Coolant and ATF fluid changes on Toyota - Page 2

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:31:20 -0700, Toyota MDT in MO wrote:


Couldn't this be solved by a well-place Heli-Coil or two?

The head can't be *too* hard to remove and replace.
If you even have to...

Helicoil usually isn't the best for high stress situations. For head
bolts and spark plug holes, usually a solid insert, like Time-sert
(www.time-sert.com), is used. But for the Toyota 2.4L engines, I heard
some questions as to having enough metal to put in a Time-sert.
However, heard people Time-serted with good results.

AERA-Engine Builders Association reported the following:

"The following information concerns the loss of coolant on some
2002-2006 Toyota 2.4L, 2AZFE engines. The location of this condition
has been noted at the rear of the engine where the cylinder head bolts
to the cylinder block. It has been reported that stripped head bolt
threads have been found on some of these engines during tear down.
When the two rear head bolts lose their clamping ability they allow
coolant to seep out at the rear of the cylinder head."

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:17:53 -0700, john wrote:


Nutz. Thanks a LOT, John!

http://www.ptuning.com/tc/ptuningssturbokit/cimg2907.jpg

(Not mine...)

I think that the folks who designed and built your car are probably more
knowledgeable and have spend more time, money, and effort on R&D on your car
than Arts Garage, who may not have the resources to even acquire a Toyota
franchise.

If you really want to go overboard, change the ATF at 60,000 miles.

Cars that come with the pink Toyota Super Long Life coolant should not be
refilled with red Toyota Long Life coolant, although cars that came with the
red Long Life can be filled with Super Long Life.  It is safe to follow
Toyota's recommendations on replacement intervals.

The Super Long Life comes pre-mixed so it should not be diluted.

--

Ray O
(correct punctuation to reply)

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:48:36 -0500, Ray O wrote:


After the fiasco with sludging oil, I think Toyota is probably
over-cautious with their maintenance now. And the sludging was caused
(mostly) by people ignoring oil changes, and Toyota still footed the bill
for a lot of cleaning/engines.

I think that you are overdoing this for some strange reason.

A modern vehicle should be able to go 50-100,000 miles without
changing ATF fluid.

A modern vehicle should be able to go 50-100,000 miles without
changing coolant.

Any mass retailer, Wal-mart,etc, can sell you the fluid or coolant
that you would need to do this.

Toyota only cares that you spend your money on their products.

The only thing that changing fluids early means is that you changed
the fluid early.

Forget the internet and drive...

es8m wrote:

I agree with your point, but I would change the ATF **AT** 50K miles,
not somewhere between 50 and 100.  15k is just silly though.

Coolant should be changed based on time, not mileage.  Old green stuff
is good for 2 years, modern OAT 5.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

wrote:


I think you are partly off base on your last statement.   Coolant only
goes "bad" from the loss of corrosion protection.  Corrosion is just
chemical reaction.  Almost without exception, and I see no reason this
would  be one, chemical reactions occurs faster at higher
temperatures.  So the interval for changing coolant should be based
mainly on mileage, not time.  It's only while the car is adding
mileage that the engine is nice and hot and those chemical reactions
are perking.  When it's just sitting, not much is going on.  The green
stuff is plenty good enough for more then two years.  Motor mag did an
in depth story about anti freezes a couple years ago and talked with
engineers from several car companies.  They were pretty
straightforward and said the green stuff was easily good for 3/36 if
not longer but they can't take chances so they are conservative.  They
also talked about the many issues of using the "wrong" coolant and how
it could cause lots of problems due to the different metals and
gaskets speced by different car companies.  Another bit of info I
picked up somewhere back in the days of no coolant recovery was that
one of the most detrimental things you can do is to keep opening up
the radiator cap to check the coolant and letting "fresh' air get in.
Any fresh air with oxygen just adds fuel to the corrosion process. One
of the reasons the "new" coolants last longer is that modern systems
are almost completely sealed against air getting in.  I think Chevy
even had a service bulletin about this early on in the dexcool saga.  

Ethylene glycol coolants will also gel if left to sit long enough;
another reason to change them.  I've seen it happen in old but
unopened bottles of standard green coolant as well as in neglected
systems.  This is not necessarily the same gelling that occurs when
coolant gets hot and mixed with oxygen-rich atmospheric air at the
same time, though as a non-chemist I'll leave that one up to the
smarter folk.  As far as newer systems being "sealed better" - I don't
see it.  Properly operating systems all the way back to the first use
of overflow bottles starting prominently in the 70's sealed their
cooling systems just fine.

Coolants primarily fail due to system problems like air entry.  Tiny
issues could go unnoticed for the life of a car, so in the unfortunate
event that you have such a minor cooling system defect, the 2 year
limit on standard coolant is a good rule of thumb.  I certainly
wouldn't push it too much further even if your engine was checked by
God himself.  As a side note, damn near every GM engine on the road
has a really hogh possibility of some sort of cooling system breach,
whether you can test for it or not... as a result I do not recommend
blindly following the 5 year Dexcool replacement interval, or the 100k
to 150k(!) mileage interval.  I can't remember a GM yet that didn't
get a coolant change due to failed cooling system parts replacement
before 150k miles anyway.  It's like Audi and their POS use of
lifetime G012.  Lifetime?  Lifetime of the timing belt interval?
Lifetime of the failed waterpump or secondary water pump on turbo
models?  Which lifetime are we talking about, Audi?  It sounds like a
convenient way to delete the *very* costly radiator drain plug on some
of their POS models.

Toyota MDT in MO

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:12:17 -0700, Toyota MDT in MO wrote:


Well! Look who's back!

(You snuck in the Toyota group via backdoor, ie, Crossposting...)

Sorry, Ashton.  The ethylene glycol or propylene glycol can oxidize, in
time,
upon contact with air or oxygen, especially at higher temperatures.
Reaction
by-products are acids like glycolic, oxalic.

This is one of the reasons that coolant formulations have an alkaline
buffer.


In this type of situation, that is true.  The National Association of
Corrosion Engineers
defines corrosion as any process which results in the deterioration in
properties or strength
of a material.  Manual processes such as erosion are included even though
these are not
electrochemically driven.

I'll accept that as true.  However, it's a moot point since whatever
you do that wrecks the glycol is going to wreck the corrosion
protection way before the loss of glycol becomes a problem.  Which
brings it back to my point, you should go mostly by miles, with time a
secondary consideration.

Miles or operating hours, it is a moot point with me.

You may remember the old reliable Nalcool 2000 product was a dark
red in color.   That was due to phenolphthalein, IIRC.   When the
glycol oxidation caused the pH to drop below about 8, the product
cleared up to a colorless or light yellow liquid, indicating it was time
to change.

Nowadays, the colors are, I guess, just there to warn the consumer
that he should stay with the product that the car producer supplied.

Hype reigns supreme with some of these products and their marketing.

That is quite correct. However, the ATF should be synthetic blend or
synthetic to reach that interval (100K).

For conventional dino fluid, max life is like 30-60K miles (severe-
normal service). But you also have to account for particle loading of
the fluid. That's why for Dexron II/III severe service Toyota listed
it as 15K miles for the Aisin A series transmissions without a decent
filtration system. The fluid may still be good, but there are just too
much crap in it.

However, I think Toyota's "lifetime interval" simply means the ATF's
life is up when your transmission craps out. Really!

john wrote:

I'm not sold on an oil simply because it is touted as "synthetic".  It's
a buzzword at best for products sold in the USA.  I even have a hard
time believing that the best, highest quality base synths are really
orders of magnitude better in terms of durability than conventional.



Couldn't agree more.  Also, none of the filters I've taken out of any
Toyota are anything more than a screen, which basically traps
catastrophic chunks from going into the pump, but does nothing for
particulates of friction material and tiny (normal) bushing/steel wear
particles.  In terms of filters and servicing, I like the domestic
transmissions for their fiber weave filters.  They sure seem to last a
long time if you service them (and a really short time if you don't)
despite the many pattern failures virtually all domestic trannys suffer
form design inadequacy.



You know that's the case when every interval of the maintenance schedule
for ATF reads "inspect".  420,000 miles?  Inspect!  Oh, the unit
failed?  Replace!

--
Toyota MDT in MO

My 2008 Avalon doesn't even had a dipstick for the tranny.  The owners
manual says to "inspect" the transmission fluid at 30K miles and then every
30K after that.  I bet I can predict what the dealer will tell me at 30K
miles, 60K miles, etc.  So where is the trans. fill point when there is no
dipstick?

Tim K

I'd look for a plug bolt somewhere on the case above the pan.
--

Ray O
(correct punctuation to reply)

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:20:10 -0500, tkloth wrote:


On my Mazda it's the gear/cable for the speedometer. Then again, I have a
mechanical speedo...and a 5-speed to boot.

Like Ray said, look for a plug. It's probably set up like a manual trans.

Hachiroku ハチロク wrote:

That goofy setup is the worst I've ever seen implemented.  You have my
condolences :-)

--
Toyota MDT in MO