What to Look for ? ?

[NuggetPolly]

Hey Guys. I'm new to MR2's. I always wanted one and I just got offered a trade for my Wrangler. This guy is coming next week and I wanted to ask some knowledgeable people what I should be looking for when I inspect his car. It's an 02 with about 50K on it. It's apparently had a rebuilt tranny and the engine was replaced under warranty due to a failed oil sump. Any tips would be very appreciated. Thanks a lot.

[lbridges]

The engine failure could well be attributed to something known as Pre-Cat converter failure. To ensure this is not a problem one has to remove the O2 sensors in the exhaust manifold and using some sort of inspection tool give a good look at the ceramic matrix that is just under the sensors.

What happens is some percentage of engines had the ceramic fail, and under valve overlap conditions pieces of the pre-cat material were sucked back into the engine, scoring the cylinder walls and thus engine failure. Failures were frequently not attributed to this problem by dealers since it invokes a longer term warranty (emissions clause). Secondarily, the bottom side of the pre-cats can fail and dump their contents into the main cat, causing some plugging issues.

Disclaimer - these are things I've read, but have no first hand experience with. I own a 2002 and had the pre-cats removed during the first week of ownership. There are a few other areas that owners complain about, but overall a remarkably well sorted sports car - as one would expect from Toyota.

BTW, I also had to have my tranny replaced - it's reasonably rare, but I believe a run of transaxles had a problem with a bearing race at the output shaft. Expensive to fix once it begins to fail, but shouldn't be a issue for the one you are looking at.

[Ben]

From my dealership experience with the MKIII, check for a leaking timing chain tensioner, drive belt tensioner, and tire wear. I have seen a transmission replaced and the pre-cat failure mentioned above.