Hello everyone, here's some introduction of my car.
Make: Toyota
Model: Yaris 2009/2010
Mileage: 100 000 (km)
Transmission: Automatic
Engine: 2NZ-FE 1.3L
As for the oil, i've been using 15w40 for quite a while, i live in a zone with tropical weather and when it's cold, the temperature never drops bellow 15ºC. The spark plugs i was using had about 7000 km on them, with some rought driving like speeding and sometimes long periods of driving.
Few days ago i was having issues with the car taking too long to speed up (and noises from the exhaust when speeding) and starting to hiccup at random times, making it lose some power. Starting the engine has been hard as well, sometimes it does start rightaway and sometimes it doesn't. The slow acceleration and the random hiccup was what made me very worry, becase not long ago, i was very far from a gas post and i had to use some fuel i've been saving for cleaning parts for more than 2 months without proper measures for storage, so, before starting dissassembling things like the fuel pump, i checked the spark plugs and they were worn out and the gape was huge.
1). i took a ruler and adjusted the 4 to a smaller gap with the same spacing, cleaned the tips with carb cleaner, let it dry and then reinstalled all the 4, the hiccups have been reduced but they would still show from times to times, more when you try to speed and less when the car was idling.
After gaping
2). i used a bottle of fuel system cleaner and ran it for 2 days, the car was running better but the random hiccups and power loss didn't vanish.
3). i checked my fuel filter (inside the tank) and it was very dirt despite the tank being crystal clear, i took it, cleaned with carb cleaner and reinstalled. The car was running even better but the power was still very low and the acceleration was very delayed and the speed rate was limited (hard to go past 100km/h).
4). all i had left was the injectors and the spark plugs (to replace them instead of trying to juice them even more). My injectors rubber seals are worn out, and one was very bad damaged (half metled), and somebody (one of my previous mechanics) did a quick fix with silicon, but the layer was thin and didn't provide a full sealing, a gap was visible. In the past i've had a problem with insulation in one of my spark caps and the car was shaking, so, insead leaving the injector like this i've decided to replace the old rubber seal with another. I was planning on testing the injector then replace the spark plugs but it was a week day and it was late, so i had to finish this as soon as possible because i was also tired from the day, so, further tests couldn't be perfomed.
damaged rubber seal on the injector
without the injector (it's very dirty)
with one injector with a decent rubber seal
gap on the left one
one injector after the cleaning (with pressured carb cleaner +9v battery and petrol for the body)
The issue was successfully overcome, and the car is now running without the hiccups and speeding like new when i hit the gas pedal.
I'm positive i could've saved some time and money if i just started with the injector rubber seal or just the spark plugs, but i was too busy at the time. I ended up working on most of the ignition components and took me even more time, since iw as prioriziting the parts i didn't need to buy first.
I'm doing this in order to gain more aknowlegement and share my issues with other members.
A bad injector seal can cause a vacuum leak.
You don't adjust spark plug gap with a ruler, for accuracy you use a gapping tool.
Hi and thanks for the quick answer. I know the tool, i just didn't have one laying around or know where to get one where i live. I think i didn't think that far since the fuel injector is attached to the inlet port of the combustion chamber, the worst scenario that came in my mind was too lean mixture due the sealing being damaged. Not having a scanner is also a pain, def. i need one for some quick scans as well.
FYI carb cleaner is usually only used for carbs.
It's designed to leave a film of oil.
Hello, noted. Is there anything else i can use to clean parts like this one? Parts here where i live are quite expensive and some can only be bought as set.
I usually use brake cleaner, but paint thinner or gasoline work too.
noted, thanks.
As for the oil, i've been using 15w40 for quite a while
Is this what your owner's manual says to use? That's a pretty heavy oil typically used by diesel engines.
If you've been doing it for a good while and it actually calls for 5W-20 or so, you may be losing compression because you wore out the piston rings and that's why you don't have much top end.
Hello. The manual says 5w-30, but since i've got this car, the oil was always this one, and just recently i started servicing the car myself. So far i didn't had problem, i even considered going to 10w-40, but not bellow that, the problem is that i can't find 10w-40 for this specific brand and i don't want to flush the entire system or go semi-synthetic. As for the compression, i've never checked with the proper tools, but it seems to be normal.
Why are you using heavier oil? Engineers designed your engine to use 5W-30, so use 5W-30, unless there's a chart that shows temperatures and oil weights, use what the engineers said to use.
You don't need to flush an engine to remove old oil, 99% of it drains from the pan when you pull out the drain plug. The residue doesn't hurt anything when you put oil back in.
Thanks for the feedback again, i've been using that grade for quite a while because my previous mechanic did the used to do that for me, and i'm still using because i don't know if i can just go back to a thinner oil like 5w-30 after at least a decade with a heavier oil wouldn't cause it to burn more oil or leak. Also, one of the recomendations are to not use other than multigrade.
try it
5w-40? @MountainManJoe
no the correct oil for your car
@MountainManJoe it's very thin, but i'll try. 5w-30.
It's not thin. It's extremely common in 2010. Many modern cars use even thinner oil than that (0w20)