**IMPORTANT** Sand in the engine block
 

So.. Apparently when they were casting the block there was sand still in the engine when they put it together for production. My car has been in the shop for the past 2 weeks and they couldnt figure out what was wrong with it till today. Needless to say Scion is trippin out and my car might spark a recall. The problem occurred around 7k mi and the idle dropped to around 400-500 rpms and pretty much lost all compression in the right side of the motor. The engine would shutter like it wanted to stall and because i had installed an aftermarket intake Scion wanted to blame the problem on that. So.. If any of you guys are having this same problem i suggest you make the engine stock as possible before bringing it into the dealership. im in jacksonville, nc right now and there are currently 3 people having the same problem as me. Be on the lookout if you are noticing anything like this.

How do you know there is sand in the engine?

Sucks to hear man but, thanks for the heads up. Hopefully this wont occur.

Because my car has been at the dealership for 2 weeks and once they finally got into the cylinder they found sand in there. did my post not make sense lol?

so they actually had to tear it down i assume, whats the remedy a new engine or cleaning it??

Just wanting to know what the evidence is.

This is hard to believe. NOT SAYING it isn't true. But it isn't like they cast the blocks and immediately assemble the engine. It gets cleaned, painted, etc. etc... This is weird. Bad luck I guess.

Could this be related to the idle dip and the CEL problems we've been all having???

-> http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15577

so far im the first one to have this issue and scion is sending out a rep to look at it tomorrow. but yeah they tore it down and im hoping ill get a new engine. the mechanics at the dealership are telling me thats most likely what will happen. just hoping for the best. but im deploying to afghan in less than a month and im not sure how long its going to be in the shop for. i wanted to be able to drive it home and store it for the deployment but thats not happening now. so scion is going to have it shipped back to az for me once the issue is resolved. they even paid for my plane ticket home so i could see my family for xmas and new years.

First and foremost: Thank you for your service.

Secondly: It seems like you are being well taken care of by Scion. Please keep us updated on what happens.

I looked it up I guess sand left over from the casting is kinda common to cause problems but normally only a very small amount and it is normally found in the bottom of the oil pan after is works it's way thew the motor. Just from other stuff I saw online they have the same problems with idle dip or loss of power.

Yeah definitely, but it took A LOT of arguing and string pulling to get to where im at right now with scion customer support.. Their supervisor Danny Castro is the one who made all this happen. The other desk jockeys that i had to deal with just gave me the run around and pissed me off.

Painted block? Lol I don't think so man.

So the sand coming from the casting..is it something the mechanics said or the scion engineer/mechanics? It's a pretty bold statement to say it's a production issue from the dealership mechanics...

I think since there are issues with this engine it is best to keep it stock for now. But sand? Man....