Re: 4Runners and Audis (Job)

[steveb@falcon.kla.com (Steven Buchholz)]

>   RUMOR has it that the V6 engines have a hidden recall due to high rate
> of failure. My friends 93 4Runner with 100,100 kms on itblew out a head
> gasket in November in the middle of Saskatchewan blizzard(that's cold)
> 300kms from home. $4000 later the vehicle was running again. Of course
> this has escalated a "reliable" Toyota vs "Eurocrap" Audi pub
> discussion(ob. content). Then there was the 4Runner $900 fuel pump 
> failure.... 
> 
... I think the issue has gone beyond rumor now ... I found out about it
on the local evening news.  They were saying that the big problem is that
Toyota is having problems supplying heads to the US to keep up with the 
failures.  In the news story they compared this what Saturn did when they
had the corrosive coolant problem.  IMNSHO the two aren't even comparable,
Saturn REPLACED THE WHOLE CAR and did so quite openly.  Toyota was obviously 
trying to keep this whole thing hush-hush and were only planning to repair 
the damage.  I hear that they were planning to increase the engine warranty 
to 100K miles.  I wonder if this engine ended up in any Lexus models?  This
"under the table" warranty isn't new for Toyota ... my wife had a '77 Celica
which decided to fry it's catalytic converter.  I went to the parts depart-
ment at the local Toyota dealer who was using stacks of old cats to hold 
the doors open.  Somehow her car was not eligible for the warranty.  The 
car is SEP (somebody else's problem) now.  

I'm not saying that Audis or any other marques are better ... I simply have 
never bought Toyota's marketing line ...

Steve Buchholz
s_buchho@kla.com
... chuckling every time he passes a T100 ...