CAM SHAFT TOWER SEAL LEAKING ** PLEASE READ***

@Spadoo thank you for sharing this, hopefully you will be taken care of and please keep us posted..

 

@Spadoo how many miles do you currently have?

 

Sorry, should’ve included that info. 77k.

However, by the looks of the heat shield, this seep/leak has been there for a long time.

 

By the looks of it it’s always in the drive side.
I should have asked them to do the passenger side too while they had it opened up fixing the driver side.

Toyota only covered the driver side as the passenger is bone dry.

Hopefully it would not leak in the future.

 

Same here, 2018 and 31k miles and it looks as clean as yours. Also, I mentioned in a previous post that my son's 2008 with 170+k miles and driven hard is spotless as well. He bought it used and in it's previous life towed a fifth wheel trailer.

Dan

 

Got mine back Monday. So far so good. I'm going to run in the repair for a week or so and give it an oil change/inspection. Both sides repaired under cpo warranty, which is up in August.

 

I can only hope. Did read some threads that this was another common issue and hopefully it does not leak later down the road again I'm also hoping that the cam towers don't start leaking. I really don't want to be dealing with that.

 

Man did they slather that sealant on yours, hopefully no issue arise from having to much sealant. Good to hear Toyota is taking action on this but its kind of a day late and a dollar short type of deal, they knew this was happening and have chosen to ignore it. Poor design and they are just making this fix work by using a tackier sealant and gooping it on excessively.

 

Yup, they really went to town on the sealant. Supposedly, they have done many of these and so have an organized way of doing the repair. The most senior techs do this job and the guy that did mine had done more than 15 of these. The SA claims that the sealant is the same but just a different color so its visible if its been reworked. Kinda sucks that it started leaking so early but at least it was caught and i still have a long way before the powertrain warranty is up. I also asked Toyota for an extended warranty and still waiting to hear back.

 

Any success stories with anyone getting their leak(s) fixed outside of warranty?

As noted above, I purchased mine used with 77,000 miles from a Lexus dealership, as is. If the Lexus dealership does nothing for me, any other routes one can advise me to take to try and get the leak fixed at no cost to me?

I’m hoping that since I only bought the truck 17 days ago, they’ll do something for me but I’m not getting my hopes up.

 

74k on my 2012 and after brushing up on these forums to learn how to install my own suspension I ran across the cam tower issue. Go outside to check my truck and of course, Cam tower is leaking on both sides and I have a valve cover seep on the passenger side. Called my dealership to have them look at it so they can get it on record and of course the service guy says they've worked on them before and its a known issue. He gave me toyota's number and the lady denied it was a known issue and because she had never heard of the "cooler tower leak" wouldnt gurantee any assistance. FML, she didn't have the slightest clue what I was talking about. She also said, since this is a not a known issue that she didnt care how many "other people online who supposedly had this issue", that she was going to look at this on an individual case by case basis.

Talk about disappointed....sure hope they make this right. I've spent around 175,000 dollars in my lifetime on toyota vehicles, if they stick me with this I'm going to be roaring mad.

 

Get her information like name and title. Just in case you need to go higher up in the chain.

 

Took better photos, it appears that my cam towers have nice silicon bead on it from the factory, you can see it oozing out.

 

@Spadoo any updates?

 

@saybng Dropped the truck off yesterday late afternoon. Service advisor happened to be a guy I knew from way back in high school. (Hopefully that helps)! He told me he’d go to bat for me and that I’m within the dealerships 30 day warranty coverage and an oil leak such as this is unacceptable. (Hendricks Lexus has a reputation to maintain). So, I should hear back within a day or so, after they figure out internally which department is going to be charged for the repairs, (sales, service, etc). Apparently the truck went through two separate inspections before going to sales. The leak was either completely missed, or cleaned up and sent to the sales floor. Either way, sounds like it will not be at any cost to me, but I’m not holding my breath till I get the phone call stating that. Sounds promising right now. Waiting on pins and needles for that phone call.

If they cover the repair, I’ll see if they’ll allow me to pay for the passenger side since they have the engine opened up.

 

I think your looking at the valve cover, look below that area where that hole is in the casting. That surface is the cam tower and yours looks like it has a tight bead from the factory with none oozing out.

 

Also you guys getting the repair recently make sure you change your oil pretty quickly after the repair to get any junk out of there.

 

Oh I see what you mean.. but looking below, I see a nice thick bead. Am I wrong to assume i'm safe? Maybe only time will tell.

 

Yeah that passenger side has a good size bead, safe? who knows I have seen some leak that had a bunch of sealant from the factory. I'm still in the camp that this is a design flaw and not an application issue.

 

so no one with a 4.6 engine on this board with the cam tower leak ?

 

Ok I'll just keep an eye out on it. Still have 2.5 years factory warranty

 

We appear to be a small minority. I've scoured the net looking for an answer as well; nothing I could find about this issue was associated with the 4.6l v8.

 

Yea same here. We should start a 4.6l thread

 

There are some. Here is one. https://www.tundras.com/threads/cam-tower-leak-round-2.38327/

I have also seen some of the 4.6 Lexus GX460's have had the issue.

 

@saybng I lucked out. After a little back and forth, I got a call from my service manager tonight and they are going to fix the leaking driver side. Waiting on a price from them for the passenger side since they’ll have it opened up already.

I’m relieved, but also a bit nervous that my engine will be torn out apart. They are a Lexus dealership, so the master tech should be familiar with the 5.7. Still makes me a bit uneasy.

 

About 1100 miles on mine after the drivers side was fixed. No problems so far. Toyota master tech did mine as well.

 

@AZTundra Good to know. I have no doubt he is capable, I just wish it didn’t have to happen. I’ve owned 4Runners, Tacoma’s and FJ’s all without any issues... I mean zero issues. Wish Toyota would step up and do something about this. I’ll still keep my loyalty with them, and I absolutely love the Tundra I purchased.

 

I was hesitant also because of the tear down. But to be honest, I've got 41K miles on my Tundra now and this is the only issue I've had aside from my battery failing at 13 months old. My previous truck was a 2012 Ram 2500 Mega Cab Hemi that I purchased new. That truck was in the shop 17 times before I finally dumped it at only 54K miles. So many problems all over the place with that one. I joke with my service advisor and Toyota and tell him something must be wrong....I've owned the truck for almost 2 years and my check engine light never comes on. That light never seemed to go off on the Dodge.

 

@Spadoo ... good to hear brotha!