Low Cylinder Compression Knocking Sound

[danielahammond]

Hi I have an IS200 SE 1999

It started making a rough engine knocking sound recently that is most noticable when accelerating to about 3-4 thousand rmp.

A while back (April 2009) I took the car for a service at toyota. They changed oil but screwed the new filter over the old filters seal (which obviously got stuck in place when they removed it) On the way home doing about 60 down a single carriage way I lost all the oil from the engine, I drove home about 1 mile with very low oil pressure (car stalled a couple of times)

Anyways I took the car to Lexus Plymouth last week and the tech said I had very low compression pressures, he said one was as low as 110 psi the others a little more the minimum the Work Shop manual says is 142 but shoul be 182 or more with a difference between each cylinder of no more than 14 psi.

I thought the engine was done based on what the Lexus Tech said (a couple of thousand to repair). But I measured the compressions myself and got the following readings;

From front of car back,

170 psi

195 psi

200 psi

200 psi

200 psi

195 psi

So it would seem I have a fault only on one cylinder. I did the "wet" test adding a small amount of oil to the low pressure cylinder and the pressure increased to 210 psi so this would suggest worn rings/bore.

However I would assume that if one cylinder was worn the others should show similar symptoms. There is also no oil on the spark plug, they are all in good condition with tan/brown/grey colour.

Any comments/help/advice very welcome.

Thanks.

[ormi]

Hi I have an IS200 SE 1999

It started making a rough engine knocking sound recently that is most noticable when accelerating to about 3-4 thousand rmp.

A while back (April 2009) I took the car for a service at toyota. They changed oil but screwed the new filter over the old filters seal (which obviously got stuck in place when they removed it) On the way home doing about 60 down a single carriage way I lost all the oil from the engine, I drove home about 1 mile with very low oil pressure (car stalled a couple of times)

Anyways I took the car to Lexus Plymouth last week and the tech said I had very low compression pressures, he said one was as low as 110 psi the others a little more the minimum the Work Shop manual says is 142 but shoul be 182 or more with a difference between each cylinder of no more than 14 psi.

I thought the engine was done based on what the Lexus Tech said (a couple of thousand to repair). But I measured the compressions myself and got the following readings;

From front of car back,

170 psi

195 psi

200 psi

200 psi

200 psi

195 psi

So it would seem I have a fault only on one cylinder. I did the "wet" test adding a small amount of oil to the low pressure cylinder and the pressure increased to 210 psi so this would suggest worn rings/bore.

However I would assume that if one cylinder was worn the others should show similar symptoms. There is also no oil on the spark plug, they are all in good condition with tan/brown/grey colour.

Any comments/help/advice very welcome.

Thanks.

to be honest at that stage mate i wouldn't bother about the low compression coz its not that bad i have seen a whole lot worse!!!(i work for a toyota main dealer).......but what i would worrie about is the knocking noise get your self a bigish bowl and drain the oil into this,slowly tip this into another bowl and look in the bottom of the first bowl and look for small fragments of metal..

it sounds to me like your big ends are away!!!!not good but not too hard to do....

[danielahammond]

to be honest at that stage mate i wouldn't bother about the low compression coz its not that bad i have seen a whole lot worse!!!(i work for a toyota main dealer).......but what i would worrie about is the knocking noise get your self a bigish bowl and drain the oil into this,slowly tip this into another bowl and look in the bottom of the first bowl and look for small fragments of metal..

it sounds to me like your big ends are away!!!!not good but not too hard to do....

Thanks for the advice. I changed engine oil today and also stuck in some wynns engine flush which did a good job of cleaning it out.

I drained the oil as you suggested and did find small flakes of metal around 1mm square surface area but very flat. I also took an old filter apart (one that I put on after Toyota changed oil at service and subsequently lost all the oil) This filter had metal flakes in it. I have images of these but not sure how to upload them.

Ok I got the pictures here now. Is it normal to have flakes this size in the filter?

[ormi]

em that doesn't look too good mate..

think you should remove the sump and check the big ends mate,remove the sump and have a look at the big ends if you cant see anything take your finger and thumb and hold the big end(conrod) and give it a wiggle if it moves thats bad now do that to all six....

[danielahammond]

Yes I will remove the sump over the weekend and have a look, I took this to a local gargage and asked them what they thought, they said the same as you. As a Toyota Tech what do you think are the chances of getting Toyota to do something about this since I expect this problem has happened due to the loss of my engine oil after taking it for a service (this was around a year back now though).

[ormi]

Yes I will remove the sump over the weekend and have a look, I took this to a local gargage and asked them what they thought, they said the same as you. As a Toyota Tech what do you think are the chances of getting Toyota to do something about this since I expect this problem has happened due to the loss of my engine oil after taking it for a service (this was around a year back now though).

doesnt matter mate it will be on record that coz of them you lost all your engine oil as a job card would have to have been made before it went into the workshop..

running a car for a few seconds with no oil can damage your engine bad....go tell them what you've found go straight to the manager and kick up a stink if nothing happens you can take it legal as the garage was neglegent!!!

go for it!!