Corolla Sludge...Why not covered?

This is a Corolla owner with sludge. Since he has proper maintenance, does anyone know why Toyota would refuse to cover the repairs?

Autoresearcher

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I bought a Corolla LE ’98 and I am the first owner of this car. My decision to buy Corolla was based on Toyota’s reputation of high quality and longevity. My intent was to buy a car would last me a good number of years and deliver faithful service with minimal expense.

I have been maintaining my car regularly, which included the routine oil changes at service stations, as per recommendations and scheduled preventive maintenance from Toyota’s authorized centers. I have been the owner of this car since I bought it and also haven’t driven this car much.

My car suddenly broke down on the 4/9/03 at 51,890 miles. It required an engine replacement and repair of the head. I spent $4,500 on engine and head repairs. The reason for this was engine starvation of oil, due to sludging and excess burn up of oil. The sludging problem was detected sometime ago. With regular maintenance and my clean driving record, this is clearly a case of faulty engineering.

I have full documentary evidence of regular maintenance as per manufacturers recommendations that I submitted to Toyota for reimbursement. Notwithstanding this fact, Toyota sent me a standard letter that it has been sending out to sludge affected customers like me. This letter is a copy/paste version in which the date is March 3, 2003. I wrote to them in May 2003 and it seems they had a reply ready for me before even they got my letter. It makes no mention of Corolla, but Camry and states that it will give me GOODWILL discount of $1000 on my next purchase of a Toyota and I should maintain my car regularly. What I cannot figure out is, what more did I need to do for regular maintenance? If I am missing something, it should been documented in their instruction manual.

If some more corolla owners have had this problem, please contact me at rahul_nayar@hotmail.com since I plan to join a class action suit against Toyota.

Charlene, Rahul told us this same sob story a couple months ago on the old Corolland forum. After much questioning, Rahul finally admitted he never checked his oil level inbetween oil changes. So the when his oil level got drastically low, the engine failed just as it would have in any car. We pointed out to Rahul that his Toyota owners manual recommends checking the engine oil level at every gas stop. For decades, countless thousands of cars in America have ended up in junkyards prematurely because owners fail to maintain engine oil and other fluid levels.

CB - give it a rest .

The writer states that he needed "engine replacement and repair of the head." That doesn't make any sense. Why would you need to repair the head if you're getting an entirely new engine anyway?

I don't have any positon on the sludge issue. It's just that details like that, which an informed reader will pick up on, can often be the sign of a bogus story. For example, I could tell you that your flux-capacitor in your transmission needs repair. But if you know that the flux-capacitor is actually a part of the radiator, then you'll know that I'm lying.

...just my $0.02

I agree that the story sounds "fishy." Good catch, vondiesel - repair the head and replace the engine? huh? Plus, like I've asked CB before, where are the service receipts? As the saying goes, "Show me the money!" Until then, I'll use rational judement in determining my opinion. So far, no service receipts = no belief in the claims of non-owner cause of sludge.

I say let CB ramble on so this thread will eventually have to be locked by the moderator, just like all of the other threads she's started...

These are some interesting replies to my post. My response is as below:

Firstly by engine I mean the BLOCK –(short) which has the piston sub assembly and the engine head is the one that sits on top of the engine. I thought you guys knew what a head is.

Secondly if you doubt about maintenance receipts not being there, I am willing to FAX them over to you - reach me at rahul_nayar@hotmail.com and send me your FAX number. I would welcome if you point out if I missed out on anything and enlighten me.

Thirdly, I have "sludging detected" in writing from Toyota's authorized service station when my car had done just 34K miles. At that time Toyota did not have any CSP program so I didn’t report this matter - not realizing that I will face the consequence after another 20K miles.

And lastly don’t dismiss this as a bogus story, since this has actually happened. I have no time to write a pack of lies and waste time on this board for nothing.

Hundreds of '98-'02 Corolla owners have filled out the Consumer Reports owner reliability survey and they gave the Corolla engine the highest possible score for reliability http://www.saber.net/~monarch/corolla1.jpg

Therefore it is unreasonable to suggest the motor is defective. As you can see from the picture, Neon owners have alot of engine trouble and Ford Focus owners have even more. Therefore I think Charlene should direct her energies to other manufacturers. Toyota and Honda have the best reliability record in the whole automotive industry. They deserve awards, not punishing class action lawsuits.

These are some interesting replies to my post. My response is as below:

Firstly by engine I mean the BLOCK –(short) which has the piston sub assembly and the engine head is the one that sits on top of the engine. I thought you guys knew what a head is.

Secondly if you doubt about maintenance receipts not being there, I am willing to FAX them over to you - reach me at rahul_nayar@hotmail.com and send me your FAX number. I would welcome if you point out if I missed out on anything and enlighten me.

Thirdly, I have "sludging detected" in writing from Toyota's authorized service station when my car had done just 34K miles. At that time Toyota did not have any CSP program so I didn’t report this matter - not realizing that I will face the consequence after another 20K miles.

And lastly don’t dismiss this as a bogus story, since this has actually happened. I have no time to write a pack of lies and waste time on this board for nothing.

I think most commenting here know the difference between a short block and a long block. It just seems odd that a dealer or shop would order a short block and fix the head, as it seems long blocks are less costly when you figure several hours of labor to pull the head, tear it down, measure everything, replace what is out of spec, put it back together and re-Assemble.

 

So it seems odd that something like that is done in a shop.

Then entire assembly is called an engine, what you later describe is a short block, It seems most of use interchanged engine for long block which is basically a short block as you describe, plus the heads, needing only to add the manifolds and accesories to drop into the car.

I will e-mail you my fax number and you can send me anything you'd like scanned and posted on the internet.

So please delete any credit card numbers, personal phone numbers etc, and if I get it before 4pm CDT I can scan it tonight and post it on my website. However, if there is a VIN or tag number leave the last half of the digits to verify the receipt is for your vehicle, for example, if you tag is ABC 123 leave the 123, ditto for any VINS displayed.

Also, make sure you highlight the dates and mileage every service was done please.

I'll e-mail these directions as well.

TB

tboner,

I think most commenting here know the difference between a short block and a long block. It just seems odd that a dealer or shop would order a short block and fix the head, as it seems long blocks are less costly when you figure several hours of labor to pull the head, tear it down, measure everything, replace what is out of spec, put it back together and re-Assemble.

Exactly. This is what I was thinking during my orignal reply.

Also, If it's okay with the moderators, could you post a link to your site once the receipts are scanned in (if not, PM me)...I would love to see them...

I know that a lot of people who come here are professional or self-professed mechanics and seem to have an impressive mechanical understanding of Toyota's. That is what makes this website so helpful.

However, You need to remember that non-mechanics come here seeking advice, too. Sometimes these people may use incorrect terms. I think it is rude to insult them for this. You should not immediately become suspicious because someone who is not in your field refers to the short block as the engine. What if a doctor told a patient that they did not believe a word of their medical history because they misstakenly called a vein an artery?

And to rephrase fatcat, I say, "PC, give it a rest"

Alright, this thread is getting ridiculous, as almost all started by CB become sooner or later.

However, You need to remember that non-mechanics come here seeking advice, too. Sometimes these people may use incorrect terms. I think it is rude to insult them for this.

I hope you're not responding to my post. If you are, I ask you, who's insulting whom?

Firstly by engine I mean the BLOCK –(short) which has the piston sub assembly and the engine head is the one that sits on top of the engine. I thought you guys knew what a head is.

Doesn't this seem like an insult? Plus, doesn't it seem that he/she DOES know the correct terms?

And for the record, I'm not a mechanic and didn't intend to insult anyone. I really hope this forum doesn't end up like many other Toyota forums, where you literally have to sift through CB spam/solicitaion posts in order to find any helpful information. I REALLY hope it doesn't happen. I've found this forum one of the most intelligent Toyota forums on the Net. Can't CB start a website instead of posting in every Toyota forum on the Internet?

I also apologize to other Corolland.com members who have to read this post. I truly enjoy surfing through topics where people take the time to give helpful opinions and advice.