Piston Slap in Aurion

[rll_3084]

There is an item in the form of a reader's question and answer in this morning's lift out Cars Guide from Melbourne's Herald Sun about piston slap in the Aurion engine. I was wondering how many people had noticed it. Basically the item says that some people are noticing piston slap when the engine is cold and it diminishes as the engine warms up but Toyota are refusing to acknowledge it.

[BONDIE]

There is an item in the form of a reader's question and answer in this morning's lift out Cars Guide from Melbourne's Herald Sun about piston slap in the Aurion engine. I was wondering how many people had noticed it. Basically the item says that some people are noticing piston slap when the engine is cold and it diminishes as the engine warms up but Toyota are refusing to acknowledge it.

F*ck yeah, i have a tapping noise on start up, once warm- goes away. Ive a had a few new cars and its the only one to do it. I took it to toyota and they said its normal and will not damage the engine. That would be disapointing if the are just bullsh*ting us, and not taking ownership of the problem.

[VF-X]

Yeh...Noticed that..

And again...Nothin could be done..

O yea...U can do 1 thing...

Change ur car... :P

[apg39]

Yeah I had it nice & loud this morning.

Its the noise that kindasorta makes a diesel engine noise? Best way I can describe it.

[zr nate]

I have to say i trhink i've heard it. Like a crunch when the car first turns over? it was so cold that morning i had ice on my rear window.

[dave262]

Very much doubt it would be piston slap. My old Magna had piston slap and there is no way the noise on startup of the Aurion is even close to piston slap. At worst, it will just be a few tappets being a bit slow at pressurising and getting oil through when cold.

Piston slap sounds similar to bearing knock most the time, but unlike when bearings are stuffed - piston slap actually goes quiet under heavy load. Piston slap will also have noticeable effects on performance (makes the engine much slower at bringing up the revs as the pistons tend to wobble around and dig into the walls a bit), and after a few thousand K's, you will find that it will start converting the round cylinders into a oval shapes. It will also start burning a fair bit of oil and smoking a bit.

I can give some pictures of what the results of piston slap are when I am at home, but I am almost certain that the Aurion sound on startup is not piston slap. It will simply be tappets more than likely.

[dave262]

Just realised I had some of the pictures on this computer anyway... As you can see - piston slap is not a good thing on an an engine. It is essentially where the piston wobbles around enough to scrape against the side of the cylinder.

The scratch marks on the side of the piston in the picture are where it has scraped, and the other picture is how seriously the cylinders can allow blowby to pass by, which will cause all the baked-on oil that you see around the sides of the piston.

[BLCKLABEL]

oh man. i thought it was just me hearing wrongly early in the wee morning.. it hasn't happened recently but it has happened a few times.. u get the sound at the beginning wen u start and u just know its not good.. even if we brought it back to toyota, we would have to show them rite? say if something Was to go wrong wif the pistons, then it would n should be covered by warranty.. i just hope i don't have to bring my car for repairs anytime soon..

[Adrian]

Hi,

I thought there'd be too much compression (with 0 play) etc for piston slap ? Not that im a mechanic.

[apg39]

oh man. i thought it was just me hearing wrongly early in the wee morning.. it hasn't happened recently but it has happened a few times.. u get the sound at the beginning wen u start and u just know its not good.. even if we brought it back to toyota, we would have to show them rite? say if something Was to go wrong wif the pistons, then it would n should be covered by warranty.. i just hope i don't have to bring my car for repairs anytime soon..

Even if we went to the service department, the engine would be warm then = no noise.

[BONDIE]

oh man. i thought it was just me hearing wrongly early in the wee morning.. it hasn't happened recently but it has happened a few times.. u get the sound at the beginning wen u start and u just know its not good.. even if we brought it back to toyota, we would have to show them rite? say if something Was to go wrong wif the pistons, then it would n should be covered by warranty.. i just hope i don't have to bring my car for repairs anytime soon..

Even if we went to the service department, the engine would be warm then = no noise.

Did that, dropped my car at 6 in the morning and they wernt touching it till lunch. So it had cooled right down by the time they touched it. I told them thats the first thing i want looked at and, the car needs to be cold on start up.

When i picked it up, i was told by the mechanic, that it is completely normal. I dont know if i believed him, first time ive ever heard a new car tap on start up.

Also told him about the vibration in the brake pedal and steering wheel. He was good about that , he put a mechanism on the car to make the car stimulate what problems he thought it might be, and had me in the seat saying yes or no. None of them felt the same, they were stimulated to the extreme max, and wasnt a true reflection of the car problem. Because the problem has just raised it head, the vibration is this extreme yet.

But he said he F*ck it, he will just replace the parts one by one (for the problems he think it is) and when the problem goes away, that was the the problem.(process of elimination) I was very happy with that answer. Finally a big company customer service centre was looking past, cost parts efficiency $$$$$$$, and just concentrating the customer and fixing the problem, what ever it takes.

Awesome.

[vekzla]

Hi guys,

I am new here and I just purchased 07 Aurion ATX done 34000km, I had a quick look through the site and found that "piston slap" or tappet sound is normal with these vehicles. The tappet sound is not the only sound that is concerning me.

When the car is started on cold you can hear the tappets (sounds like a truck on idle) and they go quite after awhile but you can still hear them on idle, the other thing is when you first start to drive, a crunching sound is heard just like if your changing up/down a gear in a manual car and forgetting to press the clutch in. Rang Toyota service department and they told me this is normal due to the way the engine is sitting. Piston gap and rings and that’s why there is tappet/piston slap sound.

But I am not sure about this crunch sound; anyone came across this sound before? The car has been serviced by the dealer by the book.

Sorry for the ramble.

[450HP/tonne]

Hi guys,

I am new here and I just purchased 07 Aurion ATX done 34000km, I had a quick look through the site and found that "piston slap" or tappet sound is normal with these vehicles. The tappet sound is not the only sound that is concerning me.

When the car is started on cold you can hear the tappets (sounds like a truck on idle) and they go quite after awhile but you can still hear them on idle, the other thing is when you first start to drive, a crunching sound is heard just like if your changing up/down a gear in a manual car and forgetting to press the clutch in. Rang Toyota service department and they told me this is normal due to the way the engine is sitting. Piston gap and rings and that’s why there is tappet/piston slap sound.

But I am not sure about this crunch sound; anyone came across this sound before? The car has been serviced by the dealer by the book.

Sorry for the ramble.

Piston slap may not be what you are hearing. Remove the engine cover and listen to the VVT-i soleniod valves (2 per bank), which make a noise similar to what you describe:

As for the 'crunch' you will find this is a normal noise - it is the skid control ECU performing a system check when the vehicle reaches 6-10 km/h on first take-off. You should find about 100 topics on this in this forum ...

[vekzla]

Hi guys,

I am new here and I just purchased 07 Aurion ATX done 34000km, I had a quick look through the site and found that "piston slap" or tappet sound is normal with these vehicles. The tappet sound is not the only sound that is concerning me.

When the car is started on cold you can hear the tappets (sounds like a truck on idle) and they go quite after awhile but you can still hear them on idle, the other thing is when you first start to drive, a crunching sound is heard just like if your changing up/down a gear in a manual car and forgetting to press the clutch in. Rang Toyota service department and they told me this is normal due to the way the engine is sitting. Piston gap and rings and that’s why there is tappet/piston slap sound.

But I am not sure about this crunch sound; anyone came across this sound before? The car has been serviced by the dealer by the book.

Sorry for the ramble.

Piston slap may not be what you are hearing. Remove the engine cover and listen to the VVT-i soleniod valves (2 per bank), which make a noise similar to what you describe:

As for the 'crunch' you will find this is a normal noise - it is the skid control ECU performing a system check when the vehicle reaches 6-10 km/h on first take-off. You should find about 100 topics on this in this forum ...

Thanks for your reply, I knew it wasn't piston slap or tappets coz it was too fast of a clicking sound

But that's what the mechanic said as for the crunch I wouldnt of known until now.

Once again thanks buddy.