Just curious. Has anyone had any experience with having the Engine Valves Clearance Inspected at 60,000 Miles and adjusted ?? I would think inspection/measurement would be the only real thing needed and adjustment would not be needed. Both Intake and Exhaust have a .006 inch tolerance. Valve adjustment according to the Bentley Book is a complicated process. How many man hours does it take ?? and your cost ??? I know the engine drive belt should be replaced on a Mileage condition though for piece of mind. Thanks for your insight !!!
There is no engine drive belt. The camshafts are chain driven. The only belt drives only the water pump, it is a poly-rib belt and should be replaced if it looks fatigued or cracked in the ribs. With the right tools a valve clearance shouldn't be more than 1.5 hours and may need some shims replaced. The time depends on how many shims need changing. I'm not sure about the Prius specifically but most setups don't require camshafts to be removed. Most often with inverted buckets the valve clearances stay in spec for the life of the engine but sometimes not, so they need to be checked.
the valve clearance inspection states to "Check for tappet noise and engine vibration and adjust if necessary" nothing to take apart and inspect if all sounds good.
that's a flat out joke. don't bother at 60k, bother around 120k when your vcg starts to leak and they gotta go in there anyway. if they have to adjust anything, it is a tremendous pain in the nice person because the prius uses shimless buckets. i put up a post about this somewhere.... ah. here. http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-t...valve-lifters-valve-clearance-adjustment.html
My 87 Camry still have the valve clearances within spec after 300K miles. There is no question that Toyota has changed to shimless buckets as there is no adjustment required for the life of the car and to reduce manufacturing costs.
we've also owned several 2g camrys and never once needed adjustment. only time DH really ever did adjustments is during engine rebuilds.
I'm going to check mine soon at 100,000km. I'll pull the rocker cover (I know there are no rockers) and check it is within spec with feeler gauges because I would rather be sure. I also had a SV21 camry which did 300,000km without a valve clearance adjustment.
Thanks for the replies, description and the pictures...especially Bedrock and Galaxee. I understand now........Measure at 100K or so. Cheers !!!
my company has 2 2006 priuses,one at 155,xxx the other 182,xxx. just did the oil changes for engine.they both run just fine.
valve clearance adjustment in a modern toyota is one of the last things in life you should consider worrying about.
Even in my old Taurus SHO (the one with the Yamaha engine) at 265k miles the valve shim gap is in spec. Only on a car with very poor oil changes will you see a need to "adjust" the clearance.
You're welcomed. The secret of the durability of the valve clearance is that Toyota engines do not use rockers or tappets, the direct actuated valve from the cam shaft to the bucket has such large surface area. The wear is minimum. Honda engines use aluminum tappets and the recommendation is inspection and adjustment every 15K miles. The engines are also interfering, need a valve replacement when the timing belt broke prematurely. I stay away from Hondas because of high maintainance.
Galaxee, Thanks for your exhaustive efforts on this topic. I realize everyone is different, and there are lots of points of view. Mine is that in the myriad of different engines I have owned and maintained. The number of times I have had to adjust OHC valves on any motor other than at total teardown and rebild is zero. I have had to replace hydraulic lifters on some V8s and obvioulsy we tune the valves on the race motors, which are solid lifters under push-rods, but I have run countless small blocks, big blocks, and rice burners into the ground without ever adjusting the valve lash or clearance. Maybe I could have to make them run ever so slightly better, but never needed to. In fact, unless we're being really anal, we only set the lash and replace valve springs on the race engines after 700+ miles of competition, and that's at sustained 8000+ RPM duty plus practice laps. Those engines could probably run all season on the same lifter clearances except the springs fail and a broken valve spring means swallowing the valve and big problems. So, I'll just let mine run until I hear something bad - probably never... Steve
