If you are alert of unusual symptoms on your automobile, you are right to be concerned, because a car represents a big annual budget and unforeseen malfunctions don’t reduce the costs. So what if you sense that you have a leaking injector on your Toyota Highlander? You most likely figured it out thanks to black/oily drips along your engine motor, or a troubled idle, or abnormal black smoke. These three symptoms are the main signs of a leaking injector. As this problem can cause more severe engine concerns on your car, we made a decision to publish this article content to help you verify the failure of a leaking injector and deal with it correctly. To do so, we will first take a look at the case of gasoline injectors and then at those of diesel injectors Toyota Highlander.
Leaking injector on my petrol Toyota Highlander
It is crucial to know that the injectors on petrol and diesel engines are distinct, the reality is, the difference in combustion between these two kind of engines makes the injection distinct. The main difference lies in the pressure undergone by the injectors, on a petrol engine it will vary between 3.5 bars for indirect injection and 120 bars for indirect injection.
Leaking injector on a petrol Toyota Highlander: The different leaks
It should be mentioned that injector leaks on a Toyota Highlander equipped with a petrol engine are pretty infrequent. This is caused by the much lower pressure in the petrol intake systems. However, there are two kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the top of the injector:
It is conceivable that you have a leak from the top of the injector, this is the component that is attached to the fuel rail, an O-ring will be involved in this. - Leak injector of the lower part:
Finally, you may experience a leak coming from the lower part of the injector of your car, this one will come from the junction with the engine and not with the rail as seen before.
Leaking injector on my diesel Toyota Highlander
Unlike petrol engines, which have spark combustion, diesel engines run on compression. This combustion system creates very high pressure in the engine, as do the injectors. On these models, the pressure is more than 10 times higher than on the direct injection of car petrol engines, reaching 1800 to 2000 bars.
Leaking injector on diesel Toyota Highlander: The different leaks
In the case of leaking diesel injectors on your Toyota Highlander, there are three several kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the injector inlet:
In this instance, it is an inlet pipe that will deform over time, generally the leak will be at the clamping point. - Injector return leakage:
As its name reveals, this leakage concerns the management of the fuel return in the injector, this time the injector that leaks on your Toyota Highlander will be a consequence of an O-ring or its plastic tip that leaks. - Injector base leak:
This injection leak is one of the most annoying, it is the junction between the engine and the injector nose that leaks at a copper seal, you should encounter an air noise and a compression loss. - If after examining you have oil leaking but it does not come from your injectors, we encourage you to read this article content on the presence of oil leaking on your Toyota Highlander.
Leaking injector on my Toyota Highlander, how to fix the leak
And to finish, we’re going to take a look at how to fix a leaking injector on your car. Very often a leak is connected, as we have seen prior to this, to a worn seal caused by the pressures endured. But think that the pressure in the circuit is enormous, especially on diesel engines. So you will have to take some measures:
- Lower the pressure before any work is conducted…
- Covering you to avoid the risk of fuel spillage
- NEVER work on a running diesel engine injector.
Regarding the repair part of your leak, it will very often be limited to changing the seals that have failed:
- Find the source of the leak
- Dismantle the injector in question
- Change the corresponding seal kit
- Reassemble the assembly and tighten with a torque wrench in accordance with the manufacturer’s standards.
In all cases, these interventions are not specifically complicated, but if you have the tiniest uncertainty in the treatment of your injector that leaks on your Toyota Highlander, we encourage you to get closer to your mechanic to avoid any bad manipulation that could critically harm the condition of your Toyota Highlander.
To discover more tips on the Toyota Highlander, take a look at the Toyota Highlander category.
