer hands. I can accept debris for one model year or even one production run. Three full model years is highly suspicious. The question remains on what was changed from the preliminary design principle to the variant in the Tundra, what loads the truck sees specific to its weight/payload, and what all that does with a lower build quality platform if its the transmission, supporting components, etc.

That’s why I changed my oil at 1K miles on a new engine to clean out the machining debris

As an engine builder I would like to see more bearing clearance to allow small debris to flush through rather than just embed in the soft bearing material. Perfect cleaning would be nice but not always obtainable also I am not comfortable with these super lite weight oils providing a margin of safety. We might need a bit of old school tech to fix this problem. Wondering if they changed the bearing material to make the EPA happy.

Looks like cholesterol buildup , and engine has a heart attack

Thank you for the video. The voice of reason. I have a 23 tundra. Everything you explained makes perfect sense. I plan on keeping mine.

For this to be correct you have to believe the information being provided by Toyota is correct. This has been the news from Toyota within the past week. Exploding Tundra engines, Toyota caught lying on MPG for many vehicles, AND lying on SAFETY certifications. I have no faith in Toyota having the ability to tell the truth on just about anything relating to their vehicles. Toyota has NOT been replacing w/new engines, rather spending a boat load on labor to repair the "exploded" dual turbo engines - they are rebuilding them. How they move forward, access, and remediate this in the short term will be interesting.

Metal in the engine used to mean all new engine, but in this case they wiill just give you a shortblock , F that.

Look this Recall sucks for all Tundra owners including myself. Maybe Toyota should up the oil weight in these motors to a 30WT . A 0w30 or 5w30 maybe what’s needed to protect these twin turbos .

You really did our my mind at ease. I biught a 2024 Limited I force Max and love it. Its not on the recall list...yet. people need to remember this has affected 1 % of their truck/SUV sales.

Toyota is lying! So the trash just ruined the main bearings? No turbo bearings, no pistons lining ruined, no camshaft scoring? What I’m getting at all these motors ONLY have main bearings failing and that’s it! It’s not trash, it’s something else! Replacing a short block multiple times on some customers cars tells me it isn’t trash, it’s something else! Something that would need a redesign and Toyota doesn’t want to admit and go there! They will fix these as they implode until the warranty runs out! I see a class action lawsuit coming! Imagine if you owned a capstone or TRD Pro?? $74-80K

I think they screwed up the oil galley design in such a way that the first two bearings don't get pressurized enough. Or the oil clearance between the crankshaft and the bearing shells is either too large or too small.

Toyota is slow at identifying problems and rolling out solutions. My 2019 rav4 needed a coolant bypass valve right out of warranty. They still have the same problems popping out and now theres a lawsuit against them.