Toyota USA Refuses to Honor Extension of Warranty Coverage for Sticking EGR

Update: Start-up this morning didn't have any rattle and wife said the car is running well.

Also, I have just come to the realization that my extremely detailed maintenance notes and records are not reflected on the Carfax data on any of my cars. What a waste of time... I was doing this so that if and when I had to go a shop, they wouldn't try and sell me or my wife on all the preventative maintenance that I have already executed. Kind of PO'ed right now...

 

Carfax called me. The only way that an individual can update their service records is to buy a subscription to a SMS (service management system) and then link the said system to Carfax by calling them up to verify their information. Carfax should reflect DMV/title reports, but not always. What I am saying is that I would rather buy a car from someone who has a handwritten notebook and receipts then completely trusting the Carfax maintenance record. Also, this is the reason why small mom and pop shops don't always show up on Carfax reports even if the car was maintained to the nines.

Also, I am going to have to take the intake manifold and clean her again. My wife said the car shuttered a bit (but not as bad as it used to) in heavy traffic and low load on the way home from work. It seems like I didn't get the EGR ports good enough.

 

1) The car has 1570079 as of today
2) EGR cooler and valve are brand new. The EGR pipe was spotless when reinstalled.
3) I followed the NutzaboutBotlz intake manifold video and he doesn't really go into detail about the EGR channels. 100% sure that I focused on the intake manifold itself. I honestly didn't realize that each cylinder on the head had an individual port that feeds recirculated/metered exhaust gas into the intake manifold. My guess is there is resistance in the system and that why it's studdering/chattering under low load. Funny thing is that the EGR was so clogged I don't think exhaust gas has been circulated since at least the first week of January when I first got the P0401 code and that's why that symptom has not resurfaced until freeing up the rest of the system.

 

That is exactly what I am talking about. I was going to use the straw cleaners, 12 gauge shotgun brush, brake cleaner, and compressed air.

Completely overlooked, feel like an idiot, but it's a good learning experience.

 

Question: Are the intake manifolds on the 2012+ GenIII really redesigned?

 

I didn't think it would make that big of a difference and it will clog just as easily. I was just curious.

I know for a fact that Toyota redesigned the EGR system to recirculate gases post-cat in the Gen IV. Makes sense: A cat burns most if not all of the junk before it gets through the EGR cooler and valve.

 

I totally believe it. I have seen records that merely state "Vehicle serviced." That literally means nothing to me, it means that the technician or service writer was feeling particularly lazy that day.

I actually suckered Carfax into calling me today. Guess you can say I am smarter than your average bear. I set-up a dummy account/trial on Workshop Software with a fake name and then transferred that data to Carfax to register my account and they called me in a few hours. Cornered the guy and had me transferred over to customer service. He told me, in fact, there is no way to enter service history data onto your service record without having a subscription (which I figured). When I first called today, they want regular consumers to e-mail them, not speak on the phone. Shops, on the other hand, have a direct option to speak to a rep.

As above, I just hate shops telling me, "Ohh you are due for X" and I had just done it. Just because it's not on the service history doesn't mean diddly. Did you even look over the car, did you test the component, did I complain about poor fuel economy or a noise? This happened to me not too recently and the guy's reply was, "Well, any reputable shop will enter data into an SMS system that we can see." They suggested a brake cleaning on the caliper pins etc. and Toyota had done that 20 or 30k miles beforehand (when replacing the front and rear brakes) and guess what - this wasn't reflected on the service history because the technician just entered replaced rear pads and resurfaced rotors. The front brake service from a few weeks before isn't in our service history. The Carfax also doesn't reflect the fact that the head tech told my wife that she didn't need rear brakes only to have the rear calipers eat into the freakin' rotors 3 or 4 weeks later and then the service manager told her it was the road salt from Ohio that made the pads disintegrate and the lead tech would never overlook something like that (we were dating long distance at the time). They act like it's not possible for someone to do a good job if they don't have access to an SMS system.

Honestly, the Carfax marketing campaign is great because I bought into the bull crap.

 

The straw cleaners worked like magic yesterday and it was disgusting in there and the partial blockage was definitely the source of the rattle in traffic. Thanks for the tip! Took the car on a 25 mi or so test drive and the MPG on the computer jumped from 46.9 to 48.9 and there was already 100 miles on the tank of gas. Think the old girl is back to her true form. I have been tracking mileage and we have jumped from 42.6 (this is with going through the mountains of WV and VA over the holidays) to 46.3 over the last 3 tanks and this includes cleaning and partial replacement of the EGR circuit. Last tank (post-EGR cooler and valve replacement), without addressing the channels was 46.8 calculated MPG - 47.4 computer.

Also, I am curious about your repositioning of your OCC. Even though my oil burn is almost non-existent now and I have an OCC mounted behind the headlight, there was still a significant amount of oil in the intake manifold. Maybe a few ounces.

I am thinking that the Atkinson cycle contributes to this build-up. I will be curious about your results. My OCC is mostly water mixed with oil and unburnt fuel (more like coffee).