Consumer Reports (toyota 3.0 prone to engine sludge)
 

I read an article in Consumer's Reports this weekend at my brother in law's. It was about certain engines that are prone to engine sludge and that the manufacturer's are replacing these engines, even past warranty. One engine that cought my eye was the Toyota's 3.0. I wish I would have remembered to grab the magazine on my way out so I could have scanned it for you guys. Does anyone here get consumers reports magazine? It should be a recent one as it was still in the bathroom. (it's the one where the reviewed small SUV's including the Diesel Liberty (which they said was crap pretty much) It also stated that with the engines they mentioned, the oil should be changed at the "severe use" intervels and that a full service history (reciepts) must be shown to get your engine replaced if you have sludge...
Hopefully someone can scan it and get the full report on here.

I hope I don't get flamed for this, but...

I don't trust anything printed in Consumer Reports. I've been around the power tool business for quite a while and was once in the bicycle business. I've never once seen them get it right. They often make three critical flaws as far as I'm concerned...

First, they often don't choose the products that are most readily available, leaving the consumer to suppose that the ranking they give to one item is indicative of every product in the brand. You can tell they went shopping at whatever distributor is closest or most convenient to them -- meaning they'll pick all the drills from Sears, even though Home Depot & Lowe's may have a very different product line from what Sears carries. The consumer can only suppose that the "quality" of the DeWalt or Makita drill at Sears is the same "quality" as the one at Home Depot. Home Depot may very well carry a higher or lower end product from a manufacturer than Sears does.

Second, they often don't pick the right customer priorities -- rather they come up with whatever priorities they want and conduct their "tests" that way. I remember they once tested mountain bike suspensions by driving bikes over ladder rungs and ranking them by softest ride, using their little circles, softer equaled better! Anyone who knows anything about bike suspension knows that softer isn't better, it's just softer, and in many people's opinion (mine included) worse! In the end they rated the overal products using a score based on a total of the subscore's. So between two bikes one with higher quality components and the other with cheap components and soft suspension, the cheaper product won! It was terribly frustrating to have to educate consumers who came in after reading the consumer reports why the lower ranked product was more expensive. It confused the customer and made the legitimate dealer look at best unknowledgeable and at worst untrustworthy.

Third, they often take manufacturers specs (say the torque of a drill for instance) and rank based on those specs. This hurts higher-quality brands which often under-state their specifications and helps lower-quality brands which often over-state their specifications.

I realize the above-mentioned article wasn't abount rankings per-se, but in general, I take Consumer Reports articles with a grain of salt. I wouldnt be surprised at all if CR was basing their article on the experience of (literally) one service manager in one market. It just seems to be the way they operate in my personal experience. I know many people think CR is great, but I've just had really bad experiences with them. My 2¢.

I am pretty sure it's the 3v-fe (Camry) 3.0 V6 that is affected, not the pickup/4Runner engine. It seems to affect the DOHC 4 valve engines and that includes the 5VZ-FE Tacoma/4Runner engine. Keep your engine oil changed and you'll never have a problem.

From what I have heard, that may very well be the case. I am not sure if it could apply to the 3VZE (thanks Consumer Reports for the details) but I have heard of it happening in the 5VZFE when using cheap synthetic oil. Just my 2c of knowledge :)

What's "cheap synthetic" oil? Kind off an oxymoron, right...

Although I'm sure there are some faults with Consumer Reports testing, it is interesting when the lists of the most reliable cars is tabulated SURPRISE! Most are Toyotas! So I don't think you can discredit EVERYTHING they test

they didn't specify if it was the camry's or truck's 3.0.... But they did say they are replacing engines (even after warranty) if you have all of your maintenance reciepts... so keep you reciepts peeps... might get a free engine some day :great:

Here are the Toyotas most affected: http://www.yotarepair.com/Sludge_Zone.html

I would think twice about buying a 96-01 Camry and if you have one already use a fully synthetic oil and change it every 3000 miles.

good link Mr.Goat...

http://www.yotarepair.com/News_release.html
so I wonder about all the people going to 10k,12k,15k miles between oil changes.... using amsoil and others... I wonder if they're wasting their engines. I'll be changing mine at 5k.