Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D | Motoring discussion | Back Room Forum

Fri 18 Sep 2015 08:19

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - sarahb324

Hello, I'm looking for some more information/advice.

We brought our 2007 Toyota Corolla Verso with a D4D engine in October 2013 from the dealer after researching the best MPV for reliability and safety for our family. The car had only done 35000 miles and was therefore very attractive to us. We expected it to last us around 4-5 years.

Yesterday it went in for its MOT and Service - it has always gone back to Toyota for this and I mentioned that I'd had the temperature light flash red a couple of times and the oil and water had been topped up in early September. Other than this the car was running fine with no obvious issues.

I was very shocked to then get a call saying that the head gasket on the engine had gone and I would need to pay just over £3500 to have a new engine.

Since then I have looked into any known issues with the car (which I thought I had done prior to purchase), and have found a lot of posts in owners forums over the last 18 months of people having similar issues. It also seems that Toyota knew about this issue as the engine warranty on these cars was extended from 5 to 7 years (we are now at 8 years).

I now feel like Toyota weren't completely honest with us when we brought the car - had I known of this issue I would have asked for the engine to be replaced under warrantly before paying out of £6000 for the car.

I would therefore like to ask if anyone has any experience of this issue and what resolution you had with Toyota as we can't afford the engine replacement or a new car since all our savings went into this car and it has left me feeling ripped off and mistrusting of any car manufacturer.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

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Fri 18 Sep 2015 12:22

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - skidpan

You have asked this in legal as well, why post twice.

This was my reply:

You bought a 6 year old car 2 years ago. At the time of purchase it was way out of Toyotas warranty so why should they do anything now 2 years later. The mileage is irrelevant so forget that.

2 years after purchasing a 6 year old car you can forget any coemback on the selling dealer. To have any chance you would ahve to prove that there was an issue at the time of purchase, since the head gasket has only just failed that is not the case.

So I am sorry to tell you that you are on your own. It all part of car ownership, if you wnat everthing to be covered FOC the only way is to buy new and sell when the warranty ends. Even then certain parts are not covered.

Get it fixed and get on with life, Toyota and Inchcape have no liability either under consmer protection or any other act.

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Fri 18 Sep 2015 13:51

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - Peter.N.

Unless there is something very special about this engine you should be able to get the head gasket replaced for less than £1000. Enquire of an independent garage or diesel specialist.

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Fri 18 Sep 2015 16:14

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - madf

This is a well known issue with this engine and Toyota extended warranty to 7 years or 100k miles (or nearly that).

What happens is that carbon builds up on the pistons/head, raises the compression ratio and the gasket goes. The solution Toyota ended up with failed engines under warranty were repalced by a new half engine , new injectors etc and a revised gasket.

tinyurl.com/nl2go48 covers the issue in great detail. It is well worth reading in full.

The information about this engine has been public knowledge for at least 5 years.

Edited by madf on 18/09/2015 at 16:14

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Fri 18 Sep 2015 16:34

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - Avant

I agree that you're very unlikely to get any contribution from Toyota or the dealer, gven the age of the car - but I can't see why a failed cylinder head gasket should require a new engine, or even 'half- engine'.

It happened to me years ago with a Renault Espace that had done over 100,000 miles (so forgivable); the gasket was replaced without the need for a new engine.

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Fri 18 Sep 2015 18:30

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - skidpan

Head gasket failures in my motoring youth were not uncommon but were easy to fix on cast iron pushrod engines, a couple of hours max.

Last head gasket I replaced was on a 2 litre DOHC Ford Zetec. Took a bit longer but I did replace the cam belt at the same time. Probably about 6 hours including sourcing the parts and a couple of special tools.

It certainly did not need a new engine.

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Fri 18 Sep 2015 18:35

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - steelghost

Rerading about this on the Toyota Owners Club forums, it seems that you have to do some serious dismantling to get at the head in the Verso

www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/105938-defin...4

Other threads (don't have links to hand) seem to suggest the issue that commonly leads to the gasket failure can leave the engine with piston scoring, which means it's not just the gasket, but quite a lot of engine rebuild work.

Not that this is any help to the OP :(

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Fri 18 Sep 2015 20:38

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - madf

The problems with the Toyota engine are:

The oil control rings wear leading to oil burning.

The fuel injection system can lead to overinject fuel leading to carbon build up.

Add the above together and the carbon will score the cylinder walls.

The EGR valve system exacerbates carbon build up.

The rising Compression Ratio due to carbon destroys the head gasket leading to water ingress and more bore damage - and bearing damage due to water in oil.

A simple HG replacement will just lead to further repetitions..

It IS NOT a HG issue - that is the symton of more deep seated problems..

Hence Toyota replacing 3/4 engines with new injectors and new EGR system..

(I looked at buying a D4D RAV4 of that vintage = hence my interest..)

The episode cost Toyota $100 million +

Edited by madf on 18/09/2015 at 20:40

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Mon 19 Oct 2015 19:55

Toyotal Corolla Verso - Head Gasket Issues on Toyota Corolla Verso D4D - JohnnyC

A month ago, I reported a very similar story with our 2007 Toyota Avensis D4D. We had a similar response from Toyota: it's older than 7 years so the extended warranty doesn't cover it.

We then wrote to the VP of Jemca - the Toyota dealer we bought it from - and we also posted our story here and sent a couple of tweets.

We got a quick response from Jemca, met their Customer Service manager, and agreed to accept their offer of installing a remanufactured engine at trade cost price and with no labour charges.

It still cost us just short of £3,000 but for that we also got a new clutch and flywheel as well as various other parts replaced.

Realise from what you wrote that you might not have £3,000 - the alternative Jemca offered was to give us £2,500 for a trade-in but that would've cost us even more.

The work was carried out within a week and I just picked the car up today and it's like driving a new car - better than the one we bought - and we feel very satisfied with the outcome and have no complaints with Jemca.

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