Dear Scotty!
I became a big fan of your youtube channel lately and realized maybe you can answer me what other mechanics could not.
I have a quite challenging problem with my beloved 2009 land cruiser prado with the 1KD-FTV engine. It's a 173 horse power light duty offroader with this horrible direct injection system.
Just from the nature of the direct injection system and Toyota's bad design in this engine's case my car started to blow out the combustion dirt to the oiling system (since the injectors are under the valve cover).
My previous car mechanic haven't noticed the problem for quite long and quite a lot of oil dirt deposit appeared in the oil pan...
My new car mechanic changed the injector spacers and all the 4 injectors have been refurbished by a professional shop focused on diesel injection systems.
My new car mechanic also telling me he would consider to sell the car because it is uncertain how long the engine will last, it can break anytime or it can run long it is impossible to tell, but this car mechanic is extremely pessimistic in everything all the time.
I'm not sure what should I do now, the car runs very well, no bad noises from the engine, very good gas milage (7-8L/100km), oil is not being eaten by the engine. I'm always driving it slightly, not accelerating stupidly, and giving time the engine to heat up since it is a diesel.
Oil & oil filter & diesel filter & air filter have been changed every 10.000-13.000 km in the car, or every year.
What is your opinion, should I be concerned or I will be okay for the next 100.000-200.000km if I'm using good oil and changing it normally?
Since this happened I change the oil every 2-3000 km to clean the system and I'm using Motul Ecoclean oil which also have a lot of cleaning material in it.
3000 kms after the whole system got cleaned and filled up with new cleaning oil I decided I will check what's coming out of the oil pan & oil filter. There were a lot of oil dirt and 5-8 pieces of small, non-magnetic metallic material (it made me concerned a lot!). I attached pictures of it.
By any chance have you had similar experience in the past which got fixed and the customer happily drove the car later on?
Picture of injectors
Pictures of oil pan
Pictures of changed oil & oil filter
Thank you for your answer!
Peter
Well, they don't sell those diesel engines here in the United States. But I tend to agree with you. Mechanic is probably time to get rid of it because when it gets to that age other than a complete overhaul of the engine which cost a fortune nothing's going to permanently fix