99 2.7 liter, knocking when cold.

when i start my tacoma, if i dont let it set and warm up, when i pull out my engine is a clanking and a knocking. my engine has 126,000 miles on it, i have been using castrol sentec, 5w-30 like the manual says, it says that it is japanese wear tested. and im using a fram oil filter. after the temp guage starts elevating the pecking stops. is it the oil im using or is this normal? my brother and I went to a football game saturday night and the temp was down in the lower 50's. should i start using 10w 40?

I would continue to use the grade of oil that the manufacturer suggests. I personally beleive that your problem stems from not allowing your truck to warm up, combined with the fact that it has over 120,000 miles on it. If you haven't seen any decrease in performance and gas mileage, it's probably nothing more than the sounds of an aging motor! As for oil and oil filter manufacturers......that is a subject that can open up some conversation.

I recently read an article that was wriiten by an individual (I think this guy was an engineer) who devised his own testing procedures for each and every automobile oil filter on the market. There were some oil filters that I had never heard of in this study. He disassembled each and every filter and ranked the oil filters based on the internal filtering media structure, filtering capabilities, quality build of the filter itself, and various other things (that I can't remember off the top of my head). His conclusions were this: The best auto oil filter you could buy was the "Mobil 1". This filter costs more, but in his opinion it was #1. The top 3 "economy priced" filters were as follows: "AC Delco", "Purolator", and finally "Wix". I haved used "Purolator" filters in all of my cars for the past 15 years.

As for oil.........I change the oil in all of my cars every 3000 miles religiously. In my opinion there is no preventative maintenance more important, that costs so little, than changing your oil! Because of the short amount of miles between oil changes I use whatever "name brand" oil that is on sale. (castrol, pennzoil, quakerstate etc.....)

thank you for your reply wrigley 123, my pickup runs great, like brand new, so i guess i'll need to give it a couple of minutes to warm up from now on.

thanks again.

It sounds like you may already have this answered Tacoma man, but it may be a slightly cracked exhaust manifold. My truck exhibits a similar knocking sound when I first start the vehicle up, and then about three minutes of operation it goes away. My guess is that the crack is pretty small, but big enough to hear the exhaust valves operating, and after a few minutes of warm up, the crack decreases in size from the expansion of metal to essentially seal up the crack. Of course, until the engine is cool again that is. Anyways, have the similar indications, just thought you might want to know what my problem was.

This is a very common thing with the 2.7L. It'll run you about $250.

I posted this under another thread but it is kinda relevant to this one too...

I have a 1996 Tacoma 4X4 with the 2.7. My engine knocked like that for about 160,000 miles but never caused any problem. I now have 257,000 miles, the knock is gone, the engine runs GREAT and doesn't use oil between oil changes at 3,000 mile intervals. I am rough on my Taco because I off-road it on hills, cliffs and rocks, but I have not had any problems with the drivetrain. Replaced the original clutch at 238,000 miles.

My exhaust manifold did crack but I replaced it with an LC Engineering header for about the same price as the manifold. I use the Toyota oil filters because of the anti-drainback valve they suposedly have to keep more oil up in the engine when it starts up initially.

it was my exhaust manifold that was causing it to knock it had a hairline crack about 6 inches long. i got one from a junk yard for $25 and fixed it.