I'm a new VX owner so imagine my dismay at discovering this wonderful little "sometimes the engines just blow" problem. :sighp:

If you search the web the issue appears to be more obvious with Trooper owners, especially '98 - '00, due to their much larger population.

See -
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/t130758.html

According to this post Isuzu attempted to remedy this problem with different rings for the 2001 model year.

Is that so, and did the remedy work?

I have a 2001 VX built in Nov '00. Is there a way to know if I have a newer 3.5 or a leftover older one? This would sure help with piece of mind.

I agree that Isuzu should do something about correcting this for everyone (recall and fix), not just the folks under warranty. They shouldn't just wait around and hope that people are out of warranty when their engines quit.

Apparantly Isuzu is struggling to simply survive in the U.S. so I'm not expecting a recall to happen anytime soon.

My '89 Amigo has 160,000 on it and I change the oil once a year. I didn't even consider checking maintenance issues before buying another Isuzu. Guess the days of "weld the hood shut'" Isuzu reliability are long gone.