well, the car is way past warranty so it seems im SOL

sounds like its the fault at the dealership ....if you handed your care in care to them, they are responsible for the well being of the vehicle ...

for this to happen to your engine while you were away and someone else was working on it "authorized mechanic" it obvious to me they forgot to put a screw back in or a plug and when they started up your car the engine threw a rod...


sounds like they dry started your engine .

or it may as well be one of the cleaning guys..."guys who washes the vehicle after service .." sounds like they over-revved your engine and it blew a rod ...

heres things that stand out to me

the tech saying it happened approx 3 weeks ago - how does the tech know this, there is no way to tell , noise would have been heard when the tech was test driving the car

and that this happened when the engine was being washed, ask yourself, if this happened at idle, how did the rod cap blow through the oil pan, this certainly wouldnt happen at idle, think about how much stress there is to an engine at idle compared to say 5000rpm, why would rprime bother mentioning that it wasnt rev'd about 3500, was it to cover themselves ahead of time? and if the 3rd party inspector is going by the words of the people in the shop, then of course hes gonna say it was a faulty bolt cuz its easier to say that to investigate properly

your car seems fine when you dropped it off, no mention of weird engine noises when you dropped it off by you or the tech, all the sudden, a rod bolt cap stretched to the point of snapping while in their possession, and not just snapping and falling in the pan but snapping and blowing a hole in the pan

maybe they performed an italian tune up with your service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_tuneup

So after a thorough discussion, we came to the conclusion that the tech drained the oil, dropped the oil pan, torqued a rod cap bolt super tight, reseal the oil pan, didnt fill it with oil, and revved to 5k just for fun. Im glad we are getting somewhere now, why didnt we see the obvious before?

I don't think the tech revved it to 5K for fun if you read Klobbersaurus' post about the Italian tuneup. They probably did it with intention.

it was the car wash kid .... he put the pedal to the metal ..and blew a rod while in neuteral..

Or the motor is 10+ years old with somewhat high KM's and not even the fabeled all mighty "Invincible JDM(TM)(R)" could save the motor. Shitty situation but to be expected with an older vehicle. How on earth anyone would blame the dealership is beyond me, nothing at all to do with the work done to the vehicle. Time for a rebuilt motor, perhaps the dealership will be sympathetic and offer you a discount on labor.

Even if one of the staff did run it up to 5000 rpm a couple of times, if its a healthy motor, 5000 rpm shouldn't be a problem. But if revving it up killed it, then it was the "straw that broke the camels back." I'm not saying i know what the root of the problem is, but unless this is a common problem with the toys, then at this point, i don't think we'll ever know what really happened

dude.. my camry has 144,000Km on it... it still runs strong.. i really dont think its the revs, IMO its the mechanic... ( my camry is serviced my toyota too)

maybe he started to wash it with the motor hot and still running. hehe

would it be okay to tell us which dealership it is?

cuz i know there are a few fucked up toyota dealerships around here. my uncle took his mr2 to get his serviced and it didnt come back for a week. what ended up happening was that they took his car to a show and did tell him.

^ u mean didnt