Radiator problems of the 1999 Toyota Camry

Three problems related to radiator have been reported for the 1999 Toyota Camry. The most recently reported issues are listed below.

1 Radiator problem

Failure Date: 08/20/2014

My daughter was driving into starved rock national park in illinois around 4 p. M. On August 20th, 2014. She driving on the entrance drive at the speed of 10 mph. The car suddenly started ramping up in speed causing the my daughter to start braking. The car continued gaining speed and the brakes were unable to stop the vehicle. As the car was going faster, my daughter entered the parks visitor center parking lot. While still trying to stop the vehicle, my daughter hit a parked car to the right, just clipping it causing damage to the hit car's taillight. Her car hit a car to the left then hit a parked tahoe which stopped my daughters car after being pushed 4 parking spaces. We complained to Toyota corp. They inspected the car and said it was mechanically sound. They admitted after further discussion the accelerator cable was frozen. They said this happened from an impact behind the battery, problem is that there was no impact that could have caused this until the impact of hitting the tahoe. My daughter was fighting to stop from the entrance drive. The Toyota rep. Also stated that their inspection team released the cable and said it worked fine. The rep. Could not answer my question regarding the timing of the cable being frozen. They are accusing my daughter of accelerating the vehicle due to fact that it is a mechanical accelerator, it was the only way this could have happened. Another issue is that the airbags did not deploy. Toyota claims due to the fact that the impact was slightly off center of the front that they did not deploy. Looking at the damage including the radiator being pushed into the engine, the airbags should have deployed. Toyota feels that our car is fine and there were no issues with the manufacturing or the design. Please help.

2 Radiator problem

Failure Date: 06/09/2005

Car overheated. Drove to Toyota dealer where it was diagnosed as a radiator problem. This car has 51000 miles on it.

3 Radiator problem

Failure Date: 08/27/2004

The radiator was empty, and here were traces of antifreeze on the inspection plug on the timing over. As I explained upon our intial meeting, this indicated that there was a definite loss of antifreeze, with a definite possibility of water pump failure and corresponding timing belt failure. However, when I did the initial tear-down of the timing area, I found a rather surprising scenario. The timing belt was intact. There were none of he usual oil leaks from the cam/crank seals. The belt was in excellent shape. The water pump had suffered a catastrophic bearing failure. In fact, I found pieces of metal in the timing area, as well as a few of the ball bearings from the water pump shaft bearing. The timing area also had traces of antifreeze (oem antifreeze) from where the water pump had been leaking prior to the failure. As per our discussion, I proceeded to tear the engine down further to inspect for other possible damage. At this time, we were simply expecting to find a warped/possibly cracked cylinder head. Upon removing the necessary components required to remove the head, and removing the head itself, I inspected the block, cylinders, and pistons. The inspection revealed that the pistons had suffered severe damage. There is over thirty thousandths of clearance between the top edge of the piston and the cylinder wall. The top piston ring is clearly visible. Therefore, I must declare the engine a loss. In fact, I have made the observation that Toyota vehicles using the oem antifreeze usually had far fewer cooling system problems of any kind. In their vehicles. I have two Toyota pickups. One has a reman engine. It has oem antifreeze and an oem oil filter. To make a long story short, I feel in my opinion, and my experience, that this problem is a manufacturer defect. What the manufacturer can and will do for you I do not know.




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