The 1GR-FE is a great engine but I think there's more stretched chains at 200k than people want to admit - resulting in less than optimal performance and gas mileage. There's a youtube video on one with a timing check engine light at 145k - perhaps poor oil changes. Throwing a tensioner at it...
Exactly. Timing chain problems happen and they are oppressive especially on V engines. Lots of car manufacturers have been having timing chain problems and they are almost always interference motors. Chains elongate, guides break, chains jump a tooth, timing slowly goes bad over time, etc. I...
Irrational fear. It's timing belts on interference motors that are the problem. All things considered I've come to prefer timing belts over chains, but it has to be a non-interference motor like the 98-05 non-VVT.
Unless they can and will prove the miles on the engine consider it mileage unknown. The understatement of miles on used engines is rampant. Accuracy is the exception, not the rule.
I think their offer to remedy their mistake is all they really have to do legally. To send them a big bill for someone else's work is likely just ordering up a legal and court battle which no one wins except for the attorneys.
All auto manufacturers have made thousands of mistakes over their lifetimes including Toyota. All service manuals have errors. There's hundreds of data points on this - the valves and pistons of a non-VVT 2UZ-FE do not interfere. That is by definition a non-interference engine. The reason...