Charliefarlies Guide To The Toyota 2Ad Diesel Engine And Its Issues.

[CharlieFarlie]

I dont know about the quality of the UK fuels compaired to the rest of the World. But I remember when I was doing a self build house that I wanted a Viessman boiler with a "Blue Angle" burner that ran on 35 sec diesel, but it wasn't avaliable here in the UK (With that burner) because the fuel wasn't to the standards of countries like Germany and Switzerland! So I'm guessing that our fuel (Apart from Shell V-Power/BP Ultra) is sub standard in some way! What I'd like to know is if this is the case (Even now) then why is it so? Is it the case of "Rip off Britain" as it is for some new car prices? And we make do with what we're given?...

I do not want to get involved in this argument, I run my car on V power or standard fuel with a shot of Millers additive, however i work every day with 1100, cab drivers i do not know any who use super fuels, more common is Asda Tesco, Morrisons, or wherevers cheapest, the cabs have engines by Nissan, ford, VM (chrysler) Toyota, mercedes, and even BMC, cabs do 50,000 a year on average, My own 07 plate has done 243000, and has never had any ehgine part replaced, my other cab 04 reg has done 297000, but had its engine replaced at 245000 miles however it has its original pump and injectors, My mate has an early Toyota engine now aproaching 500,000 miles and had no major parts, so i am sorry, but there is nothing wrong with our fuel, maybe the problem is over pampering our cars, Charlie, i believe you once ran a fleet of Transits The ford duratorque engine is not a very good engine, my bet is you didn.t run them on super diesel, but I also bet you were not replacing them at 20/30/50k.. our engines have a fault which Toyota are kindly putting right for us and many thanks to them and i commend them, but it is NOT the quality of our fuel :( Stew

Stew. Yes Your right I had a small fleet of diesel Transits and ran them all on supermarket diesel.. I have no doubt that most diesels will and do tolerate supermarket diesel and will do for several hundred thousand miles. Why ? Because they do not have the apparent design flaws that PERHAPS the 2AD engine has...

As I've said above it is/was one very well informed persons opinion.. Could be rubbish .. Or perhaps He being a Top Toyota person knows something We don't ??

On My long trips south and back using Vpower diesel more than pays for itself by way of the much increased fuel economy. This is metered not guessed at so I will continue to use it despite refusing to believe the gains for many many Years !!

Truth is I don't know Mate . I'm not arguing or supporting His opinion just voicing it on His behalf.....

Again We could argue the toss for ever on this one but that's not why this thread was started.. It is interesting though and perhaps grounds for a separate thread ??

[anchorman]

I once visited the Texaco Fuel terminal at Erdington in the Midlands. I was given quite a comprehensive tour by one of the engineering managers who was kind of rewarding me for helping him with some braking problems on a very large fleet of tankers. I raised the question of different grades of diesel and he said that basically, the tanks there were full of what you might call "pure" diesel which had arrived by pipeline from Milford Haven. You could possibly have used the diesel in that state but to make it suitable for retail it had to have additives mixed with it. The tanks that the fuel was stored in were absolutely colossal and they were there because it wasn't a continuous flow of diesel coming from Milford Haven, it was all different fuels coming through the same pipe. They send so much diesel then they put a big leather ball in the pipe called a pig after which the next fuel which could be petrol, aviation spirit etc would push the next fuel through at walking pace. The site didn't have one tank for each grade of diesel - you would need a whole county for that. Instead, all the tankers lined up at the discharge pipe one big diesel and at that stage the additives went in.

Additives have all sorts of different qualities. Some control the rate of combustion and is compared to a known combustible substance called cetane (octane for petrol). Some are detergents to keep the inside of the engine clean and others are there as upper cylinder lubricants that used to be lead but now replaced by other clever things to lubricate valve seats etc.

Each customer has its own recipe and he told me that the supermarkets take a blend which does not have as many additives as the branded fuel. Its a bit like value beans vs Heinz beans. For lots of people the value stuff is OK but for a lot they will pay the extra. As with most things you dont get something for nothing and the price of supermarket fuel is not down to volume. It is not the same as branded fuel and it is certainly not the same as high grade fuel. I cant be sure if his description would apply to these high grade fuels as I seem to remember (I once read a very interesting article in Transport Engineer on the subject but the magazine is long gone) that these high grade fuels contain a lot of synthetic additives much like synthetic oil. Like Charlie, I cant be sure that this engineer chappie knew for sure what the chemists were up to but I have no reason to not trust what he was telling and showing me.

That is fuels out of the way for now. With regard to the engine. There is no doubt that it came into existence with some design weaknesses. The obvious indicator to us is excessive oil consumption. My first 2006 4.3 RAV used oil at an alarming rate. It depended to some extent on use but 1 litre per 1000 miles was not unusual and this was after running my own Toyota Corolla 1.3 and previously, several Nissan Primera 2.0s that used no noticeable oil between service intervals. It soon became apparent that there were design changes to pistons and oil scraper rings etc. I didnt particularly want my engine stripping at a dealer so never pursued it. Then later we started to hear about cylinder head gaskets. I have heard it mooted on these pages that it is down to carbon deposits but I was definitely told it was down to incompatibility between the head gasket material and the coolant that could allow damaging steam pockets to develop usually in cars that were driven hard and for sure all the local Police RAVs were reworked.

So where are we now? Toyota have stopped reworking engines locally as it seldom proves cost effective and they are installing a complete ¾ engine where necessary. By using a ¾ engine they are able to box off all the original weaknesses including sump leaks, front and rear crank leaks, head gaskets, piston and ring weaknesses etc. It means that they mitigate all of the potential warranty claims in one package and limit the cost by what is needed to dress the engine at a dealer workshop.

Now lets think about how fuel quality can affect the 2AD engine. This 2.2 engine was a big step forward from the old 2.0. The term D-4D bears no relationship between the two it only signifies that the engine is a 4 cylinder direct injection diesel that is where the similarities end - end of story. The design principle was right up with the best in the world. We are looking at a chain driven twin cam 16 valve diesel with a whole host of ultra modern enhancements like twin counterbalance shafts in the block and many other mechanical features. Add to that the electronic control. To bring it right up to date with current emission standards the whole thing is a technological marvel. Amongst these features, the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation system) was also fine tuned and instead of previous vacuum designs as employed by Ford in transits and even RAV 4.2s, the engine was fitted with an electro-mechanical design which was capable of very finely metering the amount of exhaust which is fed back into the engine in order to balance emissions. We care talking about a metering valve in a tube with a very sensitive motor to drive it. Imagine it to be similar to your bathroom was basin but instead if pulling a plug you can work a pop up waste with a little handle. It will work fine if you use clean water and you could be as precise as you like in letting a measured amount of water go down the drain. There are two issues with the EGR on early 2AD engines. One is with the oil consumption. Back to the basin and we are now trying to meter water with the contents of the deep fat fryer and all the crispy bits mixed in. If you consider now burning fuel with low detergent additives and doesnt burn clean so leaves a crusty charcoal residue on surfaces, we can now compare with our basin and are trying to work a pop up waste with partly solidified grease and hard bits clogging the works. Of course this residue doesnt just end up in the EGR, it ends up everywhere that the exhaust goes so from the EGR into the inlet manifold which is often scrapped on a rework, the exhaust silencers, Catalytic Converter, DPF if fitted. God knows what the cylinder head looks like but as it is included in the ¾ engine it is a pretty safe bet that it to say the least, unserviceable. So! Some down to the engine faults and some down to the fuel (and yes it is partly down to the fuel whether you choose to believe it or not). So now you have dug up your drive and renewed all the drains back to the sewer you need to stop putting crap in the wash basin. In a newer or modified engine you take away the oil but if you still put the crispy bits in with the fuel you can expect problems of some sort sooner or later. Meanwhile Toyota are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they cannot impose the use of high grade fuel as the luddites would never accept that level of prohibition and prefer to use supermarket fuel because it is convenient, it is cheaper, just like value beans and because it is part of there very naïve human rights. My last word on that issue is that you do whatever you like but dont get all indignant when somebody wont pay the bill to put it all right. At the moment we are in the astronomically lucky position where Toyota are helping but there is a limit and if they are politely asking we use good quality fuel to aid trouble free motoring I dont think that is unreasonable.

The policy they have for installing these engines is extremely fair in that they only ask that the vehicle has been reasonably well maintained in other words it has some for of servicing history dealer better but other locations normally accepted.

Some of this might be driven by the poor press that went with the accelerator issue on other Toyota models but whatever the reason we cannot escape the fact that the policy is honourable and it certainly makes me feel very comfortable owning one. All of the owners I know that have had an engine fitted feel it is like a new car and are extremely grateful.

Jedi. You seem to give the impression you are not satisfied with this whole affair. You dont even own a 4.3 but you are quick to criticise TGB for sloppy products and poor service but I really cant imagine what you expect. If you seriously believe that having a BMW engine is the salvation of the RAV then you are very sadly misinformed because unless something has changed very recently, BMW engineering is no better than Toyota and the service and backup is nothing special. I also know of people that have had to fight very hard to get issues resolved inside the warranty period never mind years and 1000s of miles outside it.

[cabcurtains]

You can see the EN590 vs Shell V-Power here Comparison.

As all diesel in the EU is supposed to meet EN590 it would seem very unlikely that retailers in EU would sell a higher grade if they didn't have to.

I can't agree more with Anch's regarding Mr T, the non quibble is superb, you won't get that with many manufacturers.

[Mistermena]

Very good Don

I will continue to run my car on V-Power as I feel (Like may others) that we're putting one of the best fuels in the World in our pride and joy! Fuel (Like engine/gear oil) is the life blood of our car, if you put rubbish in at some point its going to break down. Its very much the same as us eating rubbish food and expecting to stay healthy! At some point it will catch up with you and bite you on the a@se.

[dervdave]

Now let’s think about how fuel quality can affect the 2AD engine. This 2.2 engine was a big step forward from the old 2.0. The term D-4D bears no relationship between the two it only signifies that the engine is a 4 cylinder direct injection diesel – that is where the similarities end - end of story. The design principle was right up with the best in the world. We are looking at a chain driven twin cam 16 valve diesel with a whole host of ultra modern enhancements like twin counterbalance shafts in the block and many other mechanical features. Add to that the electronic control. To bring it right up to date with current emission standards the whole thing is a technological marvel. Amongst these features, the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation system) was also fine tuned and instead of previous vacuum designs as employed by Ford in transits and even RAV 4.2s, the engine was fitted with an electro-mechanical design which was capable of very finely metering the amount of exhaust which is fed back into the engine in order to balance emissions. We care talking about a metering valve in a tube with a very sensitive motor to drive it. Imagine it to be similar to your bathroom was basin but instead if pulling a plug you can work a pop up waste with a little handle. It will work fine if you use clean water and you could be as precise as you like in letting a measured amount of water go down the drain. There are two issues with the EGR on early 2AD engines. One is with the oil consumption. Back to the basin and we are now trying to meter water with the contents of the deep fat fryer and all the crispy bits mixed in. If you consider now burning fuel with low detergent additives and doesn’t burn clean so leaves a crusty charcoal residue on surfaces, we can now compare with our basin and are trying to work a pop up waste with partly solidified grease and hard bits clogging the works. Of course this residue doesn’t just end up in the EGR, it ends up everywhere that the exhaust goes so from the EGR into the inlet manifold which is often scrapped on a rework, the exhaust silencers, Catalytic Converter, DPF if fitted. God knows what the cylinder head looks like but as it is included in the ¾ engine it is a pretty safe bet that it to say the least, unserviceable. So! Some down to the engine faults and some down to the fuel (and yes it is partly down to the fuel whether you choose to believe it or not). So now you have dug up your drive and renewed all the drains back to the sewer you need to stop putting crap in the wash basin. In a newer or modified engine you take away the oil but if you still put the crispy bits in with the fuel you can expect problems of some sort sooner or later. Meanwhile Toyota are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they cannot impose the use of high grade fuel as the luddites would never accept that level of prohibition and prefer to use supermarket fuel because it is convenient, it is cheaper, just like value beans and because it is part of there very naïve human rights. My last word on that issue is that you do whatever you like but don’t get all indignant when somebody won’t pay the bill to put it all right. At the moment we are in the astronomically lucky position where Toyota are helping but there is a limit and if they are politely asking we use good quality fuel to aid trouble free motoring I don’t think that is unreasonable.

An excellent informed post, and I wondered where the 2.0d as fitted to my Verso fits in to things ie its lineage.

I started using V-Power diesel when I had the 2.7d Jag because I found the car ran cleaner and had less DPF regens.

[anchorman]

I believe your car will have the 1AD engine so will share most of the technology from the 2AD.

[dervdave]

I believe your car will have the 1AD engine so will share most of the technology from the 2AD.

Ta

[CharlieFarlie]

Vpower diesel is about 5 pence a litre more than ordinary diesel so X say 60 litres that's 3 quid..

My regular commute from Scotlandshire to the Midlands 360 miles. Same rout taken each and every time .. Same 75 MPH on all motorway sections on cruise control. All A and B roads driven carefully changing gear nice and early keeping revs low ..

Car .. 2006 T180 with New 3/4 engine . Injectors and EGR and DPF all changed 5 to 6 thousand miles ago.. Fitted with Lindop Toyota tuning box set at default position 6.

The trip taken with tank brimmed at the Forth Road Bridge..

Then Re filled near to Jct 7 M5.

Using Vpower.. Trip complete Remaining range 135 miles and just over the quarter tank on the fuel gauge needle..

Using ASDA Diesel Same trip same conditions same driving style.. Trip complete. Remaining Range 65 miles near to empty on the fuel gauge needle....

So thats a difference of 70 miles extra using Shell Vpower Diesel... Lets say the car does 40 to a gallon on a steady long run like this and diesel is £6.50 a gallon....................... Well You do the sums

Conclusion... Well if I was told this frankly I would not believe it .. But I do this trip once a month and I have checked this both on the run down and the run back and it never varies by more than about 5% which I suppose is just traffic or no traffic.

I will openly admit to being the biggest sceptic about these posh fuels until The Toyota Chap put words to the wise...

Like Dave above I have always put posh fuel in the Jag with its twin turbo V6 engine pumping 315 BHP and 670NM of torque courtesy of a Spires Re Map I wouldn't put anything else.... But in a cooking car like the RAV I would have carried on filling wherever fuel was cheap just as I had done with the many vans I had over the Years..

Add to the above figures a cleaner burning and therefore cleaner engine why would We use anything else....

I absolutely assure You all that the above figures are true and I have tried different fuels time and time again with the same results..

You choose ........ :thumbsup:

[t-spiritpete]

You can see the EN590 vs Shell V-Power here Comparison.

As all diesel in the EU is supposed to meet EN590 it would seem very unlikely that retailers in EU would sell a higher grade if they didn't have to.

I can't agree more with Anch's regarding Mr T, the non quibble is superb, you won't get that with many manufacturers.

I did hear on a reliable grapevine that Toyota will soon revert to rebuilding the AD series engines at the dealerships as opposed to fitting the 3/4 engine as these have also got some degree of failure rate.

It seems to me that the "problems" have not been solved by whatever the modifications have been fitted to them and the poor fuel theory may well hold water but then again who knows as Mistermena for one uses Shell diesel & BG244 and is on his second AD engine .

Regards ... Pete.

[anchorman]

I've had RAVs since 2006 and they always taken a dive in fuel consumption during the winter.

[Mistermena]

You can see the EN590 vs Shell V-Power here Comparison.

As all diesel in the EU is supposed to meet EN590 it would seem very unlikely that retailers in EU would sell a higher grade if they didn't have to.

I can't agree more with Anch's regarding Mr T, the non quibble is superb, you won't get that with many manufacturers.

I did hear on a reliable grapevine that Toyota will soon revert to rebuilding the AD series engines at the dealerships as opposed to fitting the 3/4 engine as these have also got some degree of failure rate.

It seems to me that the "problems" have not been solved by whatever the modifications have been fitted to them and the poor fuel theory may well hold water but then again who knows as Mistermena for one uses Shell diesel & BG244 and is on his second AD engine .

Regards ... Pete.

Now thats an interesting point mate if they are now going to revert back to a dealership build over the shipped unit from Japan! Yep I've only ever run my car on Shell V-Power (Without fail) and used BG244 every 10k. Fuel filer gets changed (Denso) every 15-20k and Mobil 1 ESP is the only engine oil I will put in it. Gear box oil is Silkolen Pro SRG! So the car is very well pampered! These engine failures could well be down (To some degree) to the coolant as said before. I dont know, but I would have thought that Mr T would have looked into this at great depth...

[anchorman]

What grade of oil do you use in the gearbox Taff?

[duncerduncs]

Am I right in thinking we have a higher level of bio fuel in our diesel than other European countries?

I'm sure the last Labour government increased the percentage to "improve the environment".

Maybe 2AD engines don't like the higher bio element.

As a side, we're having problems with the fuel filters for our MTU engines at work (causing engines to be shut down) because the Germans didn't realise our red diesel was such poor quality

[cabcurtains]

Am I right in thinking we have a higher level of bio fuel in our diesel than other European countries?

I'm sure the last Labour government increased the percentage to "improve the environment".

Maybe 2AD engines don't like the higher bio element.

EN590 only allows a 5% mix so the bio element would have to meet a certain standard to meet this EU criteria. Its fair to say bio diesel and common rail don't mix all that well.

[duncerduncs]

EN590 only allows a 5% mix so the bio element would have to meet a certain standard to meet this EU criteria. Its fair to say bio diesel and common rail don't mix all that well.

I was getting myself confused...

We increased from 2.5% bio content to the full 5.0% in late 2007, it would seem that Toyota diesel engines didn't like the increase!

[Mistermena]

What grade of oil do you use in the gearbox Taff?

I'm using a straight 75w grade Don

[anchorman]

I see Fuchs sell it now.

[Mistermena]

I see Fuchs sell it now.

Fuchs took over Silkolen mate, so the same stuff in different bottles but Silkolen is cheaper...And Opie Oils have got a deal on atm

[SPAG]

Would they accept claims for vehicles that have been DIY seviced, or only those that have always been done by a main dealer? I have such an engine, but have only recently bought this car as the second owner. So far it has full main dealer service history, but I am changing the oil myself on the 90,000 service interval with Mobile 1 fully synth, and changing filter + topping up coolant which appears a bit low. I don't think my car has this problem, but it may do in future. Does anyone know what Toyota's policy is on self serviced vehicles?

[Davrav]

Hello SPAG and welcome to the club.

The Toyota policy is that the car has been 'reasonably maintained'

I guess you would need to make sure everything you do matches with Toyota specs and you keep dated receipts for

service items to back up servicing that you do yourself.

A member known as Anchorman does all his own servicing so maybe you might want to PM him to find out how he covers himself with regard to warranty etc.

[CharlieFarlie]

DIY as in at home may present a problem... After all it could be argued that the car has had little or no maintenance.. Servicing by Non Franchised garages such as a local small garage is fine so long as the book is stamped..

Charlie.

[Steve-Jeep]

Toyota vs BMW engines - The jury is out

Excellent posts on the Toyota engine subject –but who says that BMW engines are so superior?

My last car was a 04-plate Beamer 320D, which had less than 40k on the clock when it packed-in without warning. The problem was the swirl flaps, which are built into the inlet manifold and can adjust the swirl angle to help achieve the most efficient fuel burn for the current engine load/revs. I believe that they can also snap shut momentarily if you are being a bit enthusiastic on the throttle and begin to lose traction. This briefly kills the power, and is great for stability control, but it must put a fair load on the swirl flap spindles. It seems that there was a period when the spindles were of a smaller diameter than what may have been ideal for the design and this is what could lead to premature failure. This was true for the 4-cylinder 2.0D and the 6-cylinder 3.0D engines. Unfortunately, when failure occurs, the broken bits are ingested into the engine and can totally wreck it. I did not buy the car from a dealer, and it was out of manufacturer’s warranty by a few months, but it had a full BMW service record and low mileage. This was a known issue, but not subject to a recall. As a gesture of goodwill, BMW offered to supply and fit a brand new engine if I would pay just 20% of the labour cost for fitting it – No brainer! Thanks to BMW for good customer relations.

I bought my 06-plate RAV-4 T180 privately a couple of years ago with fewer than 40k on the clock. It had been leased previously, and had a full Toyota service history. As it approached its 70k service in December, I had noticed a little coolant loss. I had topped it up by about half a litre over the previous thousand miles. Since it hadn’t used a drop of coolant over the previous 30k miles, there was clearly something amiss. There was no overheating or excessive oil consumption, but I had cleaned-out the EGR valve twice during the period. I could see where coolant had been pushed out of the header tank by excessive pressure in the system. Thanks to some very useful posts on this site, I was able to give my local dealer chapter & verse on the probable cause when I took it in for service.

They called me after a couple of hours and told me that a replacement engine was already on order, and there would be no charge for the entire replacement - How good can it get? I had noticed that there was the telltale tinkling/rattling on tick-over which disappeared when the clutch was dipped, so I asked them to fit a new clutch whilst the engine was out. The cost was for parts only – More good news.

With the major problem on the engine, I had forgotten to tell them that I had just begun to notice a little knock from the steering intermediate shaft – something else which gets some coverage on this site. Well it doesn’t knock now, so they must have fitted a new one whilst the engine was out, and didn’t even mention it – No charge.

I’m so glad that in both cases, my blown engines were from known issues, or I might have been considering a bicycle – or maybe counselling.

In conclusion, I must say many thanks to Toyota (and BMW) for fair play and good customer service, and also thanks to those posters and users who make this site so useful and informative.

Steve

[jedi134]

Thats the same lump thats in the freelander, but the freelander engine dosent have the swirl flaps, They must have specified the engine without the potentionaly engine destroying items. :D

[firemac]

I'm no engineer so the last thing I will do is pontificate on this issue. In addition our RAV's are petrol although I have run a 4.2 D4D, an LC4 D4D, a Saab 9-5 diesel & a BMW 520d, all of which performed extremely well & were very economical - especially the BMW.

Nevertheless a friend of mine who is an engineer & understands these things did suggest recently that when you consider the origins of the diesel engine, i.e. as a replacement of 19th century compound steam engines, and the fact that its basic design is predicated on the ability to run on the poorest fuels imaginable, you can't help wondering if modern versions like the 2AD have been developed beyond the scope of their underlying capability and that they are being asked to operate in ways that they simply aren't able to cope with. They were never originally intended to be clean engines but their thermal efficiency allowed them to run on just about any fuel you liked however it is only in relatively recent times that they have stopped being seen as "dirty, smelly old diesels".

Toyota aren't the only company having problems with diesel power plants and perhaps it is because the manufacturers are starting to hit a wall with diesel technology, so to speak, that so many are designing new generations of super-charged (and sometimes super & turbo charged) small capacity petrol engines that can out-perform diesels and are increasingly getting close to the fuel economy of diesels.

As I said, I'm sure there are others on here better qualified to comment but I wonder if perhaps this problem is a result of Toyota (amongst others) having over-stepped the limits of the technology?

[Mistermena]

I'd love to be able to give an informed answer to this but I cant! I think that these (And other manufactures) have to inbuild so much tech in order to comply with the toughter emission that the engines get so over complicated and can result in some failures as with the very good, but flawed 2AD units.

Some say there's a problem with the Toyota coolant! others with the fuel or EGR valve. The truth is I dont know what it is, it could be one of those things or all, or maybe none of the above! The only thing I am going to try and do is change the oil every 5-6k with a EGR clean and change all the filters every 10k to see if this hols off any failure! If it doesn't, it wasn't for the want of trying...