100k Service

Greetings Tundra enthusiasts,

I'm a new member, not much of a DIY, needing advice before scheduling appointment with mechanic, and then trying not to sound like an idiot when speaking to said mechanic.

1) 100k SERVICE
2003 Toyota Tundra SR5 4.7L has put on low miles for much of its life, sat in the garage begging to be used. Now, a true workhorse, doing a sign placement gig on the weekends. Start --> drive 1/4 mile --> idle a couple minutes --> drive to the next spot 1/4 mile down the road --> idle a couple minutes --> repeat for about 5 hours, 20 total miles each Friday night. Pick up the signs Sunday. Tundra sits in the garage all the rest of the time.

Knowing this type of operation, what are special considerations?

Last time Tundra was into a mechanic was January 2018, 70k on the odometer. At that time, given Tundra's age and the fact I had money, we agreed to do the 90k Timing belt/etc service. Mechanic also replaced spark plugs.

For the 100k service Tundra needs today, looks like the owners manual listed service items linkage adjustments, propeller shaft, etc are mostly the same regular maintenance items as before.

What non-Owners Manual items might I expect the mechanic to mention, especially given the special operating conditions?

2) REAR BRAKES
This is the most pressing issue, I'm hearing my rear brakes. Front brakes were done 70k miles January 2018 - here's what the work order says:
Bleed / Flush brake fluid
LABOR 80.00 PARTS (bottle of brake fluid) 20.00 TOTAL 100.00
Replace Front Brake Pads, Install 2 New Front Brake Rotors, Lubricate Caliper Slides, Premium CERAMIC brake set.
LABOR 110.00 BRAKE PADS 150.00 BRAKE ROTORS 260.00 TOTAL 520.00

I didn't see anything about wheel bearings, but I did a SEARCH on Tundras.com, and someone mentioned it? I can't imagine the mechanic didn't do it when doing the front brakes, aren't these usually done together?

3) DIESEL NOISE
Engine has developed a knocking/diesel noise accelerating on hills. I thought I read somewhere someone said it might be an adjustment needed on the timing belt??

4) OTHER ITEMS
I'd like to do other items myself - Tundras.com member shifty agreed to walk me through the O2 sensor issue that's making the CEL light up. The rest I would rather wait and see what the mechanic suggests, then attack those items with the assistance of members here.

Please advise. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

 

Sounds like it’s been well taken care of honestly if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I have put 90,000 miles on my 2012 and it has always sounded like a diesel motor.

https://youtu.be/EDgmsNWw0XQ

there multiple videos on YouTube about what the tick could be, most of them are long but that link is for a shorter video.

personally I’d have them re-tourqe everything suspension related and grease the drive shaft and call it a day.

 

It's a good idea to bleed the brakes if you're still on the original brake fluid.

For the rear brakes, it's unlikely your shoes need to be replaced. I'm on my original shoes at 181k miles. I would recommend cleaning your rear brake components and adjusting them.

No not at all. The wheel bearings on our trucks have to be pressed out and it's not a quick job. There is no correlation with your brakes and it's highly unlikely your bearings need to be replaced at only 100k miles.

I've never heard this. Seems like it could be hairline cracks in the exhaust manifolds which is common on the early 1st gens. It's a harmless but annoying issue. I was able to eliminate a lot of this noise by replacing my steering shaft seal.

See this thread.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/diy-steering-shaft-seal.48664/

You didn't mention the suspension. Have you done any maintenance to those parts?

 

I totally misread your post sorry man I didn’t read that you had a 1st gen.

 

Still curious for you to scan for codes, so we know if it's actually an O2 sensor on the fritz, and if so, which of the 4. I didn't say that's specifically what it was, but it's one of a few things that would cause a CEL, but I mentioned others, like knock sensor, or knocking, and you just shared this new symptom of knocking while driving up hills, which is a big red flag. Have you had time to swing by a big-box auto parts store and have them scan yet? Go get scanned ASAP, you don't want to drive around if there's actually a knocking condition! Knocking can be caused by any number of things, not all are grave, my case it seems like it was just bad gas. But when you tell me it happens while accelerating up hills, my first thought is fuel pump, but ... I wouldn't think it's timing belt, at all.

If you're 4WD, you should be greasing all zerks on the drivetrain. I prefer Valvoline VV 985 grease. There's a special process to the slip yoke. We have a diagram for that here, it's item "B" on that diagram, and the process to follow for that one specific zerk is here, the other zerks are like any other.

Engines hate the driving conditions you speak of, seems like these engines last longest with least varnish and buildup when they're consistently keeping 1400-2200 RPM. My truck is a classic example of how low mileage is NOT something you necessarily want. My heads look like someone painted them with lacquer varnish on both sides, then lit the driver's side on fire. And that's with reasonable oil changes based on mileage w/what I suspect was cheap oil. You may want to throw a bottle of Seafoam high-mileage treatment into the crankcase now, in preparation for oil change in the next 300-600 miles, and be sure to get the engine up to full operating temp before draining the oil.

 

Okay, this is good to know, we'll add it to the list.

2WD - suspension and drive train inspection and service are certainly what the owners manual is focused on, we'll get this done!

I just changed the oil, will try the Seafoam treatment next time. When you say 'lacquer finish' are you implying that the heads are overheating? Would it help to turn off the engine a few times during the workshift, let it cool down? What about turning the engine off at every stop? Seems to me this would be wear and tear on other components?

What about the automatic transmission? Does shifting it into neutral or park then back into drive all these times cause additional stress on the transmission? Most of my stops are on an incline, I shift into neutral instead of park and use the curb as a chuck. My belief is that shifting into and out of neutral is better than shifting to park, but this is just an assumption I have, please advise.

 

This is encouraging, Bendarrrr. The reality is, Tundra only has 100k miles on it - barely broken in! I guess it isn't surprising there isn't a lot to do on the '100k service' beyond what the owners manual says. I like that!

We don't have rats. I stopped the video at the rat turds. By that point, the mechanic had gotten things taken apart beyond my pay grade.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, very helpful!

 

Thank you, FirstGenVol, for your reply - lots of good info here.

The work order from 2018 says they bled the brakes and put in new fluid when they did the front brakes, so this is good to know, thank you. I'll give it a good cleaning and go from there. What adjustments do you recommend?

Okay, again thank you for setting me straight on this.

We'll add this to the list!

Isn't the suspension the primary purpose of the 100k service, per owners manual?

 

This is what a normal, average-mile, well-maintained head on a long-trip-traveling truck looks like: https://tnstatic.net/attachments/20220703_114231-jpg.762984/

This is what my low-mile, low-RPM, short-trip driving heads and valve covers looked like with regular dino oil changes: https://www.tundras.com/threads/wha...-gen-tundra-today.2558/page-1297#post-2692222

Note all the varnish caramelization in there. That was at 72k miles, after my truck spent the first 50-60k of its life with another owner doing low-RPM, short-trip driving.

This is what another members low-mile, low-RPM, short-trip driving heads look like with what I suspect was poor/non-existent oil changes: https://www.tundras.com/threads/while-i-was-doing-a-valve-cover-gasket-change….115072/#post-2961449

Note all the varnish *and* sludge in there. And this is on the passenger side, which is usually much cleaner looking than the driver's side head in online 2UZ-FE maintenance videos I've viewed.

Anyway, two points I'd drill across to you is this:

• Consider popping off your oil filler neck (it's 2 bolts) and inspecting your driver side head for varnish/sludge,
• It's recommended to change your PCV valve every 15k-20k miles IIRC, it's also attached to the driver side valve cover,
• Don't remove your valve covers unless you intend to re-gasket, you'll need a tube of Toyota FIPG to seal certain parts of the head/cover after removing them.

Low mileage trucks at this age can be a real curse because, for a truck at 1st gen ages at least, in order for it to have that really low mileage, there's a 90%+ chance or better it had the exact kinda driving you don't want your engine to see. It's the low-mile curse. There are rare cases where someone just uses the truck to haul, or just does periodic long-travel trips and is religious on maintenance, but that's not the norm.

Heat-up/cool-down periods are really what contribute a lot to varnish. Turning off/on is just adding more wear and tear to other parts as you mention. Really, your engine is going to stay cleanest and in tip-top shape if you use synthetic oils from the 1st oil change, and you tend to do long trip travel at higher-RPM (1400-2200 RPM). Highway miles fully heat your engine oil, evaporate water out of the crankcase, and allow the fully heated oil to flow over all the engine parts, effectively coating/washing it. Varnish forms when you heat up oil, let it splash all over everything at high RPM, then either shut off the engine and let the splashed oil cool onto the head (then repeat on the next trip), or idle lowly and let some oil cool onto stuff.

In your case, leaving idle is probably the best-case scenario. You're doing the best you can with how you need to use your truck.

I think it's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. We could probably argue it until we're all blue in the face (or fingers?).

It's definitely more stress on the shift lever and its housing, IMHO. A couple of members in the earlier model 1st gens had issues with one of the ears on the column housing breaking off. Dunno why or how, looked like a casting defect when the metal column housing was made.

Big thing is, you don't need to change the filter in your transmission, but a drain/fill of the fluid in the pain to check the fluid color and add in new Toyota fluid couldn't hurt so you have a baseline of what's currently in there. Not recommending a full flush, but a few drain/fill sessions over the next year or two. After 20 years, I'd expect most of the lubricative and detergent properties of the fluid from the factory is exhausted. Adding new fluid in gradually is a pretty safe bet, a lot of people are superstitious about what happens when you fully replace old fluid with all-new higher-detergent fluid into a 100k+ mile transmission. You'll read all kinds of anecdotal stories on the internet about how someone's tranny failed after, warnings about the higher concentration of detergents breaking crusty chunks free and clogging stuff. Not sure I'll ever believe it, it reeks of urban legend type stuff, but ... you do you.

 

@shifty`

Again, sincere thanks to you for taking the time to reply.

The links provided some enlightening information. I guess my question was - how 'long' is a long trip. Well, we learned from the other thread a 'long' trip is about 60 miles freeway driving every other week. So I will just add this to the mix. I'll also ADD the Seafoam treatment before future oil changes - given the low miles but severe operating conditions, I'll do two oil changes per year - one in May, the other in November.

I will talk over the drain/fill transmission fluid replacement with the mechanic, see what he says.

Thank you, shifty!

 

One item no one has mentioned - what about fuel system cleaning?

Or is it comparable to add a bottle of Techron occasionally?

Please advise.

 

I too have a low mileage truck that usually gets ~3k miles a year on it (though this year it was ~5k).

About once every 3-4 weeks I'll drive it to work so I can stretch it's legs and get everything moving. It's a 75 mile round trip commute that is mostly SR's and interstate; these are the miles you want.

You're asking great questions that a lot of us will benefit from, welcome to the forum.