Mish, I think your pictures killed this thread...nothing personal.

 

Nah, simply no updates on the issue, that is all.
I am sure nice looking Jaguar would not spoil such fine thread

 

nice jag

 

It has been a while, however my truck still rattles and mythical self tightening valve lifters have not kicked in yet

As my attorney suggested I took my truck to another dealer hoping for better luck there and that is what I got:

First issue of shaking steering wheel at freeway speeds got fixed by rebalancing tires. Previous delaership did that 2 times and could not get rid of the shaking, so I guess they need to learn how to balance tires, I am sure any Tuffy could help them with that.

Second and most important issue of rattling valve train was found to be just an injector sound and normal. To my question why is it so loud on the left and perfectly absent on the the right I was told that this is very well know acoustic effect and that motors always run louder on one side and quieter on the other
Even though this explanation kind of deceives the whole concept of V shaped engine, it really makes no diffeence to me.
I think Toyota Corp already called there and spooked our local innocent redneck dealerships, but all I needed was another invoice to have my case complete. Next step would be half bought by Toyota arbitration and when I most likely loose it I will be able to file lemon law suit, which I will most likely win by default.

The sad part in this whole story is that I do not think that this truck is so bad, yes it is cheaply built with that flimsy plastic and awful headliner that got scraped by the flower arrangement the other day, but I knew that when I was buying it.
Issue is so simple, valves did not get adjusted properly during the assembly process, no big deal, adjust it and I will be on my way, paying $30K for my truck, but no Toyota would rather act like their ˟˟˟˟˟ does not stink and loose the whole thing the hard way. I simply don't get it.

 

Hey Mish, thanks for the update. I have one question threw all of this, why are there not more people complaining of this? Have you heard a quiet 2003 V6? I have not, yet many people say theirs are quiet. Are they deaf? Do they not care? My truck sounds like a diesel! And it will probably blow up 2000 miles out of warrenty. I don't get it either. I never thought I would ever have to sound proof an engine. Maybe I'll put really loud glass packs on this thing! I would rather have it sound like a stock car than listen to this awfull tinny ticking!!!AARRRGGHHH!!!!
G

 

I hope things work out for you & Mish. I kind of know what you are going through. When my belt started squeaking at 300 miles on my new 4runner I was pissed off because there was no fix at the time. My 4runner were one of the first few to get look at by the Toyota techs here in California. It took 2 week for them to find a solution for the fix.

Trust me, I would be complaining if my truck was ticking. My 2003 V6 4runner sounds just as good as any V8 or as good as any SUV out there. I live in San Jose Ca and tried to talk to most 2003 4runner that I have seen parked at a store. Talked to about 15 owner so far and I came across one 2003 Sport 4runner that had a ticking sound you guys are taking about. After talking to the guy for about 5-min he told me he switched to synthetic oil at about 100 miles on this 2003 Sport 4runner. I’m not saying you guys did that but most of the V6 owner that I have seen and talked too didn’t have the ticking sound.

Mish if you want to get the dealers attention go buy a big sheet of plywood paint it white then in big red letters write “Don’t buy a 2003 4runner because the engine ticks after a few hundred miles”. Place it on a trailer and drive up and down the street where you bought the 4runner. Before you do it let the manager at the dealer know what you are going to do. But don’t drive in their parking lot just on the pubic road. Tell them to fix the problem and you will go away. They can’t do ˟˟˟˟ because it’s your right. Good Luck

 

Iheard perfect V6 right infront of me at the dealership, that is why I am all upset here. If all of them rattled like mine than I would know that is just the nature of the beast and wouldn't have bought one.
The reason why dealership tried to fix it 2 times is because they heard the abnormal rattle in mine, next to the perfect V6 truck they had. I think they had bad batch of poorly adjusted engines and I got one of them, just my freakin luck after dealing with Mitsubishi 3 years ago! Should have bought Pilot, no matter how ugly and minivan like it is.

 

Talk to you attorney about the sign Mish. Trust me it will work because they don’t want bad publicity it eats their cash and it will turn a customer away. I’m pretty sure it’s legal only if you drive on public roads. Just look in to it because they might give you the run around on the lemon law also. Plus the more ammo you have the better the fight. Let them know you won’t give up because in their eyes most people do.
:tomcat:

 

Either deaf or don't care! My dealership pulled in several new V6 equipped 4R's while I was there complaining and they all made the noise. They did not try and sell me on it being injector noise (although you can hear the injectors on both sides) but said they thought it was the exhaust manifolds and the roving tech was there that day and confirmed it. He also indicated a coming running change in the manfiold design. I went today for my first oil change and restated the problem to the service writer who indicated he had heard it from a number of customers at this point and were sending one of their techs to the Toyota technical center for some classes on the 4.0L engine in general and this problem in particular and said to check back in two weeks. In fairness to the dealership, they have offered to extend the bumper to bumper to 60/60000 for free if they cannot correct it to my satisfaction within a "reasonable" period of time. That will be acceptable to me as I love the vehicle and don't believe it is a long term reliability problem, just now how you want your 30K vehicle to sound.

 

I am not sure if you are trying to insult me, or simply do not put your expressions together that good.

1. I had perfectly good V6 4Runner Sport running smooth as silk right infront of me at the dealership, which made perfect sense to me and dealership techs that my truck rattles from the left bank and the other one did not, even a bit.
Why all trucks at your dealership were rattling, I can only assume that was because it was the same noisy batch, made on the same drunken day at the Japanese factory in Guatemala, or something.

2. You might be dealing with semi dissent dealership wherever you are and I am happy for you that you got 5y/60000K bumper to bumper out of these nice people. I got nothing, besides Toyota trying to tell me that noise is normal and they NEVER heard of such noise in new V6 and it must be me, not their wonderful motor.

I hear people complaining here about the noise and others saying that their motors are perfect, so I assume that not all V6 motors are like that. Mine used to be noisy only cold, but after 3K miles it is noisy all the time now and also started vibrating more when tapping is at its loudest.

""..just now how you want your 30K vehicle to sound."""
This phraze I did not understand at all.

 

Mish, I think tom4416 was referring to the above quoted post ...

I just found this thread and feel your pain - I have a very short fuse with the dealers and I am simply amazed at how long your patience lasted with these jerks.

I also had a good reading your post about the headliner ("Another thing that kills me, our headliners. Those are make of some kind of pressed road kill.") - mine's also all scratched up just from touching it!

Reading all this I remembered my old mechanic back in Russia - he used to say "good noise will let it self out" or something in that context meaning just leave it alone and wait. I personally have no patience for that but he's proven him self right on few occasions.

Good luck!

 

Tell me about Russian mechanics, these guys can fix anything with little, or no parts available I have friend who is very good and can hear this noise fine, he is the one who actually pointed it out to me.

 

Here's a story about Russian mechanic:


I used to drive cars across the country back in Russia.

One time we drove this POS LADA 8 when the engine gave up on us (started knocking). We towed the car into a farm near the road and asked around for a mechanic. We were pointed to this middle-age guy who said he could fix it. Long story short - it took him 6-7 hours to rebuild our engine using ...



chocolate wrapper foil, sand paper and hand operated drill to fix busted crankshaft!



His "garage" didn't have a lift - we worked in a hole with our hands up at all times and it was -15C and no heater. The oil was dripping into our cuffs. My hands were so frozen I couldn't even feel anything anymore. But he kept on going!

We were finished around midnight and still had to drive over 600 km to our next "stop". The engine was too tight at first and we couldn't start it (he didn't even use torque wrench when tightening bolts on the crankshaft!). We had to tow it a bit for the wheels to turn - then it fired up!

We drove that car for another 2000 km sold it to some guys that drove to Siberia (another 3000 km). I heard back from them and they said that they sold that car to someone local who was still driving it year later!

I've met some incredible people on the roads of Russia and I really miss mechanics who really had gold hands.

Those were the old days ... when going without sleep for 36 hours was normal.

 

I bet your lada was not tapping
Candy foil is well known technique to fix and sell, worked every time for a few days, but year is unbelievable.

 

no - no tapping

 

Service manager of another Toyota Dealership called me, he wants to hear the noise today. Gee, I wonder what excuse I am going to hear today. My quess would be: this is caused by the magnetic distortion caused by North Koreans, or maybe it is normal tap of the hidden turbo charger

 

Hey Mish, I can't wait to hear what they say as well, thanks for your feedback, can you ask them about this Exhaust manifold upgrade? I would love to know if this is a real thing or just a possibility.
Thanks!

 

I read in another thread on this site that Lexus put out an upgraded exhaust manifold for their RX series truck after multiple complaints that it was too loud at idle. (Do not know if it's true)

Maybe this could be used as research to find out why the Lexus leg of toyota decided to repair.... Doesn't the 4Runner cost more than the RX? Not important.... Just wanted to drop the info out there for those engaged with toyota on a daily basis.

 

I went to another Toyota dealership and had their service manager listen to the truck. He heard the noise and made up no excuses that it is normal. Now is the bad part: he is going to call Toyota and ask their engineers if there are any known issues as well as order set of shims for this motor. I am sure Toyota Corp. assholes are going to trim his effort down to nothing right there and we will loose another honest service department. I this happens I will be left with no choice, but to return the truck, even though everything else in it is no so bad. They are getting all bent out of shape because of the valve noise, unbelievable! It looks to me as if Toyotas were now designed by lawyers and not engineers
What I understand is that Toyota has semi dissent product, but very few places where it can be maintained. Most dealerships should rename their service departments into: "Oil Change Department", or "Tuneup and Car Wash", maybe something like: "Lite Maintenance"

 

Since this service department sounds reasonable, maybe they will go to bat for you with Toyota. Good luck and keep up posted.