Cam Tower Leak Round 2

As it states I have the annoying cam tower leak for a 2nd time. I have a 2011 Tundra with the 4.6. I purchased the Tundra in 2017 from Carmax and thankfully purchased the extended warranty of 5 years or 25,000 miles. I figured it was a Toyota and didn't think I would need more than that-in fact I had originally planned on cancelling the warranty but forgot to in 30 days. I am very thankful that I forgot because this truck will now have had around $9K worth of repairs done on it since I purchased it. Here is the story of what happened.

Purchased with 50K on it.
At 53,000 my upper control arm bushings were leaking. They replaced the UCA completely because it was cheaper than pressing in bushings. ($1300 covered under Carmax warranty).

At 56,000 I noticed my timing cover was leaking while doing an oil change. It was 5 months outside the 5yr/60k warranty from Toyota. When Toyota inspected the truck further they found the water pump, timing cover, both valve covers, multiple spark plug grommets, and both cam towers leaking. ($4,500 covered under Carmax warranty).

At 71,000 I noticed a burned oil smell and oil a bit low on the dipstick. Checked the truck and found the driver's side cam tower leaking again. Brought it back to Toyota and the confirmed it. They have not started work on it yet because they are backed up but it is going to be another ($3,000 worth of work covered under warranty).

Now all these issues add up to over $9000 worth of repairs (I know the warranty company knocked the price down but the $9k is the street price). With that said, I only less than 4000 miles left on the warranty, I cannot afford to be having $9k worth of repairs every 20,000 miles. I have owned many cars in the past including 2 other Toyotas and have never had issues like this. I am debating getting it fixed and then trading it in and getting a new truck or just hoping that the job is done well and does not come back again). I know this issue is more common in the 5.7 compared to the 4.6 and very few if any people have had it come back after having the dealer fix it.

I really want to stick with the Tundra but am scared because from everything I have seen this issue has not been addressed even in the 2018 models. I have found a couple 18 Tundras left near me and probably could score a good deal but have my reserves on it because I don't want to start payments again and have another truck that leaks oil and requires a $3-4K job to fix it. I am also looking at the F150 5.0. I know the engine is great, but there are other issues with the Ford like electronics and little quality things (not $9K worth though).

What do you guys think? Did I just get a dud truck? It definitely confirms my feelings of never wanting to buy a used truck again. Any advice would be helpful because I would need to move pretty soon in order to get an 18 truck. Or I could also wait a couple more years (or 12) for when Toyota finally decides to actually update and change the Tundra and see if they have a different engine in it.

 

I would get it fixed and sell it. Or try to buy another extended warranty. I have a extended warranty with about 5 years left. I will be selling before then. I am a huge Toyota fan but I would not buy another Tundra because of my Cam Tower Leak. If I was buying now would probably buy a Chevy Silverado. I will look at Tundras when the new models come out.

 

I know it’s irritating to have a leaky engine but show me where it led to failure. Almost every car I’ve ever owned was seeping oil out of some spot. It was annoying but if it wasn’t dripping on the ground I was OK.

 

My 2018 had the cam tower leak at about 8,700 miles. They did both sides but screwed something else up in the process. I traded it in and got a new Highlander and am now looking for an older Tundra with the 4.7. If it gets buttoned up and runs fine then I wouldn't worry, but it sounds like you've already done a lot to it, so only you can decide what you're comfortable with.

 

At 50k-70K and you had all those problems ! Yea dump it, it was thrashed !

 

Maybe ask if Toyota would honor their 2nd fix by guaranteeing it won't happen again.

 

The only repairs that was necessary was the water pump, the oil seepage are nothing. If you guys are worried about a little cam tower seepage and think the sky is falling, lol let me show you guys the underside of my BMW and Benz.

I say if you enjoy the truck, keep it, no worries unless you have to add a quart of oil every week.

 

Upper control arm bushings leaking? First post? 9k worth of repairs? Really?

 

This...

 

Probably squeeking being autocorrected to leaking.

 

If it's not causing problems, I suppose you could always hold onto it until the real gen3's come out in a couple of years. Hopefully they'll have a whole new engine to go along with it.

 

Ha, my previous car was an 06 Range Rover. Drove it 216,000 miles. Repaired tens of thousands of dollars of air suspension, electronics, other bs that should never break, etc. When my 18 gets the leak, I'm gonna probably just take it to my local independent Toyota specialist instead of a dealer and fork out the cash. $3,000 or whatever it is won't hurt after the RR experience.

 

I can understand this. I just changed my upper control arm brushing fluid. It was low on the dip stick.

 

I’ll say it again: a 4.6 is nothing more than a destroked 5.7. There is fundamentally no difference between the two engines. So, respectfully, I don’t believe that it’s fair to characterize the cam tower leak issue as being more common to 5.7s. The more likely answer is that it’s the same issue, and that there are simply more 5.7s than there are 4.6s. At the same statistical rate of failure, the “issue” would inherently show up more often in 5.7s, simply because there are more of them.

 

Yeah, I usually wait 3 years from when a bring new redesign and/or model comes out, but wanted to give Toyota the benefit of the doubt. Might not be a good idea now lol.

 

This may be a noob question - but based on the images on the internet Ive seen this appears to be nothing more than a valve cover gasket leak due to the factory using silicone instead of a real gasket.
Why does it cost so much?

 

The cam tower leak is actually coming from the area a little lower than the valve cover. Mine is still bone dry at 46k.

 

I wish your statement about them changing things was true, cam tower has been an issue throughout the whole 2nd/3rd gen tundra timeframe so far. The good and bad with Toyota is they sit on a tried and true platform for a long long time, where we are with our current Tundras. This is good in some aspects and bad in others, like the cam tower it is still an issue because the platform hasn't been updated or changed to address the problem. But good from the fact that a lot of other things have been worked out and are solid. Toyota also does not seem to handle change well when they do it, 3rd gen Taco or even adding TSS to the Tundra.

You must own some bad vehicles, first vehicle I have had a leak was my Tundra and at 21k to boot.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiO9ARX9Lts

It doesnt look like that bad of a job...

 

Its just time consuming and a lot has to be removed in order to make the repair. Toss in the fact Toyota has reduced the amount of time techs get for this job now and your getting someone trying to rush through your truck so they can still make money. Its just a bad situation all around. Buckwallace on here has his truck recently and they messed something up and he had to walk away from the truck.

 

THIS^^^^ I'm kind of pissed now that my 07 is dry as a bone. I feel left out...Guess those first year generations aren't built too bad after all. I think the cam tower leak issue started around 2009. If I develop a cam tower leak (seep) with 95K+and counting..... and at almost 12 years old.................yawning.....

 

I asked this same question:
https://www.tundras.com/posts/921605/
Check out the following posts and watch the video about 4 posts down. This is like HUGE Surgery!

 

You weren’t looking close enough lol.

 

Are these Cam Tower issues actually leaks or is it seeping? Seeping is more of a damp area that to me isn't enough of a concern for me to open the engine up to fix and would take many many many miles to notice on the oil level. (If you do your oil change intervals correctly it will never affect the level) Leaking to me is where it actually is showing up in your garage and driveway with little drips and you have to add oil now and then. I do not have this Cam tower issue but some of the photos I have seen have been mostly of it seeping rather than being a drippy leak.

 

My son’s 2008 has cam tower leak on both sides. Has leaked for at least the last 50k miles. He has no interest in fixing it so I guess we will see how many miles he gets out of it.

 

How many miles on it now? Is it leaking or seeping? The guys here with newer Tundras are experiencing mostly from what I see posted.....seeping. But......several have posted pics of decent drips getting onto the manifolds. I wouldn't like that at all and would want that corrected.

 

So if you could buy a new Tundra and it as you say “seeped”, should be viewed as fine? So if you live where you are required to get vehicle inspections, leak or seep can make it fail, still good?...

 

It has 130k on it. Both sides are grimy and drip onto the heatshields. I put a waterpump on it at 80k and noticed the leaks. I cleaned it off and told him to come back over in a couple weeks but of course he didnt. I checked it a few months later and they were oily again. He has recently started having vvti cam gear issues on cold startup so I might have to tear into anyways and will do the towers then.

 

Seeping to me is exactly that.....a small discoloration with no indication of even a drip. A leak/drip is entirely different. I've been to Colorado's smog stations over the years. I've never seen a hood lifted on any vehicle unless the engine bay was on fire. Just curious..are you telling me that where you are at a smog/vehicle check person will know about the potential Tundra cam tower issue...ask to raise the hood and look for it and if seeping or tiny drip will trigger a fail? Sorry...not buying it. 100,000's of vehicles go thru inspections nationwide every few hours. CEL? sure...fail....No CEL and fail......maybe the inspector will raise the hood...Maybe. Too many cars not enough time to look for a cam tower leak. Hell most inspectors don't know what a cam tower is...

 

Doesn't sound like fun at all. I wouldn't like oil dripping onto the heatshields either. Not a new truck but does have a lot of miles left on it!