2003 Toyota 4Runner Sport V8

I totally missed the part where the 4Runner got a V8. No wonder nobody buys Landcruisers anymore. 
I thought this was going to be a swap thread!

4th gen 4Runner had optional v8. Since 2010 4 runner has been back to 4.0L V6. 

Attached are last 10 year LC/LX sales of the 200 series 

4runner and 200 series buying demographic arent the same. 

LX

mannydantyla said:

Is it a 4x4? My '08 4Runner is the v8 too and I get about 15mpg city and 17 or 18mpg highway. 

It is a 4x4, with a 3" lift. I just had one canoe and one kayak on a J-hook. I run extended Thule crossbars.

I didn't post a picture, yet. I'll throw one up, it's been a while.

cdeforrest said:

I totally missed the part where the 4Runner got a V8. No wonder nobody buys Landcruisers anymore. 
 

I think the domestic SUVs moving upscale have more to do with low Land Cruiser sales than anything. 

Well, Land Cruisers costing ~$85k have more to do with that.  For that kind of money, they're not nearly luxurious enough, nor have the electronics or name plate to warrant the money.

docwyte said:

Well, Land Cruisers costing ~$85k have more to do with that.  For that kind of money, they're not nearly luxurious enough, nor have the electronics or name plate to warrant the money.

 

That probably isn't helping either- it's probably a combination of many factors. When a Suburban was chintzy and brittle, some people might have just paid the extra dough for a Land Cruiser, but now they get the same level of refinement out of a Yukon for 70% of the price. The capability of a Land Cruiser and the fact that it is a global platform with service available on almost any continent aren't selling points for most USDM buyers. They want something to pull their horse trailer that has really good infotainment and climate control.

After a drive to and from Vermont. It pulled the trailer up (with an ATV for my sister and brother in law) and hauled back some antique furniture.

Something broke! The rear window trim's rubber wore out and just kind of came apart. A new one was $50 at the Toyota dealership and took less than five minutes to install. 

I enjoy having one vehicle that's fairly trouble free.

Which reminds me: I forgot to oil the driveshafts when I changed the oil this weekend. Guess I'll have to do that this week.

I changed the differential and transfer case oil.

The front transfer case uses plugs with 10mm Allen head fittings. One of them was stripped out, badly. I managed to get it out by hammering in a 3/8 extension bar and using a cheater on the end of the socket.

Oi.

I replaced the OEM Toyota drain plug with a Lexus part, so now I never have to worry about it again.

Holy smokes! It threw a check engine light last night.

It's a misfire on cylinder 7. Looks like I get to inspect a plug and coil and possibly move it around.

It was a bad coil. 

Total time spent diagnosing the fix, getting the part and fixing the issue: about 30 minutes. That's less than one beer worth of work time. I wish all vehicles were this easy to work on and all problems were this easy to fix.

It's got a minor coolant leak I can't find- it's using about about a half pint of coolant every tank of gas. I can smell it in the engine bay (how I noticed it in the first place), It isn't fast or dramatic enough to be obvious, and it's also not in one of the usual places (hoses, thermostat housing, etc.). So far, every time I have some time to check on it, it's pouring rain outside.

I worry that the original radiator (with 309k miles on it) is finally going. 


 

The radiator in my GX470 (same engine as yours) spectacularly failed at 122k miles.  According to IH8MUD, that's when they go.  If your stock radiator really has 309k miles on it, I'd replace it immediately, leak or not.

This has been promoted to daily driver duty for my wife, as her 2011 daily driver with a 3.7 Ford engine in it has eaten it's second water pump with about 80k miles on it. 

We're not fixing it again. 

The good news is that the coolant leak seems to have stopped after tightening a clamp. I'm still keeping an eye on it, though.

I've gotten good at getting the Hobie on top of this thing.

Don't mind the parking, I was in the back of the lot and just stopped for the picture.

It's been a minute.

When I got this 5 years ago, I replaced the timing belt and water pump using a Gates kit. 

The tensioner failed out of that kit, and was replaced. Such is life.

Today, after smelling coolant for a bit, I took it to a trusted local shop and they informed me that the water pump was leaking. I've given them the green light to replace the water pump and put a new timing belt on it.

The Gates kit made it 5 years, but not many miles. A Subaru shop near me that used to use the Gates kit has moved away from them. After having two failures in 50k miles myself, I'm going to follow their lead and just use OEM parts. It might not make *that* much of a difference, but I know the service departments at the dealerships don't want to repeat work if they can help it, so maybe the parts are higher quality. Who knows?

I've still got nothing much to complain about with this 4Runner. It does everything we ask it to do.

 

I strongly recommend the Aisin kit for this.  My dad is a Lexus tech, and for the last 15 years we've had 1UZ / 2UZ / 3UZ daily drivers in the family, and numerous other friends and family who have had AISIN parts installed, and no failures whatsoever.

AISIN is the OEM manufacturer for Toyota - same parts but without the Toyota PN

Per AISIN's website the PN for the timing belt / water pump kit with the tensioner included is TKT-021.  These used to be available on rockauto but they're showing out of stock currently

Thanks for the tip on the Aisin kit. I got the Gates through Amazon before I knew about the rampant counterfeiting that goes on there, so maybe I caused my own issue.

+1 for the Aisin timing kits. 

Sweet rig! Makes me want to acquire the one next door. 

Oh man I love seeing this. I have an 05 Sequoia I just did the whole secondary air system on (oh my god what a pain) and it has 162k on it. Use it as my daily driver and tow rig for my e30s. Good to see the same engine doing cool stuff even after 300k miles. 

This is unusual, as in it's never happened before. Based on the symptoms, the shift linkage probably came apart. I'll look at it later, once it's in the driveway.

Five minutes of troubleshooting indicates that it seems to have broken at the shifter, since the transmission end is still intact. I'll be taking the interior apart in the near future to determine exactly what's kaput.

It broke at the shifter end. There is a bushing that goes in the end of the cable  (red box below) and secures it to the pin on the shifter that simply wore out. 
 

Toyota will sell you a whole shifter cable to solve this problem. Luckily, a cottage industry has sprung up making bushings to fix the issue versus buying a whole new cable. I found a likely retailer online, and they want $25 for a small bushing, which seems like quite a bit, until you realize it turns an immobile car back into a driver. Even better, they have a local distributor who I have to call tomorrow to see if they have the bushing I need in stock.
Yeah, they sell a cheaper part for $7 on Amazon, or I can get one for $4 on Ali Express but:
1. Having a local storefront means I can get it tomorrow if it's in stock and have this thing back on the road with 10 minutes of work.
2. Supporting local businesses is good.
3. If anything goes wrong, there is an actual human being in the area I can talk to.

More updates as they happen.