2022-2023 Toyota Tundra Recall - 98,600 vehicles for engine stall/failure issue

[The Lube Guy]

This is a video showing the process of assembling these turbo charged V6 engines for the Tundra. I can't see a hint of neglect or lack of professionalism. I see exactly the opposite of that. I see a high tech plant with people carefully doing extra steps during the assembly process to ensure those engines are built right:



Just based on the above video alone, I'd buy a Tundra with one of these in it.

And here is how messy the repair process of one of these engines is:



I think that one of the big problems of this engine is 0W-20, combined with how people use their vehicles and how often they change their oil. More than likely, Toyota needs to reconsider their love affair with low viscosity motor oil.

Short tripping and 10K mile OCIs are a terrible combination. Fuel dilution and water will kill the bottom end bearings long before that engine will see even a hint of sludge precursors. The process is accelerated by this being a forced-induction engine.

In Hyundai's case, the Theta II engine failures were the consequence of a string of very bad decisions on Hyundai's part, and a lack of communicating information to customers. By the time Hyundai woke up, it was already too late. I'll leave the details that I know for another post, another time. Suffice to say that those engines grenaded themselves in a similar manner as Toyota's, or worse. And it wasn't the imaginary machining debris that messed up those Theta II engines, it was the rod bearings giving up the ghost. Sometimes it was a rod knock, sometimes it was a rod leaving its home through the side of the block.

 

[OilUzer]

Not suggesting that a thick oil will solve all the design problems but in general, considering Turbo, high rpm, towing, high load, summer, live in the South, etc. and
Sum of all = more and more heat
and you need a manly oil unless you are grocery shopping!

 

[Cujet]

This is a video.. I can't see a hint of neglect or lack of professionalism

I think that one of the big problems of this engine is 0W-20,

Fuel dilution,, will kill the bottom end bearings

I agree. I'm not sure if this engine has variable or generally low oil pressure. It is good to remember that reducing oil pump load improves efficiency and many manufacturers are moving towards significantly reduced oil pressure during periods of light load.

Of note, a number of failures have happened at very low loads, such as when driving in neighborhood roads and or motoring at very low RPM. Is there a correlation here?

We now know how to make ultra low viscosity oils work well for us. Even so, when things are not "just right" failures happen fast. Too much flow in one location is a sure-fire way to starve another. (This is my opinion on the actual cause)

As many here know, I was involved in very high output turbocharged engine development (as a tech, not an engineer). My experience was clear. Reliable, ultra high output engines required adequate viscosity, careful oil temperature management along with detailed attention to good oil pressure and flow to critical components.

To keep rod bearings alive, we used all sorts of tricks, including multiple drilled passageways to the rod journal and special main bearings that provided 360º worth of flow. But the bottom line was that once we reached about 90HP per cylinder, high viscosity oil was a must with the standard rod bearing diameters we used.

 

[OilUzer]

These stupid automatic cars love to lug the engine. I think mine will go into the 6th gear at 35 or 40mph with very low rpm like less than 1300 or so. I always knock it into the sequential mode and limit it to 4th or 3rd gear to increase the rpm to above 2200 or so at that speed.

I think the new Tundra is a 10-spd which is even worse. Mine is a 6-spd but I rarely let it go into the 6th gear. I select S5 max and if it feels like it's lugging, I downshift it myself or leave it in S4. I think for the old v8's like mine, Toyota should have made it a 5-spd. No 6th or overdrive! it's just for a little better mpg! They even know that and say if towing, leave it in S4 but most don't read the owner's manual ... and raise the oil and ATF temperatures.

 

[PWMDMD]

These stupid automatic cars love to lug the engine. I think mine will go into the 6th gear at 35 or 40mph with very low rpm like less than 1300 or so. I always knock it into the sequential mode and limit it to 4th or 3rd gear to increase the rpm to above 2200 or so at that speed.

I think the new Tundra is a10-spd which is even worse. Mine is a 6-spd but I rarely let it go into the 6th gear. I select S5 max and it feels like it's lugging, I downshift it myself or leave it in S4. I think for the old v8 like mine, Toyota should have made it a 5-spd. No 6th or overdrive!

Toyota is very aggressive about upshifting too. My RX 350 will upshift as quickly as possible just to downshift the moment you touch the gas - this is particularly evident on hills but also happens during highway driving on flat roads. Just barely touch the throttle and it does not attempt to "torque it out" at all and it just downshifts and the moment you let off the gas even a little bit, it upshifts. This results in A LOT of unnecessary shifting - at least the shifts are smooth and mostly imperceptible.

 

[John105]

You know, I've thought about that statement a time or two. We all know that these OEM's do a pile of testing before they release a design, yet time and time again we see things pop up that 'should' have been caught during testing.

I'm honestly curious why that is. Is it the beancounters getting in the way after the engineering is done? Is the testing not as difficult as daily vehicle usage is?

Just a thought I have every time I see something like this pop up.

I don't think it's beancounters. I think it's the world of work, i.e. quality. Go to a Costco (it's changed since 2023 however) during a work day. Does one really believe all these folks are unemployed or on vacation? No, they are working from home, shopping on co. time. Many younger folks aspire to this life. My buddy's two daughters say no work from no, no dice.

My gut tells me what we need the most from humans, such as judgement, course correction, raising the flag when something is wrong, it's waning. Errors make it to the end product. Robots only do what humans tell them to do. We are not "shocked" anymore when a Corolla power window switch costs over $600, or Toyota parts cost double or more over BMW, it's all rolled into the mix, like that book by Upton Sinclair. Everything goes in the hopper!

 

[blkwtr]

They absolutely did in the case of GM and the 8L transmissions. I'm quite sure the engineers didn't decide to go from a carbon disk to an inferior untested paper clutch disk because it was the best choice. They did it to save the $2 and to bolster corporate relations with LUK.

Okay. If the accountants at GM are telling the engineers what to do, I agree, it's a problem.

 

[JHZR2]

If you ignore the impact on reputation and sales. Tundra owners usually buy a Tundra because they have been more reliable than the alternatives. There is evidence of a dramatic increase in low-mileage, current generation, used Tundras, flooding the secondary market in the last few months and that was before this recall.

I’ve got a couple of old Dodge trucks that would indicate otherwise on the reliability front. And I see a ton of the same ones every day still. More than old Tundras.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t a pedigree. But the Tundra, IMO, isn’t the poster child. I’ve seen them with rusted frames and rotted brakes, crunchy interiors. Yuck.

Even the later model vans and highlanders aren’t as good as the older ones. It’s sad.

Some of this is the added complexity, associated with substantial added control, necessary for emissions and MPGs. No vendor is free of that albatross. But hey, it’s better to be green for the first 85k and then scrap the vehicle due to excessive maintenance costs and the need to pay high labor costs due to a range of things, then it is to not need to have to re-cast engine blocks and build new vehicles from scratch. We trade literal tons of pollution for ppm levels of “green improvements” and this is that the industry faces. Not just Toyota. Look at the lost opportunity with clean diesels and other things.

 

[slo town]

Ah yes why blame the engineers when they can blame the workers.
Undersized bearings seems to be the trend lately.

This.

Scott

 

[RAVL]

I think the piston deposit problem has always been very much dependent on owner maintenance (read: lack thereof).

It seems that the folks who have had problems with it are from the crowd who goes to the dealer every 10,000 miles (or more) for their bulk 0W-20 oil changes.

Those who are very intentional about frequent oil changes with very good synthetic oil haven’t had many issues, it would seem.

Of course, use case is also a big factor; short trips in cold weather are definitely a contributing factor.

With our 2024, I didn’t take a chance and went ahead and muzzled VCM immediately, and, at 5100 miles, I’ve already done 2 oil changes. And with the wife’s commute being over 60 miles of interstate per day, short tripping isn’t an issue for us.

But, yeah, with VCM, it probably isnt an engine that’s going to do well with minimal oil changes using cheap oil.

This is a bad assumption. My wife’s car had synthetic oil changes every 5k and the problem occurred. The issue is that VCM was a band aid to achieve a certain fuel economy.

 

[PWMDMD]

I’ve got a couple of old Dodge trucks that would indicate otherwise on the reliability front. And I see a ton of the same ones every day still. More than old Tundras.

That's a difficult anecdotal conclusion to come to since Dodge/Ram has on average sold 4-5x more trucks than Toyota sells Tundras in North America for the past two decades.

 

[KrisZ]

It’s proof these vehicles don’t cost enough, if only Toyota could sell them for a cool $100k, they would’ve done it right without penny pinching.

 

[RAVL]

That's a difficult anecdotal conclusion to come to since Dodge/Ram has on average sold 4-5x more trucks than Toyota sells Tundras in North America for the past two decades.

We have run Dodge and now Rams (together with Ford and Chevy) for many years in the family construction business. Routinely get 250k-300k out of them towing trailers and beds full of equipment. The last gen Tundra is a great truck but our race shop shared space with a Toyota shop and plenty of Tundras (and Landcruisers) come in needing work that is fairly standard once you hit 100k. Toyota makes a great product but don’t confuse the reliability of proven platforms and technology for Any special degree of manufacturing prowess.

 

[Leo99]

I don't think it's beancounters. I think it's the world of work, i.e. quality. Go to a Costco (it's changed since 2023 however) during a work day. Does one really believe all these folks are unemployed or on vacation? No, they are working from home, shopping on co. time. Many younger folks aspire to this life. My buddy's two daughters say no work from no, no dice.

My gut tells me what we need the most from humans, such as judgement, course correction, raising the flag when something is wrong, it's waning. Errors make it to the end product. Robots only do what humans tell them to do. We are not "shocked" anymore when a Corolla power window switch costs over $600, or Toyota parts cost double or more over BMW, it's all rolled into the mix, like that book by Upton Sinclair. Everything goes in the hopper!

I go to Costco during the day when I'm working. I'm going golfing today. My work gets done. If I need to work nights or weekends, it gets done. My wife would hate that kind of work/lifestyle. She likes being at work and off work. Clear delineation.

The Jungle is a great book although instead of creating anti-capitalism, as Sinclair intended, it spawned the FDA.

 

[SHOZ]

Its not just Toyota, it seems all manufactures can no longer do the correct thing anymore. So what is it, the younger bunch running the shows and thinking the old designers of the past didn't know what they were doing?
There are many improvements that could be done, but they won't do it. It calls for engineering regression into the ancient times, of the great generation.
And worse of all it would cost $ to make improvements, yeah I know they don't think a recall and losing customers cost a thing.
You know similar to all the money Takata saved with the propellant for the air bags. Typical bean counting joke a rama.

good thing they all qualify for their ISO 9000 wall plaques....

 

[The Lube Guy]

good thing they all qualify for their ISO 9000 wall plaques....

That's a high dollar business in itself.

 

[andreigbs]

I strongly considered the new Tundra when I was shopping for my first pickup truck 2 years ago. I eventually ruled it out because most dealers were charging 5-6K on top of MSRP for "market adjustment". Come to find out they soon began having turbo issues that required the full cab to be removed, and now it seems things are even worse.

In the end, I ended up choosing between the newly redesigned Sierra with the Duramax which stickered for $73K and a new Big Horn RAM EcoDiesel that stickered for $56K. Been happy with my choice ever since.

 

[edyvw]

I really like how Sequoia looks. It would fit a lot of our needs, though it is smaller inside than Atlas. If I had this engine, ONLY Euro oil! And since it has dual injection, it would be something like Castrol Edge 0W30!
But, I don’t think oil is work around here like in some engines.

 

[irekm]

These stupid automatic cars love to lug the engine. I think mine will go into the 6th gear at 35 or 40mph with very low rpm like less than 1300 or so. I always knock it into the sequential mode and limit it to 4th or 3rd gear to increase the rpm to above 2200 or so at that speed.

I think the new Tundra is a 10-spd which is even worse. Mine is a 6-spd but I rarely let it go into the 6th gear. I select S5 max and if it feels like it's lugging, I downshift it myself or leave it in S4. I think for the old v8's like mine, Toyota should have made it a 5-spd. No 6th or overdrive! it's just for a little better mpg! They even know that and say if towing, leave it in S4 but most don't read the owner's manual ... and raise the oil and ATF temperatures.

Weird that your truck doesn't have tow/haul button. That actually does, what you are seem to be doing manually.

 

[blueglide88]

Respectfully, that's speculation without data.
If it were due to EPA regulations then why don't they say so?
And why just certain engines? Why not all that meet spec?

According to data from the NHTSA, the number of automobile recalls over the past four decades has seen a steep rise. With modern engineering and manufacturing methods, recalls should be going down. I've witnessed both first hand in my industry over the past 40 years. From drawing board to CAD systems. From manually operated machining processes to advanced CNC and robotics. There is virtuallu nothing that cannot be engineered and manufactured more precisely or better today that years ago. The only real world reason things go south now is because of the complexity Why would complexity go up? Because of EPA stricter and stricter regulations. Otherwise Toyota would certainly be still be using their reliable V-8. Same goes with other automakers.

Visualized: 40 Years of U.S. Automobile Recalls

This interactive graphic visualizes U.S. automobile recalls over the past 40 years by type, company, components, and the number of people impacted.

www.visualcapitalist.com