98 Toyota Corolla Check engine light - tune up and valve cover gasket 

I drive a 98 corolla as well and after much research I've figured out all of these corollas from 98-02 suffer from ring problems causing heavy oil consumption. My plugs do the same thing every 10,000 miles

my 2000 Corolla with almost 300K miles was running on 3 cylinders. So I got 4 new NGK plugs and used a big vacuum cleaner with a smaller hose attached to remove any debris BEFORE the old plugs came out and used paper towels to get any oil in the spark plug holes....Then replacing all the plugs and a new PCV valve and cleaning the MAFS with electronics cleaner and a new air filter made it run smoothly again .... Toyotas are famous for burning oil (the bottom piston rings are too weak and do not get all the oil off the cylinder walls... to meet federal standards). So just pay for burned oil and change plugs each year... I have had no car payment in 15 years! Oil is cheap and plugs are cheap and wait until the weather is mild (September/October in VA) to do this yourself....

Thank you all. Yes. I just read at repairpal.com that "The Toyota Corolla 1.8L produced between 1998 and 1999 has a known issue with the valves that if left unchecked, will cause burned valves and engine performance issues", plus, "To repair the burnt valves, the cylinder head must be removed and rebuilt, which is a costly internal engine repair, however, this issue can be prevented through inspection and adjustment of valve clearances every 40,000 miles."

The Haynes Manual for the 8th generation Corolla say to put a small dab of the expensive Toyota gsket sealant over by the passenger side of the cylinder head where the straight line part of the gasket takes an angle outwward to make room for the timing chain system. I didn't see you mae mention of that or actually do that. The valve covers on my Tundtra need that as well. Hopefully it wont leak on your customer's vehicle. I think I would've run a compression test on the cylinders and see what that showed you, but to each hi or her own. My 99 VE has 249k on the odo and I just bought it and it has similar issues with sorry maintenance. Fortunately, the compression test came out 205-220 and my plugs were grungy but nothing like the ones you pulled out. Might not have been a bad idea to check the valve clearances as well. I would've likked to see how you got those old gaskets off the 2 long bolts in the middle of the valve cover. MAybe next video......

Those cylinders are toast!!!....Temporary fix to a serious problem/overhaul. Cant believe how bad those spark plugs looked! And guess where all that went. Inside the cylinder. Too bad you didn't scope the cylinders to see how bad they looked. Thanks for the video!!!

Problem is the oil return holes in the pistons, they get clogged. Can be fixed by cleaning them out and add some more holes into it. I changed my gasket without any glue, no problem.

Seven years ago... too late today 2023 to ask you where did you plug the end of the spark plugs wires from the valve to the coils? for my 1998 they go , for 1,2,3,4 to 1-4 and 3-2 coils. It is written in the side of the coils. Mechanics have messed up my engine by plugging 1-4 and 2-3 and that gave me misfires. This goes for 1998 and 1999 Toyota Corollas 1.8L according to my book. So, if you left that end to the coils wires in the same position ... and the position was incorrect .... the problem will persist in the future. The valve cover gasket was looking pretty new to me. Many thanks for your videos.

props to the japanese engineer(s) who designed this engine...this might be the easiest valve cover gasket job on the planet. zero props to the owner of this car for neglecting proper maintenance.

They never changed those plugs.

only thing I can say is I would have used the torque wrench a bit.And I Never put anything into an aluminum head or block without A.Anti-sieze for spark plugs and l loctite the rest.that is probably the type of customer that doesn't change oil or any maintenance till they fail an inspection or get stuck by the side of the road.Otherwise you're a good wrench!

fill the oil and check the gas...drive it till it drives no more!

I can't get the top off do I have to take the spark plugs out??

Thanks exactly what i needed to see.

so it was just the gasket? did the check engine light go away?

So why was it smoking still after you replaced the had valve gasket and the spark plugs???? What other options can it be?

Did not seal the seam at the timing chain. Bad bad.

I’ve got oil in the spark plug well. Will a valve cover gasket kit fix that? By the way mine is a 1999. I don’t know if that makes a difference.

Oil gets past the ring and burned in the combuston chamber.Stucked piston ring is the cause.Please see toyotanation.com website for the fix for this problem

did u clean the pcv valve? it burns oil

Yip"oil & water mix,engine needs to rebuild,(the oil & compression rings need to change)

LOL comes a time when the grease boy need's to stand down and the artist with the rubber glove's takes controll

Excellent video! Very helpful information as to gasket. Once you got the gasket to stick to the cover, did you use any adhesive between the cylinder head surface and the gasket? Or just put on clean with no adhesive or rtv? Thanks. I appreciate your time.

No it was the plugs. But they became fouled by the fact that the car is burning oil.

Are you saying to not torque it to Toyota specs? I tried to install a head gasket on a 96 Saturn SC2 without torquing to specs and oil drowned the spark plugs.

I must be lucky I guess. I purchased my toyota corolla with 203,000 in 2019 from a guy that didn't take care of it. After a little TLC I am at 240,000 w/o any oil burning/consumption. Question I have for people is the sparks I use are NGK 3967 which is OEM, some people I found on youtube are using NGK 4996 (laser Iridium) issue I have with this is that NGK website doesn't show that as a match? Wondering what others are using

how much does this cost to get the same thing done on my car

That engine only hold 3.5 quarts of oil with filter. Lack of routing oil changes is the cause.

Y el aceite no selo cambiaste ?

Seeing as the misfire occurs between to adjacent cylinders, i wonder if the head gasket is going bad.

this is a long video of a scanning tool... not a regular cheap OBDII code reader (reads the ECM codes set). This assumes you have a real scanner, which most guys do not...

Those plugs are fine. Put them back in.

“Changed a week ago”😂😂😂😂😂😂

Here's another lack of OWNER maintenance video people. Look at the filth on the engine.

It's a auto that's the problem

speeding up the video and his voice too much dimmed makes it unusable.

Those valve covers are cast aluminum, setting on edge of garbage can and kneeling on it, not cool. Would have cracked it if it fell from garbage can

He didn't address the ACTUAL problem that actually caused it to need a new valve cover gasket and plugs... he said "he'll be back in a few weeks" "at least it's running now" what a load of BS, this is why I don't trust mechanics... fix the car!!!! don't just fix it so it will run for a few weeks...

Thank you all. Yes. I just read at repairpal.com that "The Toyota Corolla 1.8L produced between 1998 and 1999 has a known issue with the valves that if left unchecked, will cause burned valves and engine performance issues", plus, "To repair the burnt valves, the cylinder head must be removed and rebuilt, which is a costly internal engine repair, however, this issue can be prevented through inspection and adjustment of valve clearances every 40,000 miles."

That engine only hold 3.5 quarts of oil with filter. Lack of routing oil changes is the cause.