Prado V6 engine failure - anybody heard of it before?tory

Hi all

Friends have just had their Prado donk (petrol V6) let go big time - ie 2 broken conrods and it gets worse from there. Damage is pretty amazing for a car that has only done around 62,000 km. There was no warning - wasn't overheating, no oil light coming on and no lack of performance. Just a bit of a bang as they cruised along at 95 - 100kmh, 150km into a trip from Melbourne to Mansfield.

Its a 7/99 GXL Auto. They've only had the car 6 months or so but it came with a complete Toyota dealer service record & the previous owners didn't even know how to put it in low range, so it certainly hasn't had a hard time.

Seems it has suffered a major component failure of some sort (mechanic can't work out what broke first!), so I'm wondering if anyone has heard of a simlar instance - any history of such failures would obviously assist in an approach to Toyota!!

Rgds
cb