Blown Camry Engine - need suggestions

I suppose since it only has 62,000 miles on it, it's worth putting a new engine in it.

Did it throw a rod? If so, you would have had to have run it low on oil for quite a while and you would have heard the rod making noise before this happened.

Sounds bizarre to me.

You need to talk to a lawyer first... Big time!

The shop owes you an engine. The rookie tester didn't know how to take it out of first because he never drove stick before eh...

Just my $0.02, especially with the low miles.

Mike

Shop owes you an engine. They blew it up while they were "testing" an alignment? If the alignment was fine why were they driving the car? I would talk to a lawyer first then call the shop and tell them what the options are.

I would think a 99 would have a rev limiter on it. Holding it at redline would not blow it up - if it did, everyone who does dyno runs would have blown engines.

My bet would be the Toyota engine sludge problem causing the failure. The car was purchased with low miles and the previous owner's most likely use was mostly short trips resulting in cool engine operation which would aggravate the sludge problem in the engine. You may have better luck getting Toyota to pitch in because of the sludge problem, but I doubt it. As far as the shop driving it, I would not want to drive a car after a front alignment unless the shop had taken it on a test drive to ensure the vehicle was driving properly. It is just part of doing the job. A vehicle in good condition should not fail in this manner. The conditions precipitating the failure were present well before the actual failure. IIRC, the vehicle has an rpm limiter which should protect it against over revving abuse even if the driver leaves it in first or low gear. You may be able to convice a court the shop is responsible because it was in their possession depending on the law in your state. Many shops have a denial of responsibility for anything that may happen to the vehicle while in their possession with few exceptions. As soon as you give them the keys and sign the work order, you agree to this clause just like any other contract.

As far as repair, I would go for a rebuilt short block assembly in a car with that low mileage. A used engine from a salvage yard may also be a good candidate if it has the later modifications to prevent the sludge problem. IIRC, there is a service bulletin on this. You stack the cost of repair against the value of the repaired vehicle and what you want to do with it over the long term before you make any move. If it is a keeper, fix it right. If it is a trader, go for the salvage engine and let it ride. Because of the sludge problem, I would be a bit skeptical of a salvage engine if you intend to keep it and drive it.

Just my $0.02 Lugnut

You do realize that a rev limiter ONLY controls engine speed as far as fuel flow and ignition? If the shop tester was moving at a good pace and shifted down to a very low gear it can't do a thing.

Oh yes! That takes a bit of intent or criminal stupidity to do that. I may have missed it but, I still don't know if it was stick or auto. Autos are pretty well protected from idiots this way by limiters and forced upshifts. Only problem is that every time you think it is fool proof, they come up with a better class of fool.

Lugnut

If it is otherwise still in good condition I wouldn't junk it. Just stick a salvage engine in or get a rebuilt for it.

Your transmission should be fine unless you see physical damage to it from the grenading engine.

I doubt you will end up netting anything from the shop even in the unlikely event they were at fault. They usually have themselves covered pretty well with the service order you sign when you bring it in. A lawyer might be able to get you something but you end up paying everything you got back to the lawyer in fees.

Steve B.

Depends on the location but since some of the local shops employ people who's last job prior to "alignment technician" had the phrase "You want to super size that?" attached to it....

Just a short update.

1. The owner of the alignment shop and I haven't gotten together yet. My only available day I had was today at noon and he was not available. I will not have more time until next tuesday.

1. Thanks for all the input. You are comming down to where I am at. I do not believe I can get anything unless the owner of the shop feels guilty. Yes, I know he may also be reading this and may also have inputted his thoughts ( I won't get anything).

Two service shop owners I have talked with have said they have insurance just for situations like this. The alignment shop owner should also have insurance for issues as this.

1. The car is an automatic. The women who owned it had polio and could not handle a standard transmission because her left leg could not push in the clutch.

1. The car has only had mobil 1 as a lubericant since the first oil change. I know because I did the maintenance on the car since it was new. As far as I know sluge is not an issue with Mobile 1.

2. You are correct, Toyota said "tough shit", in my words. They were actually a bit rough to my wife when she went to talk with there service department about it. She was so mad with her treatment from Toyota, we are now looking at Honda's for a replacement car

1. A Junk yard engine would be about 00 installed. A rebuilt engine from local installers would be 00 to 00 installed. A remanufactured engine would be 00 and up. Not worth repairing the car at that price.

Again, thanks for all the input.

Dan

********I think that it is highly unlikely that he will offer to help, whether or not he has insurance, especially if he feels he did nothing wrong. ********Put yourself in his shoes... If you did wrong, would you try to do the right thing... Some will, some wont. *********He might, but would not hit his insurance unless he was convinced, "beyond a reasonable doubt", that he did something wrong. ********The tranny is a separate issue. There is no reason why a thrown rod or similar in the engine would damage the tranny, BUT you also dont know how the original owner serviced the tranny and whether she pampered it. A wild child in the family can erase all the gentle treatment in the world. ************* Probably wasnt a sludge issue in the first place. Mobil 1 is an okay lubricant but cannot awaken Lazarus. *************Probably isnt Toyota's fault. Again, put yourself in their shoes. ********** This is where I normally say "horseshit!"..You should be able to get a good wrecking yard engine for less than a thousand, maybe far less, depending upon where you live. Japanese engine importers are also sources of engines. Having the swap made should also not be so terribly expensive. It is not an extremely difficult job to do. Where do you live?

I would file a small claims action for whatever the maximum you can collect in small claims is in your state (maybe $1500). It won't cost you much to file a claim. Tell the judge that the likely cause was taking a stone cold engine and holding the gas pedal to the floor - that's why it blew up in 200 yards. There is no way this would have happened if the car had been driven like "the little old lady" had been driving it for the past 62000 miles. It wouldn't have happened if it had been driven the way the Judge drives his own car.

In order to send that much metal flying out the side of the engine and make a hole that big the RPM had to be way above what was needed to test drive this car. There is absolutely no reason it needed to be driven like that. Don't worry you will get your money. If the car had been driven so that the RPM was held to less than 2500 RPM it would be physically impossible for it to break a hole that large in the side of the engine. The alignment shop could have driven the car in a prudent manner and still determined whether the alignment was OK. The Judge is going to have a hard time understanding why it was necessary to drive your car like that. If the Judge determines that they drove it in a manner that was not necessary to perform the work they were contracted to do then it is entirely their fault. Consider yourself lucky the engine blew up. If the abuse had not blown up the engine it could have still done some damage but you probably would have had absolutely no recourse.

-jim

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This may sound crazy... but sometimes stuff blows up. All the cries and knashing of teeth about the shop being at fault are ill considered, amateur opinions, not a fact among them. Sometimes things break. They just do. It's a crying shame, and I'm sorry for your bad luck. Camry's have a much better reputation than that. People are so quick to sue.... it's kind of sad that so many folks think that anytime bad luck strikes that someone must be responsible and must pay. Ben

No you are wrong. There was a huge amount force involved to make a hole the size of a grapefruit. This does happen to engines at the race track, but it never happens to a car on the street that is just coasting along. Any engine can throw a rod, but to knock a hole that big in the block requires winding the engine up to RPM's far in excess of what you need to test out an alignment job. If the car was being driven normally and threw a rod it might have made a crack in the block but it would never blow a hole that size.

Take a hammer and tap the side of your engine. Did you make a hole? Even if you hit as hard as you can you won't be able to make a hole the size of a grapefruit. Your going to need sledge hammer and some one who knows how to swing it to make a hole like that.

This wasn't bad luck.

Someone is responsible and they should pay for the engine. If I took a sledge hammer and hit the side of your engine as hard as I could would you call that bad luck?

-jim

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If you take them to small claims. You will collect. Just emphasize to the Judge that there is no way a hole that size would be made unless they were driving it hard. Doesn't matter how hard they were driving it - they have an obligation to drive it prudently and carefully unless you gave them express permission to drive it hard. I'm sure the judge will explain that to them since apparently they aren't aware of that.

Of course they should have insurance. Did you expect if they were careless and drop your car off the hoist, they would tell you "sorry I guess that was just bad luck"?

The type of transmission doesn't matter. There is no good reason for them press down hard on the gas pedal on any car in their care.

It doesn't matter what condition the engine is in. Sludge didn't cause hole the size of a grapefruit in your block. There is no way the hole would be there if the car had been driven lightly. They had no good reason for them to be driving the car anyway but lightly. You didn't give them the car for their amusement.

This isn't Toyota's fault. They provided a warranty on their cars if it had happened while still under warranty they would be concerned, but without a warranty there is no way they can be responsible for what happened. And even if it was still under warranty they probably wouldn't pay. They would blame the alignment shop.

The real issue is how much did the car cost you. But get quotes for the repair and present them to the small claims Judge. He will award you the maximum amount the law allows and probably say something like "I wish I could give you more".

-jim

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I've been in the business since 1977. I have had many strange things pop up while testing customers cars.. thrown rods, tie rods breaking, electrical fires etc.that were completely seperate from and unrelated to the repairs I had performed. The unexpected can and will happen. I strongly disagree with your premise that an engine cant grenade unexpectedly, I've seen it too many times in the last 30 years. The force created by a liberated rod at 2500 rpm is many orders of magnitude greater than a simple hammer blow... HTH, Ben

I believe you. I know of some shops that make a lot of money on the amazing number of things that go bad on a simple test drive around the block.

I never said anything about it not happening unexpectedly at 2500 RPM. I said the amount of damage indicated the RPM was a lot higher when this one happened.

No it's not.

The hole the size of a grapefruit was not made in a Camry while driving at 2500 RPM. If that is the kind of damage that happened at 2500 RPM when it happened at

5000 RPM a Camry would be lethal to occupants and/or bystanders.

-jim

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Granted, what you say makes at least reasonable sense, but I can tell you with absolute, knowledge-gained-from-personal-experience certainty that an engine CAN fail catastrophically during normal operation. Read on...

I was cruising down I-75 in northern Michigan one November afternoon, doing (at the time) my usual seasonal hop from Mackinac Island to my "winter quarters" in Bay City. I'd been on the road for the better part of 45 minutes in an old beater of a Honda Civic station wagon, and I was tooling along at 50-60 MPH in top gear - RPMs running around the usual

2400-2600 cruise-range (according to the tach, that engine didn't redline until 6K) depending on exactly when I looked at the tach.

I was pondering a stop at the Grayling Burger King as I came up the slight rise about 10 miles north of town, when out of nowhere, I heard a massive *BANG*, immediately followed by the sound/feel of metal hitting the floorboards under my feet. The engine tone changed majorly at the same time, and I lost power in a big way. Glanced in the rearview wondering what I could have hit (even though I had seen absolutely nothing on the road besides the thin dusting of snow that was blowing around), and the cloud behind me hid the road. Pulled it over to the side, where it sat and idled rather rough, but continued running for the

10-15 seconds it took me to decide what the next move was going to be. Turned it off, got out, popped the hood, and released a smoke/steam cloud that obscured all vision. Once it cleared, I could see a small fire burning on the front side of the (transverse-mounted) engine. Beat that out, and waited again for the smoke to clear. Once it did, took a closer look at things. What did I discover? A hole in the front of the block big enough to push a basketball through with room to spare. A hole obviously caused by something inside deciding it wanted to be outside.

No "abusive driving", high revs, or anything similar involved - I was just cruising along steady at normal freeway speed when SOMETHING let go, punching a hole bigger than a basketball in the block centered roughly between the #2 and #3 cylinders as it "made its escape".

HA HA HA. So what was on fire. Was it the antifreeze?

And This part:

"Pulled it over to the side, where it sat and idled rather rough, but continued running for the

10-15 seconds"

That was a nice touch - made it all so believable

-jim

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