2011 IM+EGR Coolant Cleanup Saga - With updated details

I could take them off, but we already have four or five guys doing that and I'm so busy with other things that it wouldn't be a very good use of my time. And we only have four bays available for that kind of work. So I do almost all the used car prep work plus whatever else comes in like replacing combo meter, hybrid batteries, inverter pumps, cat replacement/shield etc. Tuesday is my day to get the previous week's accumulation of EGR stuff cleaned up. The rest of Tuesday and the rest of my part time week (1 or two more days) almost anything you can imagine except accumulator pumps, head gaskets, and engine replacement. But I do sometimes help with all those big jobs if needed. Sort of the "whatever needs doing" guy. I'm making plans now to add some compressed air hose reels so air is more readily available without people needing to run long hoses.

 

It's a good thing you retired from your other job. What would this shop do without you?

 

Sorry for the thread hijack, but @jerrymildred you were going to check on what your shop charges, for EGR cleanout? It's very heartening to see pros offering this service btw.

 

It seems like we get busier every day.

 

Rats! I forgot to check. Sorry. I won't be back there till next Tuesday. I need to make myself a reminder.

 

I agree, Mendel. Every time i bring up the EGR cleaning to my big, suburban Detroit Toyota dealer, they tell me they
have rarely seen problems with it. They won't do anything unless it shows a code. Even the hybrid indies are
reluctant to do anything. Basically saying "Nothing to see here. Move along".

 

Isn't the redesign of the EGR flow in the 4th gen an admission by Toyota that the 3rd gen design was bad?

 

Yeah, they even mention it in some “white paper”. Pretty esoteric stuff for a sales blurb.

 

As repeatedly covered here before, no.

A development within the broader auto industry of techniques for post-catalyst EGR (as used in Gen 4) was an active subject of industry research during the years of Gen 3 and a little before. The new approach, with new advantages, became ready for prime time for Toyota to be able to incorporate it in Gen 4.

 

So their hands are clean; nothing to see here?

people can still consider how they’ve been treated; vote with their check books.

 

Different question. Maybe there really is some idiot mistake made in the Gen 3 EGR design. Until it's somehow proven that there is or there isn't, nobody can fault you for pursuing that belief, and you may one day find proof of it.

The fact that a later generation was equipped with a later-developed type of EGR that came out of the research labs in the intervening time, though, is not the proof you're looking for.

 

But chockablock carbon by 200k, reliably, and Toyota saying “the majority of owners will not experience this”, that’s just situation normal.

 

those codes point to gas tank vapour control. Theres a related valve bolted to the drivers side of intake manifold, with hose going to IM. Maybe something disconnected there?

 

There's actually a thread here gradually accumulating quantitative data on degree of occlusion at different mileages and conditions. The world's three or four million Gen 3s haven't all chimed in yet; looks like the ones that have, haven't all been chockablock, not to the same extents at the same mileages anyway.

They might all get pretty bad by 200k. There might be other things in the car also not holding up so well at 200k. I do like keeping my cars to high mileage as much as the next guy, kept my last one to 234k or so, but that's with an understanding that I'm beyond the design economic life and have to let go the luxury of crying "badly made!" if work is needed then.

My parents had a 1979 Mitsubishi whose EGR needed me to ream it out about twice a year. And that car didn't have an ECM I could just ask for flow test results.

 

I put a small o-ring under the head of the OCC dipstick.

I also put this oil and gas resistant thread sealant on all the OCC fittings to make sure that there are no vacuum leaks. FYI, they sell it in a smaller tube, but the bottle was only a bit more. The stuff dries to a consistency that will probably be a good antivibration thread lock too.


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I recall there’s several hoses running in that zone, and it’s possible to stack them wrong way round, making one almost too short.

Give it a few days.