Leaking valley plate / heat exchanger

If I understand your question correctly, I would say yes, the $800 was BS. We're talking about the short stubby tube with O rings at each end, right?

 

I recently did my water pump and was still smelling coolant. Come to find out it was a squeeze clamp that I'd neglected to secure back on. However, I still caught faint whiffs of Pentofrost so upon closer look, I saw traces of dried coolant on rubber hoses with dried splatter in the proximity. Noticed I was losing coolant out of the reservoir. Come to find out there's a small squeeze clamp that holds the overflow hose to the bottom of the tank and it was a mite weak for my taste. I put a real hose clamp on it and filled up the tank to the full line. Will see tomorrow how it looks when I get home from work.

To make this relevant, I too went looking for the dreaded valley leak and didn't see anything close to what you see. Damn sure didn't have coolant running down the under carriage. Whew.

 

Does it tie into the pump itself?

 

Yup. Thanks for perspective
Before work started w warranty the warranty group said the pipe wasn’t covered. I told dealer to go ahead w repair since at that point I thought it was a warranty issue. I had them save the part. So then I started discussing w warranty just to finally get to the point that it is just the part not covered. If dealer just replaced the o rings then that was covered. I said I wasn’t worried about $20 part but the labor to do it. They said dealer never put in for the labor and seems like double charged. Now I’m trying to get ahold of service manager.

 

To get the valley plate out and redo the FIPG of the plate, the inlet pipe has to be removed to get the plate out, because the pipe feeds coolant into the valley plate. That should be written into the procedure i think?

 

Yup you never reuse o-rings on Toyota water pipes.

 

I noticed coolant running down the transmission a few weeks ago and when researching possible issues came across this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnUL0GR6mfs

He does a pretty solid job of showing how to correct it, but there is definitely some critical steps left out.

My truck is going in for a new timing chain tensioner (so new chains, sprockets, water pump, etc) and a preemptive cam tower fix since he's 90% of the way there anyway. Mechanic said he'd solve the leak for cost of parts since he's gonna be so deep inside the engine anyway. ~$5000 for the whole shot in case you're curious.

 

Bingo! Thanks. The part right at 6:54 that’s sticking out of the plate cost me 800 ADDITIONAL dollars to replace saying they “had to dig further”. Super helpful to clarify where it is.

 

AMEN Brother!

 

It sounds kinda like doing a tire rotation for $20, and then charging an extra $10 to remove and reinstall the lug nuts.

 

Figured i'd revive this discussion rather than post a related question independently. Have this leak that's just shown up on my '16 1794 CrewMax w/ 217k miles.

Planning to handle it myself. Process videos on youtube are pretty good guides, as is the discussion here. My main question is what else should I replace while i'm in there?

 

Much depends on your budget and how long you intend to keep it. Personally, I would do water pump, thermostat, secondary air injection valves, all coolant hoses, the fan/serp belt, the belt tensioner, flush out the heater core, and of course clean the throttle body while it was all apart. At that mileage, maybe even a new radiator. Just my .02

 

Where are you in GA? My 2016 will also need this repair at some point. Currently just feeding it the pink stuff as needed and rolling

 

FYI if you are going to a dealership, and you've been a long-time customer, use TFS, multiple Toyota owner or vehicle is just out of warranty. Go ahead and call Toyota customer service and let them know the situation. They will negotiate with the dealership A LOT of the times. Usually cover parts you pay labor or the whole thing. I got this covered and I was out of warranty. This can apply to any failure/repair.

 

Buford.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) I'm not a dealership customer. Owned multiple toyota's but all purchased used outside of warranty. O-rings and FIPG are gonna run me less than $80 from the dealer, I figure I'll spend a Saturday to save the labor. Local shop quoted $1800 for the whole job.

I'm planning to do the heater core flush, o-rings, pcv valve etc. Water pump and thermo don't look too terrible to get to if needed later. Appears they are accessible with out removing the intake, is that the case?

 

I order most of my OEM parts from Lagrange Toyota online sales sites. Nationally competitive pricing with minimal shipping costs. Anything of size I just go pick up, but they’re only 30 min or so down the road from me.

https://toyotaparts.lagrangetoyota.com/