So im driving today, and my xb turns off. I pull over and decide to tow it to my house I dont try to start it cause I would rather have a chance to check it out first.

I get home and pull the spark plug out of cylinder one which was a strugle and............. the whole bottom half of the spark plug is gone, shattered, missing. I get a pen light and look in the hole and there's the other half sitting pretty on my piston. Hell of a day, I have been out of work and finally get a interview tommarow and whamo this crap happens. Long story short Im gonna take it to the dealer but I will keep you guys posted.

 

Dude, that sucks! They'll have to tear down the top end to get teh debrie out, right?

 

OUCH!

 

that HELLA SUCKS

 

Thats a new engine

 

Tear down hell, they should replace the whole engine. No telling how much of the fragments are floating around in the block now. PUSH THEM FOR A REPLACEMENT, and they should give you a loner till its fixed.

 

Ok not so much as where the Debris went.. try figuring WTF broke the plug????? But I would definatly push for full replacement..

 

that sucks man, yeah serious go for the whole motor replacement. Keep us posted.

 

I worked at a ford dealer for a while, and most places do not rebuild engines. This is something where the damage is difficult to measure without taking teh engine apart. they should give a new engine, or at least a refurbished/remanufactured one.

 

that's unbelievable! Yeah, you should definately get a new engine for that....how does something like this happen anyway?

 

I've had a plug break off in the block before when I went to change them because a mechanic cross threaded the previous one in the socket, but never had one just blow apart. Weirdness. :?

 

Riot in the streets, what if a lot (read LOT not alot) of plugs are bad?! What if my wife's is next? We'll know soon enough on the forum I suppose.

 

My educated guess is a valve broke, the valve dropped into the cylinder, when the piston came up it slammed the valve into the spark plug causing it to shatter. I do not see it physically possible for a spark plug to shatter on its own. Just my guess though its going in saturday so I will let you guys know what I hear.

 

how many miles on car ? I think i will be going to dealer on monday for a check up

 

Lets just say it takes somthing MAJROLY wrong internaly for ANYTHING to make contact with the Plug... as in stuck valve causing the piston to wedge sideways and make contact, or a broken rod... or the valve hit the piston and when it made contact the valve bent and hit the plug... and I dont think Plugs just fall apart on their own.. thats like easting some captain crunch and the spoon melts in your mouth...

 

Although everyone would like to think we live in a perfect world, some things do happen. It may be that the one particular plug was damaged from the time it was made. Could have been dropped on the floor before install: i picture this little guy gawking at the boss' hot daughter as she walks by and the assembly line guy is like .. and drops the plug ... OOPPSSSS, better pick that up. At least it happened now, and not 4 years from now when the engine isnt uder warrenty.

BTW, i know that my dealer will give out a loner if your repairs will be longer then a day to fix. This is part of the basic warrenty, unlike most other domestic cars, when you buy it, you need the extended warrenty in order to get a loner.

 

Spark plugs CAN break but I have never heard of them breaking in a stock engine unless they were broken by the piston or a dropped valve.

I used to run a 13-1 compression big block chevy in the early '70s. I would blow the porcelain off the electrode if I tried to race on week old plugs. Never damaged the engine, just ran like crap until new plugs were installed. Nasty engine, low gears, 4 speed=butt loads of fun on the street!! Chevron premium was 104 octane for about 50 cents a gal. Life was good-VERY good.

ken

 

this is a continuation of the following post

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...742&highlight=

So finally I am getting around to the update. Basically south coast toyota wanted 1200 dollars to take my head off and see why my car was idoling rough. I declined as I felt it should be covered under warranty which it should.

About 3 weeks ago I was driving and the car just shut off. (Read above)

So I took the car to Elmore Toyota in Westminister. I talked to Andrew the service manager and told him what happened with NO questions asked and a smile he said I will check it out and give you a call. Turns out it needs a new motor and they are going to replace it under warranty.

It took about 15 days which I thought was a very good turn around Andrew kept in constant contact with me and let me know some of the parts were on back order and he would let me know status updates. He called me every day and let me know what was going on. I got my car back about a week ago it ran like the day I got it except it had a slight rattle. I took it back to the dealer and they said when the motor went it may have blew some debris back into the "header pipe" once again with NO problems they ordered the part on the spot. It was there the next day and they swapped out the pipping from the header to the exhaust in about a half hour.

Since then I have had no problems what so ever, I would definetaly recomend this dealer to everyone even if just for a oil change. It was nice to see someone go the extra mile for me and I would like to get the word out to fellow scion owners about my excellent experience with Elmore Toyota.

My car is running great just like new, the final verdict on cause of problem was a snapped timing chain. For those of you that do now have a great knowledge of motors DO NOT PANIC. There were a few other things that broke in the motor that may have caused this to happen. I would not say this is a general problem and I highly doubt it would happen to you. My car was running very very rough at idol which was a indicator of more to come.

If anyone has any more questions just let me know and thank you all for the support along the way.

 

did they replace the catalytic converter to? if they didnt go back and tell him the metals piece in the cat arent welcomed either...like the bigger pieces that got stuck in the header

 

Actually the header was replaced at first when they did the motor, then when I took it back they replaced the midsection, cat, resionator, and piping the the back. It is all once peice from the header the the rear axle.