[STCorndog]

I drive a front wheel drive Toyota. This is applicable to most cars. I was doing a little inspection on my 2003 Camry. The part I just replaced is called an upper engine mount or torque strut. It’s to the left of the engine and has a purple 8 label.

So what’s the big deal? It’s a common wear item. When the rubber bushing fails, the engine moves under acceleration torque and over-stresses the lower motor mounts. The torque strut is easy to replace. Lower motor mounts are not. I could see cracks in the rubber. This is what came out.

I do believe mine was worn. It’s not supposed to be two pieces.

 

[RCinNC]

Were there symptoms, or did you replace it based on visual inspection? My 07 Camry has the same sort of mount.

 

[STCorndog]

@RCinNC

If you feel symptoms, it may already be to the point a lower engine mount is gone too. I have replaced enough of these I look at all of them. The bushing that fails is on the motor end of the link. Get a flash light and check the rubber around the bolt.

My part at Toyota (I get a discount) was $105. Takes 15 minutes.

I use this car for work and drive it hard.

 

[RCinNC]

LOL, I'm the opposite; my Camry is almost 16 years old and it has 124,000 miles on it. I believe last year I only put 3000 miles on it. My Yamaha, on the other hand, is 9 years old this summer and has over 95,000 on it.

Thanks for the heads up about the torque strut; I'll give mine a look.

 

[STCorndog]

@RCinNC
My fun car is a 2001 4Runner. Bought it new. It has 104,000 miles now and looks like it just rolled off the assembly line. Spotless. No leaks.

I bought my Camry used for a work car. It had 75,000 miles when I bought it and 4 years later it’s sitting at 160,000. I drive it like a Caveman and use it for construction sites. It has had whole deer in the trunk. It’s dirty inside and out. I don’t bother washing it. It’s purely my beater. Runs strong, burns no oil, no leaks and very little maintenance required.

I bought the wife a new Toyota Venza in 2013. AWD. Big V-6 horsepower. Great car. I don’t drive it much.

 

[RCinNC]

My Camry's like your 4Runner. No one has sat on the actual seats since I bought it; they've had seat covers since day 1. The only thing in the glove compartment is the owner's manual and an insurance card, and there's nothing in the trunk besides a milk crate with my emergency stuff in it. I can't abide a dirty car, at least on the interior; I just shampooed the carpets in it the other day.

Sadly, the years are starting to take their toll. It suffers from the melting dashboard that so many Camrys have, and I'm starting to have to replace things like power steering lines that have rusted through and leaked. I'm going to keep it though, for as long as I can; I'm actually not a car guy, and the thought of having to go get another one (especially in the current market) is on par with a root canal.

 

[STCorndog]

@RCinNC
It pains me to say this. It didn’t used to be true. The 2000 to around 2015 cars are the pinnacle. Since then the emissions changes have made newer cars problem prone as well as hard as hell to repair.

I am currently saving my side-work money to buy a better scan-tool to work on newer cars. My cheapo scan tool is very slow on OBD-2 systems. A new tool would make me smarter.

 

[RCinNC]

I was checking out OBD-2 readers myself recently. I had the check engine light come on, so of course I had to take it to a dealer to have it scanned. I had to wait for a week, and of course the scan cost something like $120.00. The scan showed that the mass air flow sensor was bad. The sensor itself was $224 from Toyota, and they wanted another hundred and something to change it. I said no thanks, and put the new one in myself in their parking lot. An OBD-2 reader would have saved me a couple hundred dollars.

Actually, I could have saved myself even more if I'd done a little bit more research before I bought the sensor. I didn't know until after I replaced it that they can sometime just be cleaned with a ten dollar can of sensor cleaner. Live and learn.

 

[STCorndog]

@RCinNC

I’m sure you know that Autozone will loan you a decent OBD2 scanner. The problem is they are not as sophisticated and the trouble shooting charts are less specific. Dealers have the best scanner.

The scan-toll I’m looking at is around $700. It will allow you much more precise scans and measurements in real time. You can trigger relays with it to help diagnose. There are cheap and decent code readers for I-phones.

The first thing I always do is a hard reset on the cars computer. Pull the positive battery cable and wait 60 seconds. This will clear all historical codes. Then see if it trips the check engine light again. Many times sensors get near the output limit the computer expects and will throw a code that can be erased. O2 sensors are notorious for this. I have gone years with borderline O2 sensors by just resetting the ECU.

The only sensors I will try to clean are the TPS. The rest, I replace if they keep throwing a code.

 

[LunaticFringe]

@RCinNC
My fun car is a 2001 4Runner. Bought it new. It has 104,000 miles now and looks like it just rolled off the assembly line. Spotless. No leaks.

I bought my Camry used for a work car. It had 75,000 miles when I bought it and 4 years later it’s sitting at 160,000. I drive it like a Caveman and use it for construction sites. It has had whole deer in the trunk. It’s dirty inside and out. I don’t bother washing it. It’s purely my beater. Runs strong, burns no oil, no leaks and very little maintenance required.

I bought the wife a new Toyota Venza in 2013. AWD. Big V-6 horsepower. Great car. I don’t drive it much.

Deer in trunk? You Sir are a stealthy-eyed-missile-man. Hats off.

 

[STCorndog]

Deer in trunk? You Sir are a stealthy-eyed-missile-man. Hats off.

I am a true neckred. I use my Camry during hunting season. It’s my beater and I don’t mind it smelling like “horny buck” for a few days.

My wife only drives it as a last resort.

 

[hillsy]

The lower engine mounts on most FWD cars sit pretty much flat. This is the Camry set-up:

So it's the top and rear mounts (1 and 7) that stop the motor from moving rotationally under load. They are smaller and will wear quicker.

You were right to replace the one you did but it's not like the motor will fall out if you left it. Eventually the rubber would perish more and the engine would move around more....then the car would start to vibrate at idle, etc.

 

[larolco]

Thanks for the PSA. Now I have to go see how the engine in the wife's Corolla is mounted...

I bought a cheap OBD2 scanner for my Yamaha which gets unhappy whenever I spin the back wheel and it thinks the traction control has malfunctioned. Then the bike goes into limp mode and needs a scanner to clear the fault code. It's a handy tool for that (cheaper than taking the bike to a dealer to have it cleared). But throw it on my Tacoma and I wish it was a little more precise. All it can tell me is the truck has a variable valve timing issue on one bank of cylinders. Could be timing belt, could be something else, (though the valves bench test fine). Gonna have to get someone with a proper scanner to look at that.

 

[STCorndog]

@larolco - usually when a VVT system throws a cylinder bank code it’s either the cam angle sensor or actuator.

@hillsy - the top mount is smaller because the twisting torque on the engine is located low on the engine where the stub axles are. I have not had any issues with the other mounts. I know the engine won’t fall out, but it starts to tear the lower mounts. Once you loose one of them too…good luck. Did you look at my torque strut. How much longer should I wait?

 

[hillsy]

@hillsy - the top mount is smaller because the twisting torque on the engine is located low on the engine where the stub axles are. I have not had any issues with the other mounts. I know the engine won’t fall out, but it starts to tear the lower mounts. Once you loose one of them too…good luck. Did you look at my torque strut. How much longer should I wait?

My point was that the movement from a worn top mount like that still translates to minimal movement at the bottom mounts. You will notice the movement and noise from it long before it does any damage to the bottom mounts. But still, good work in replacing it.

It's a bit like the camchain slap you used to get in the old GS and KZ fours - they would get so noisy if you let them go that you would get to the point where you would stop riding the bike and end up fixing it - but it was still well before it got to the point where it was doing any damage.

 

[14ozarkstrom]

As being mostly retired from the mechanic life a good scan tool is a must, as plenty of research can save many $$$. So many problems must be properly diagnosed to keep machines running well. The current state of affaires as far as new vehicles, parts and service is all to expensive. However we adapt or become dinosaurs. A tough pill to swallow. Possibly a good solution would be creating a co op of like minded guys to share equipment. However i was ridiculed for suggesting this idea at a professional group that i belonged to. Happy repairs.

 

[nctarheel]

@RCinNC
My fun car is a 2001 4Runner. Bought it new. It has 104,000 miles now and looks like it just rolled off the assembly line. Spotless. No leaks.

I bought my Camry used for a work car. It had 75,000 miles when I bought it and 4 years later it’s sitting at 160,000. I drive it like a Caveman and use it for construction sites. It has had whole deer in the trunk. It’s dirty inside and out. I don’t bother washing it. It’s purely my beater. Runs strong, burns no oil, no leaks and very little maintenance required.

I bought the wife a new Toyota Venza in 2013. AWD. Big V-6 horsepower. Great car. I don’t drive it much.

I drive a front wheel drive Toyota. This is applicable to most cars. I was doing a little inspection on my 2003 Camry. The part I just replaced is called an upper engine mount or torque strut. It’s to the left of the engine and has a purple 8 label.
View attachment 313655

So what’s the big deal? It’s a common wear item. When the rubber bushing fails, the engine moves under acceleration torque and over-stresses the lower motor mounts. The torque strut is easy to replace. Lower motor mounts are not. I could see cracks in the rubber. This is what came out.

View attachment 313656

I do believe mine was worn. It’s not supposed to be two pieces.

My wife drives the same car. I have to replace that mount every year or two.She is hard on equiptment,that's why she drives a Toyota.

 

[OydnaR]

I had one of those mid engine Toyota vans back in 80's, probably worse vehicle Toyota ever made, left a bad taste in my mouth and said I would never own a Toyota again...... that was 30 years ago. 2 years ago, I happened upon a 130k 2005 Tacoma, for cheap, owned by an acquaintance that takes good care, he just wasn't using it anymore, frame & exhaust replaced...... so far, I've been able to put about 500 miles on it, been sitting in shop more than my driveway, first it wa broken brake lines, then the shifter cable (took 3 months to get part, they blamed covid) then steering rack, now in shop for PS pump, and exhaust leak on left side of engine, could be anything from a gasket to a cracked manifold

And I really don't like it much, no headroom to speak of

Should have listened to myself

 

[STCorndog]

@OydnaR
I owned a 1996 Tacoma. First year truck with similar drive train as yours. I sold it running with 420,000 miles on it. I have put two more over 300,000 miles. A couple only made it into the 200,000 range and got wrecked.

I have only bought Toyotas since 1986. Currently own 3.

 

[Hans471]

For the record, part of the OBD 2 specifications called for the computer to retain trouble codes even when the battery is disconnected. There was a "keep alive" memory in the ECU with capacitor power to do this. Of course there were some ways to work around this, one being to disconnect the battery cables and then hold them together for enough time to completely drain the charge in the ECU. Prior to OBD 2 some vehicles would only retain codes when there was battery power. It was common for folks to clear out pesky codes by a battery disconnect. The new rules back in 1996 stopped that to a certain extent. OBD 2 rules have matured since the first systems. Since around 2009 or 2010 we have PDTC's (Permanent Diagnostic Trouble Codes) to keep people honest. These codes can't even be cleared with a scan tool. You have to repair the vehicle and then do the required drive cycle so that the computer actually see the test being run and passing before it will self clear the code. The tricks you do with codes on those twenty year old cars just don't work any more.
I use a standard OBD 2 scanner on my Triumps (2007 and 2022) and can read and clear codes on them as well as see, and graft the data stream on the computer. I am not sure of the 2022 but the 2007 used a Keihin ECU which likely was based on an automotive program as the data stream and sensors looked very automotive like. I am not sure what system the new Suzuki's use however.