AtWhatMileage
Engine · 13 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2001 Toyota Celica

1 crash 1 of the 13 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.

Reports of this failure 13
With an odometer reading 9
Reports per 1,000 built 0.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 11%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 1st

When other engine problem gets reported

Owners of the 2001 Toyota Celica report other engine problem at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 160,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 170,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 133,000 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.

11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 9 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
37,000 miles 50,000 miles 96,000 miles 159,000 miles 170,000 miles

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Of these reports, 1 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.

Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure, every year of the Toyota Celica

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

Median
  1. 2000 Toyota Celica other engine problem 54k
  2. 2001 (this one) 96k
  3. 2002 Toyota Celica other engine problem 15k
  4. 2003 Toyota Celica other engine problem 105k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

It is commonly known the 1998 to 2005 1.8l 1zz-fe engines in toyota celica's burn mass amounts of oil after 100,000 miles. (1 quart or more every 500 to 1000 miles). The defect is in the piston. Prior to 2005 there are only 4 holes in the piston behind the oil rings for oil to flow. After 2005 there are 12 holes. This lack of oil flow causes excessive wear on cylinder walls. Thus, the engine starts to burn oil. It gets worse and worse until the engine fails. The engine then needs a complete rebuild or replacement. Toyota has known this for years (like the resent recalls) and has done nothing for the consumer. I know that 100,000 miles would be out of warranty for any engine, but knowing of the defect and doing nothing is not fair to the consumer. Toyota should recall all of these engines and either replace them or pay for them to be rebuilt. *tr

100,000 miles NHTSA complaint 764377 filed 2010-02-18

I had purchased a 2001 toyota celica gt in october 2005, and in 2006 I noticed that the engine was consuming more oil then normal (1 quart oil = 500miles) after the oil was changed at 96,000 miles, I also started noticing a ticking noise coming from the engine compartment, I've taken it to roseville ... See more toyota in california to have it checked out and they kept blaming it on my exhaust, even when I took a technician for a drive to let him listen to the noise, but he still said it was my exhaust. I have taken my car to them multiple time to have them check it out and also had them do a valve adjustment to see if that was it. It's been 4 years now and I'm still dealing with the issue, I am also on a local forum newcelica.org and there has been alot of complaints of them having the same issues. There is no way of fixing the issue, but to only replace the engine with one of 2003-2005 years, there was have been some people who have attempted to fix it, by replacing the internal components with one from the 03-05 years. Please help, I'm getting tired of dealing with this issue and its starting to get too expensive. I thought…

96,000 miles NHTSA complaint 766239 filed 2010-02-24

I had purchased a 2001 toyota celica gt in october 2005 to initially get to and from work, and in 2007 I noticed that the engine was consuming more oil then normal (1 quart oil = 500miles) after the oil was changed at 96,000 miles, I also started noticing a ticking noise coming from the engine compartment that was only noticeable while driving and I don't know what caused it. I've taken it to roseville toyota in california to have it checked out and they kept blaming it on my exhaust, even when I took a technician for a drive to let him listen to the noise, but he still said it was my exhaust. I have taken my car to them multiple time to have them check it out and also had them do a valve adjustment to see if that was it. It's been 3 years now and 133,000 miles later I'm still dealing with these issues, except now its ticking all the time. Please help, I'm getting tired of dealing with this issue and its starting to get too expensive, having to keep buying oil every 500 miles. I am a college student and I commute to and from school (68 miles round trip, five days a week), and these issues I've been experiencing is so frustrating…

96,000 miles NHTSA complaint 769369 filed 2010-03-03

Also reported on the 2001 Toyota Celica

Excessive oil consumption

8 reports median 91k

Other wheel or tire problem

4 reports median 70k

Airbag failed to deploy in a crash

3 reports median 61k

Cruise control failure

3 reports median 150k

Strut, shock or spring failure

3 reports median 25k

Other powertrain problem

3 reports median 75k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 13 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other engine problem happen on the 2001 Toyota Celica?

Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 160,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other engine problem on the 2001 Toyota Celica?

13 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed