Injector rattle

[Mark01]

Hi all,
I've just bought a 2003 lc3 for the Mrs. 80 thousand miles and full toyota service history, last owner for 8 years.
Please can someone explain the injector rattle problems with these.
Is it a recall thing or something you need to diagnose yourself.
I won't pick it up for a week or so as it had private plates on it so is waiting for the paperwork to come back from dvla.
I'm guessing I may find evidence of any work undertaken in the history files.

Cheers, Mark

 

[Gary Stockton]

Probably not

I can't remember the details but if you search you'll find the long post series and in there is the Customer Satisfaction (I think) details. Are you buying from Mr T? In which case you get some kind of warranty I expect - but it might be worth being hard-arsed about it as failures are expensive ...

 

[Mark01]

No not from Mr t, from a local trader. He is selling it with 3 months warranty (for what that's worth).
I had a bit of a search round but threads seem to mix between having seals changed and injector problems.
I can understand and sort out the seal issue if needed, just looking for a bit of clarification on the rattle.

Cheers, Mark

 

[andyw]

Model Vin Range Manufacture date
KDJ125 JTE AZ29J# 00019035-00050831 June,2004 Through October,2007
KDJ120 JTE BZ29J# 00049705-00160767 June,2004 Through October,2007

 

[dunk1]

Not sure its anything to do with your rattle but my LC3 55 plate
had new injector washers oil strainer etc at 57,000 miles

Done by Toyota FOC due to the Copper washers failing, changed
for Aluminium i believe

Mine is also a bit rattly for the first minute or so but only from after
being parked up over night so its a full cold start, just done 80k and runs
fine other than that.

It's strange as my Colorado 3.0 D4D didn't make any noise and had done 80k

My dealer says it needs new injectors but i've read this makes no difference

 

[Andrew T]

Your asking about two issues really,
one: the injector seals fail letting carbon get past the seal and into the oil, this then blocks the oil pick up strainer in the sump and kills the engine. This is circa £250 to change the seals and check the sump.

two: injector rattle, this is where the compensation valve goes out of spec and ends up over fuelling your engine, leading to premature wear and poorer fuel consumption. each injector is circa £275 and I have changed 6 in 80,000 miles.

if you have bought the car already and not checked the history before now, good luck

 

[Andrew T]

PS the Colorado D4D is a slightly different engine, with different injection system operating pressures etc. albeit may share the same denso injectors.

 

[dunk1]

Your asking about two issues really,
one: the injector seals fail letting carbon get past the seal and into the oil, this then blocks the oil pick up strainer in the sump and kills the engine. This is circa £250 to change the seals and check the sump.

two: injector rattle, this is where the compensation valve goes out of spec and ends up over fuelling your engine, leading to premature wear and poorer fuel consumption. each injector is circa £275 and I have changed 6 in 80,000 miles.

if you have bought the car already and not checked the history before now, good luck

I get the rattle only on start up and fuel consumption hasn't changed since i bought it, no black over fueling smoke out the exhaust either

 

[Andrew T]

It doesn't take much for the injectors compensation valve to go out of spec.

and yes you can usually only hear the harsh rattle when cold or start up.

I chose to fix mine, as I wanted mine to be right.

But its your choice. All the valve does is dump more fuel into the cylinder if it detects a fault with another injector to keep the power up as a limp home style feature. So really you may only be risking a bit of reliability with the injector and a possible diesel wash of the cylinder bore

 

[cir287]

........ this is how it was explained to me by local Toyota service manager.

The D4D engine suffered from a certain amount of rattle initially.
Toyota subsequently changed the software (could be post '07) at some point to reduce the noise.

There will be some which still rattle but nothing wrong with them, software update may quieten down.
The rattle is not necessairly a fault.

 

[Mark01]

Thanks for the input guys, I haven't picked it up yet but have started it from cold and so far have nothing rattling, I just wanted to know what I'm dealing with if it starts to.

Cheers, Mark

 

[dunk1]

........ this is how it was explained to me by local Toyota service manager.

The D4D engine suffered from a certain amount of rattle initially.
Toyota subsequently changed the software (could be post '07) at some point to reduce the noise.

There will be some which still rattle but nothing wrong with them, software update may quieten down.
The rattle is not necessairly a fault.

I shall pop into my local dealer and see if they know of this update to the software