70-442-W30

2018 Toyota Camry 4 cylinder. This happens to be the exact model we just purchased. Ours had a December build date, but is earlier than the recall. Should I still be concerned? https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2018/T...DR/FWD#recalls See the associated documents section of the recall page if you are extra curious. Interesting procedure to verify dates.

NHTSA Campaign Number: 18V200000

Manufacturer Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing

Components ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING

Potential Number of Units Affected 1,730

droptopron

These must be the high performance four cyl Camry's. They just need a bigger cam

oldcutlass

I think the "causes engine to stall" statement means that the engine may/will seize. Like most things manufactured today there are tracking numbers to parts and/or batches. Most manufacturers can trace back to dates of manufacturing processes and figure out the approximate dates in which the defect occurred. If your car is not part of the recall, any labor to check for the defect if found non-existent will be on your nickel. I would assume if they found the offending pistons, your car then could be covered under an expansion of the recall dates.

droptopron

I know somebody with an Outback. They had it at the dealer and mentioned oil consumption. The dealer changed the short block. Ends up Subie got a bad batch of piston rings. They couldn't track the cars so as people complained they changed the short block.

Indy_68_S

Your acquaintance got lucky & I wonder if it helped.
Subaru must've had bad batches of rings for a couple of decades now.
All of their 2.5L engines eat oil.
It's just a matter of how much is too much and whether or not Subaru agrees with you.
1qt /5K miles has been acceptable (by Subaru) for their 2.5L for a long time.

joe_padavano

Is this where we give Koda a ration?

70-442-W30

Yoda Koda, please report for duty! I know he is with Toyota, but I forget what department he is in. But it would be nice to complain to him some!

Regardless we like the car. Toyota and Lexus have been really good to us. But it just seems strange they would have this big of a problem. Especially when something like this today probably has more tolerance/quality checks than ever.

Koda

Hello.

I've done many things for Toyota, but this one goes back to the beginning. I worked in a training period in the TMMWV engine plant, and I even worked on short block sub assembly. As I recall, there were 4 ranges of bearings to select based on block tolerances, but all the pistons, made on a piston line, were the same.

These engines were made at TMMK powertrain, which is the only US plant to have its own engine plant attached. The rest are made at WV, AL, or Japan.

I can see one of three things:
1. A series of pistons were mislabelled as another type. I do not see this being very possible. This is a clerical error.
2. A supplier made a series of pistons slightly out of spec. I see this as more possible. Louisville Forge might be the ones for the pistons, I know they did the cranks. This is a manufacturing error.
3. We picked correctly labelled, but wrong type, pistons. This is a logistics and pokeyoke error. I see this one as the least possible.

K really only makes 2 engines, so I think the parts were out of spec.

Toyota is scared shitless of any recall, so they will give you a brand new engine if there's any doubt, and stamp it numbers matching, too. 1730 seems like a bad batch, not a design flaw.

Ok, wait, one second, this is a new 4 banger (I don't know it's number) with the new Camry. There COULD have been some old 1AR pistons (the old 4 banger), lying around, I GUESS maybe they could have been used?

I can ask a buddy in powertrain next week what happened.

70-442-W30

Thanks Koda. I appreciate the insight. Curiousity was getting to me more than anything. I know they did say vehicles subject to the recall could have up to 4 of the larger pistions, or even none. So I guess some of the assembly processes that I thought would apply in a plant today aren't what I thought (FIFO.)

Koda

I'm not sure what happened, so I can't tell you until I know. FIFO is typically followed at Toyota plants. We didn't develop it, a Japanese man named Ohno, saw it when over here in an American supermarket, and said, hey, we can do that. I think Ohno-san was one of the presidents back in the 50s. Usually it's one of the Toyodas running the place, I think there's been three now. I've seen Akio Toyoda once in person, he had a whole posse of Japanese dudes around him. This was in 09 when they changed the western side of the Indiana plant to be unibody Highlander and body on frame Sequoia, instead of the Sequoia and the Tundra, which is a LOT easier of a combo to do, let me tell you. We run 95% Highlander in that shop now, and every 20 vehicles is a Sequoia, which is so different that it is a major pain in the rear, but we make a lot of money off of each one, as it's expensive, and the tooling is paid off long ago.