Toyota to Pay Repair Costs for Some Sludge-Fouled Engines
Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday that it was sending letters to 3.3 million Toyota owners in the U.S. in hopes of resolving a potential engine problem.
Faced with a small but steady stream of complaints from customers who say their Toyota and Lexus engines are gumming up with sludgy, oxidized oil, Torrance-based Toyota Motors Sales U.S.A. is promising to pay repair costs for sludge damage when car owners can provide proof that they changed the oil in their vehicle at least once a year.
The policy adjustment covers Toyota and Lexus models from 1997 to the present equipped with the company’s 3.0-liter V-6 engine or its 2.2-liter four-cylinder engine.
Those engines are used in most of the maker’s high-volume models such as the Toyota Camry, Solara and Avalon cars, Sienna minivan, Highlander sport-utility vehicle and the Lexus RX300 SUV and ES300 sedan.
Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the firm has had 3,100 complaints about oil sludge problems.
An article published Friday by the Automotive News on its Internet site quoted owners of several Toyota vehicles as saying they faced thousands of dollars in repair bills when Toyota dealers refused to fix their sludge-fouled engines under warranty.
Michels said Toyota believed almost all problems were caused by owners who did not follow Toyota’s recommended schedule of oil changes every 7,500 miles or six months, whichever comes first, under normal driving conditions and at 5,000 miles or every four months under severe driving conditions.
“We are talking about 0.01% of the owners,” he said. “If this were a pervasive problem, we would have known about it long ago. Quality surveys from J.D. Power and others would have reflected it.”
Michels declined to speculate on the potential cost to Toyota--first-class postage for the letters alone ran $1.1 million--but said many of the engine problems could be repaired by simply changing the oil several times to flush the sludge.
“A valve job might be the most expensive thing. An engine replacement would be very rare,” he said.
