[bradleyland]

Just wanted to give a heads up to fellow owners. You should inspect your intake for this broken fitting. The plastic weld on my intake failed, allowing the engine to draw in unfiltered air. Yeah, I feel sick to my stomach.

We're at 97k miles (156k km), but the fitting appears to have been broken for quite some time. Full details in my other thread.

Video of broken part:

Photos

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[pungo]

Generally, these types parts don't fail on their own, but rather get stressed from someone working on the vehicle, therefore causing a crack. I'm not saying that's why yours failed, but it's very common for human induced failures like this. Sure, plastic parts get brittle with heat cycles over time and sometimes fail on their own or are easily broken when wrenching in the area. Has someone worked on that area of the vehicle lately?

[bradleyland]

Originally Posted by pungo

Generally, these types parts don't fail on their own, but rather get stressed from someone working on the vehicle, therefore causing a crack. I'm not saying that's why yours failed, but it's very common for human induced failures like this. Sure, plastic parts get brittle with heat cycles over time and sometimes fail on their own or are easily broken when wrenching in the area. Has someone worked on that area of the vehicle lately?

Generally, I agree. We recently had the serpentine belt replaced — had it done when they were also doing control arm thrust bushings in front instead of doing it myself (really regretting that now) — which is a prime opportunity to put stress on the vent hose, and therefore the fitting. When I first saw the issue, I was ready to call the shop owner and light him up... But I dug further before jumping someone else's case.

Inspection of the area where the plastic weld failed shows a lot of wear. This has been loose for a long time, and this is the first serpentine belt replacement. There hasn't been any other shop work done in any areas that would stress this part, and when I do service, I'm very cautious.

I can't shake the thought that they broke it when doing the serpentine belt, but that was literally a couple of weeks ago. Given the amount of wear on the weld site, I find it hard to pin it on this particular visit.

In general, I agree with you though. I strongly suspect it happened at some point when work was being performed. I had the shop do spark plugs in 2019 because I was traveling too much to get to it myself. That's the only other engine bay service I can think of where they'd have an opportunity to break it.

[KC87ZB]

Plus these intake tubes are a known failure point. Nearly 100k miles and the level of brittleness won't be your friend. Mine is now aluminum but I broke it myself when doing a bunch of engine compartment work and I was shocked at just how brittle the tube had become. Mine broke at the "bellows" portion at the turbo inlet just after that bend.

I'd find it hard to believe that the nipple for the pair of vacuum hoses just broke without some help.