Daihatsu K3 / 3SZ / 3NR

inline-4 · naturally aspirated · petrol · 2000–present

Also known as: k3-ve, k3, 3sz-ve, 3nr-ve, daihatsu 1.3, daihatsu 1.5, k3-de, hc-ej, k3-ve2, 3sz, 3nr

Daihatsu's 1.3 and 1.5 petrol fours — the K3-VE, 3SZ-VE and 3NR-VE — in the Xenia, Terios, Sirion and the Toyota versions of the same cars.

These are Toyota engines in everything but the badge, or Toyota's engines built by Daihatsu depending on which you mean — the two companies' small-car ranges are the same vehicles, and the 3SZ-VE and 3NR-VE follow Toyota's naming rather than Daihatsu's. So the service literature is often Toyota's, filed under a model name the car does not carry.

They are simple, chain-driven and durable, and their recurring items are the ordinary ones: the timing chain tensioner on high-mileage examples, and the ignition coils, which fail one at a time and give a misfire under load before they give one at idle.

A rough idle that clears as the engine warms is very often the idle air control or a vacuum leak rather than anything internal, and on engines this simple that is worth eliminating first.

Cars fitted with this engine

8 generations, across 1 make. From the authored catalogue — an absent car means the catalogue has not reached it, not that the engine was never fitted.

Daihatsu

Information, not instruction

CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.

Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.

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