Valve cover removed - 09 Highlander

[drdriver77]

Hi all, look at the engine of my 2009 Toyota Highlander V6 with the famous 3.5 (Please disregard the pink cloth )

I purchased this car used back in 2012 with about 40k on the clock and since then I've been using almost exclusively Mobil dyno 5w30 (that's the grade the car calls for) and always the OEM oil filter. I change the oil & filter every 5k miles.

The car had about 140k miles when the picture was taken.

 

[The Critic]

Looks good, but you need to replace your ignition coil connectors. Looks like you have broken tabs on the connector housing. Next time, do not push down on the tabs....use a small pocket screwdriver to gently lift up on the tab.

Connector should be part #90980-11885.

 

[Bowtieluvr]

Looks good, especially considering that you've been running conventional oil for 100K miles.

 

[demarpaint]

Looks great!!

 

[rollinpete]

Looks Good

 

[BLND1]

Looks pristine.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

It would have to be new to look better.

 

[OilUzer]

Looks clean!

by dyno (dino?) do you mean Mobil Super (syn-blend)?

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Looks good! I know it's almost impossible to work on a transverse V6, especially Toyota

New valve cover gaskets and ruthenium spark plugs and you'll never have to go back there again!

Looks good, but you need to replace your ignition coil connectors. Looks like you have broken tabs on the connector housing. Next time, do not push down on the tabs....use a small pocket screwdriver to gently lift up on the tab.

Connector should be part #90980-11885.

They still use those fragile connectors?
I had to replace them on my 1MZ. Thankfully, there were only three (waste spark) so I didn't have to go to the back of the engine to replace them

 

[drdriver77]

Looks clean!

by dyno (dino?) do you mean Mobil Super (syn-blend)?

The oil I'm referring to is the Mobil Super 5000, which was labeled as "Conventional Oil" on the pre-SN+ times and now labeled as "syn-blend" during the SN+ times.

 

[joekingcorvette]

Looking great!

 

[sw99]

Good looking internals!

 

[Danh]

It does look really good. This may be an obvious question, but why does the exhaust side camshaft look darker than the intake?

 

[Urshurak776]

Those connectors on my RIO broke long ago. On the KIA, they have a pretty good friction fit and haven't caused a problem. Not sure how th Toyota ones are.

 

[SOHCman]

Hi all, look at the engine of my 2009 Toyota Highlander V6 with the famous 3.5 (Please disregard the pink cloth )

I purchased this car used back in 2012 with about 40k on the clock and since then I've been using almost exclusively Mobil dyno 5w30 (that's the grade the car calls for) and always the OEM oil filter. I change the oil & filter every 5k miles.

The car had about 140k miles when the picture was taken.

Mobil dyno every 5K, does this vehicle have a maintenance minder for changing the oil? I would bet the minder has you changing more like 8-10K, but I doubt it would still look this good under the valve cover if you had done that.

 

[KL31]

It does look really good. This may be an obvious question, but why does the exhaust side camshaft look darker than the intake?

Probably for visible identification of the part during the engine assembly. Wouldn't surprise me if it was on purpose when my 05 highlander has an oil filter drip catcher that pools the oil into a metal funnel type contraption just below the filter so you don't get oil all over the block when removing the filter.

 

[Slick3914]

Mobil dyno every 5K, does this vehicle have a maintenance minder for changing the oil? I would bet the minder has you changing more like 8-10K, but I doubt it would still look this good under the valve cover if you had done that.

They have a simple countdown from 5,000 miles.

 

[demarpaint]

Looks good.

 

[JB250]

That’s outstanding!