RESPONSE TO CHARLENE BLAKE:
Yet gain, with trademark bluff and bluster laced with inference--coupled with a few subtle lies to bolster the inference--Charlene Blake, you're out in left field once more--COMPLETELY WRONG!!
I have never said anything about sludge being a hoax, nor am I an incarnation of someone else who may have said it. (Is this inference another form of your 'fire for effect' lies??)
On the contrary, I have already stated that engine sludge is a reality--many times.
Unlike you, however, I hold to the truth.
Like a multitude of knowledgeable and responsible individuals--many whom you have arrogantly dismissed and marginalized in similar fashion in your remarks to me--I KNOW engine sludge can occur for a multitude of reasons.
I also KNOW that sludge is (thankfully) a fairly rare occurence, and likely won't happen at all if certain fundamental tenets are adhered to.
These tenets involve modest attention to what is going on in one's engine, with a similarly modest degree of personal responsibility toward ensuring that attention is given.
I read through your comments in this forum--and to my amazement found them copied into an extraordinary number of other sites--hundreds in fact--and I decided to address what is essentially compendium of manipulative spin, plus more than a few serious untruths.
If, on the other hand, your expressed angst against Toyota hadn't been so blatantly dishonest, I wouldn't have done so.
If you aspire to genuine consumer advocacy you would be wise to stick to the truth.
Spin and outright dishonesty don't help any cause--ask your President about WMD in Iraq--you and Mr. Bush have much in common it seems.
You come across very clearly as one who has a compulsive personal vendetta and is willing to use whatever it takes--including outright lies--to convince others of the rightiousness of your case.
And you evidently have no conscience whatsoever in saying the things you say!
Either that or your objective is sparked by some form of monetary gain to dissuade as many people as possible from buying a Toyota product.
I came upon this site as a Toyota owner looking for info on buying another Toyota--which I intend to do in spite of your fatuous comments and illusions about doom and gloom, and those who challenge your outragious lies.
One more thing.
Insofar as anecdotal stories such as those by of "back yard mechanic", I take them for what they are--anecdotal, unverified, anonymous, unproven, and coupled with a follow on to your rhetoric, probably false!!