The 1ZZ-FE engine was in production for nearly 10 years, starting in 1998 and ending between 2007 and 2008. Toyota made this inline 4-cylinder engine for a wide variety of cars including the Corolla, Avensis, Matrix, and Celica, to name a popular few.
It boasted 120 to 140 horsepower and 122 to 126 lb-ft of torque. While it’s not much to boast about, it got the job done in the cars that housed it.
The major issue with this engine was just how much oil it consumed. Just appreciate most of Toyota’s other oil-guzzling engines, we can trace the root problem to the pistons and piston rings. The pistons in the 1.8L 1ZZ-FE were small, and Toyota patched that with bigger rings. Of course, the bigger rings wore down and couldn’t scrape out enough oil, meaning more oil got burned inside the combustion chamber. Toyota had to extend the warranty on many car models using this engine and addressed the issue in July 2005.
[Featured image by Milkmandan via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]
