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Bought a $600 Tacoma with a blown head gasket in Riverside and drove it 400 miles home anyway
Picked up this 2003 Tacoma off a guy in Riverside for $600 because he swore it just needed a thermostat. I knew he was lying when I saw the milky oil but I figured a 3.4 with a bad head gasket was still worth more than that in parts. So I topped off the coolant, babied it onto the 91, and made it about 90 miles before the temp needle started climbing past halfway. I pulled into a Love's outside Barstow, dumped two bottles of Bar's Leaks in it, and honestly that gunk sealed it up enough to get me the rest of the way home to Vegas. It ran like garbage for a month before I finally pulled the head in my driveway and found a crack between the valves, which I kind of expected. Ended up $800 into the whole thing with a rebuilt head and gaskets, and it's still my daily two years later. Curious if anyone else has had luck with that stop leak stuff or if I just got lucky that one time.
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aaronf4013d ago
Bar's Leaks works by swelling the rubber seals, but a cracked head is a totally different problem. What probably saved you is that the 3.4 has iron liners in the block and the crack was small enough that the gunk plugged the gap just enough to keep coolant out of the cylinder. On an all aluminum motor that same bottle would've done nothing and you'd have been calling a tow truck in Barstow. So yeah, you got a little lucky but the 5VZ is also just a tough motor that tolerates abuse most engines won't.
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