Possible Blown Head Gasket, or Just Shitty Shop Practices?

We absolutely loved our 2017 that we bought brand new. I also have a 1999 Toyota Tacoma SR5/PreRunner that I've owned since March 2000 and have had very little issues with aside from a cracked head cover that went bad a few years ago right after I returned from a deployment. Had to pay over $2,000 to have her repaired and running back to normal as I didn't know how to do the job myself.

Our 2017 Toyota 4Runner Limited it truly is an awesome truck! The only issue I'm having now is that I'm getting an error codes of P219B, 0300, P0113, P0102. I had previously taken her to a different shop for a simple oil change and the shop where I took her to either loosened or removed something because she had no issues prior to that. In fact, she was just recently smogged within a few months (April).

Then, I took her to a Toyota dealership in my area and paid $200 for a coolant flush. There had been a little bit of white smoke before but got worse after. Now, there's thick white smoke, engine knocking, and some rattling while driving after being stopped at a light or stop sign. There's a lot of white smoke, loss of power, sluggish when starting off, rattling, TRAC OFF and now blinking CHECK ENGINE light is on. There's no misfire on cold startup nor overheating. Of course, I sure as Hell don't want to take her back to the first shop because I know they want to charge me to fix what they ruined on purpose. As mentioned before, there was a little white smoke previously but made worse after taking her to the Toyota dealership and according to the service advisor, "You paid for a coolant flush, and we can't refund your money because the work was performed." Yes, the work was performed and made much worse.

Additionally, both shops told me that the brakes were "dangerously low". So the brakes were replaced and guess what, there was at least 80% material left on them. The Toyota dealership said there was 3mm left.

I really hate that the majority of shops these days are shady and greedy like that. Even when I took her to an actual Toyota dealership and they want an extortionate amount of money just to diagnose her and that's probably not including the repairs and they straight up lied to me about the brakes needing to replaced.

For now, I'm not able to enjoy driving her and have to have her sit a few months until I can afford to pay for repairs or find a way to try and fix her myself if possible. She's my wife's daily driver, and I drive her when we go out as a family, she is garage kept as much as possible, and I'm super bummed I can't take her out on the road.

 

My condolences, based on your description of symptoms you will likely need a new engine (smoke, rod knocking). It is unusual for this engine to fail so early, so I suspect the issue is negligence of some kind (negligent repair or lack of maintenance).

Moving forward, avoid taking your truck to the dealership for issues outside the warranty.

 

That's a serious accusation. However, I don't think you have a leg to stand on.

Did you mention this to the dealership? Did you ask them to document their findings?

 

So, you had signs that something was wrong and you chose to drive it and/or ignore it? I bet there is more to this story that you aren't telling us.

That is a red flag that you have a possible head gasket issue, or worse.

 

Have you popped the hood at all and check the overflow? Does it at least have pink coolant in it? Take off the top radiator plastic cover and look at your radiator, see if it has coolant

any crusties around? Pop the engine over off flashlight around

(It’s already blown, and knocking as your said)

fill up the coolant, and see how much it leaks overnight, whether it be inside the cylinder or on the ground or both, see how big this head leak is

get you a exhaust gas test kit and hook it up, or a test strip (they have those don’t they?) it’s just going to confirm what you’re hunching

You said it was already smoking white a little, a little to some people is a lot to others, how long has this been going on?

those DTCs indicate random cylinder misses, intake temperature sensor high, mass air flow? And bank 2 air and fuel ratio imbalance, so she’s definitely not happy..

If you have the cash and want to keep it, google in your area a local Toyota and Lexus exclusive independent shop.. that’s more than likely going to be your best option vs the dealer (I’m thinking repair integrity)

good luck and update when you can

 

How many miles are on this 4Runner?

 

It sounds like you had a head gasket just starting to go bad and when the dealership did the coolant flush it made it worse.

 

With luck you can do the tests mentioned above to confirm head gasket coolant leak into combustion chamber. And hope the heads are not warped or cracked. Also hope the block has no dimension issues or cracks.
If you can take on a large project you can disassemble the heads off the block, repair & reassemble.
Faster and maybe cheaper is replacing the engine.
Lots of posts to read on this forum about this topic-best replacement engine for the dollar etc.
Are you sure you runner is in good shape? Tranny, transfer case, diffs etc.?
There is a "youtube - The Car Care Nut"
A master Toyota mechanic has several videos on engine head gasket issues.
Look him up on the web and watch, very educational (in my opinion).

 

Welcome from Wisconsin! I guess if I were driving a vehicle and white smoke was coming from it , I would stop driving it until a diagnosis was in... that's me. Now your engine is knocking, what have you found out is with the knock? If you can't figure it out, surely you must have a friend that can. Either way the knock is a bad thing, good luck with the diagnosis.

 

Welcome

 

I think it’s highly unlikely that the first shop doing an oil change caused a blown head gasket. I don’t see a connection. Also, the noise you’re describing sounds like a death rattle.

These engines really don’t fail that often so there aren’t a ton of DIY resources for fixing these yourself.
It might be easiest to find a salvage engine that works with the ECU in your model/trim.