I was aware of oil consumption issues of the 2.4L engines in older versions Toyota cars. However, ours was supposed to be newer than the suggested problem engines. My wife told me that the oil light in our 2010 Scion TC came on and went off a couple of times. It was time for an oil change anyway, which we almost always have the dealership do. I checked the oil and it was over 2.5 quarts low! I put oil in it, and scheduled an oil change with the dealer and asked them to do an oil consumption test on it. Sure enough, 1200 miles it was a quart low. We have an extended warranty on the car, however the extended warranty company is now telling us that we have to pay $2000 to have the engine torn down before they will even consider whether or not they will cover the repairs.

This is a load of crap! Given that Toyota won't acknowledge that they have serious issues with their engines is even more disconcerting. I use to be a die hard Toyota fan, and have owned several. At this point I've lost all faith in these "reliable" cars they have. The dealer is quoting us $6000 to repair the issue with replacing pretty much the whole bottom side of the motor/block. Needless to say I'm more than frustrated at this point. We love the car, but this isn't a small issue.

The excessive oil consumption began around 90-100k miles. None of the oil lights came on, they just started noticing while taking the car in for regular scheduled oil changes that the car was burning oil. Now around 148k miles, the engine was using more oil than I could keep in it and began knocking. Even with topping it off, the engine will no longer start now. Once researching, I found this is a pretty common problem with tCs that was never acknowledged by Toyota in a recall. Very disappointing.