Toyota Problems

We have received a number of similar reports on the same issue, and we have passed them all on to Toyota for a response, which we will publish when we receive it.

We phoned around and the price you were quoted was very close to the prices we were quoted, it was actually lower than one. Few of us look beyond the purchase price when we buy a new car, but it’s a good idea to check the ongoing costs we will face after we’ve bought it. You experience is a good example; by buying the Navara you face higher servicing costs.

It will almost certainly affect the structure of the front-end of the HiLux, which will in turn affect the crumple rate of the body, and in turn affect the operation of the airbag.

After the second attempt to balance them you should have test driven the car with the guy from the tyre store to see for yourself that they were balanced properly. If that drive showed there was still a problem you could have demanded they be changed for wheels that could be balanced or asked for your money back.

Lots of six-cylinder LandCruisers have been fitted with the traditional air valve type of LPG system and it works pretty well. The downside to it is that you lose a fair amount of performance by using an air valve system, simply because it’s hard to precisely tune it to the engine, and you really feel the loss of performance on a big, heavy car like the ’Cruiser. The better choice today is a vapour-injection system, which can be precisely tuned to the engine so that it will perform as well on gas as it would on petrol.

We have asked Toyota for a response on this issue, but so far they haven’t come back to us. Stay tuned, as we will continue to press for an answer.

I haven’t heard of any such policy and I haven’t seen anything written in warranties specifically about rattles and squeaks. My enquiries at Toyota have failed to get any answer that might help you. I doubt that there is such a policy; I reckon the dealer is trying to get rid of you because they don’t want to spend the time to fix your complaint. In Toyota’s defence, however, I would say that squeaks and rattles could, after a period of time, be regarded as the result of wear and tear rather than a design deficiency and hence not covered by the warranty.

No, using an injector cleaner would only help if you were running on petrol, it would have no effect at all if you were running on gas. I would suspect that the engine is tired and in need of a freshen up, particularly if it's been running on gas for some time. Installing new plugs and leads would help, but I would suggest you have the compression checked. That would tell you if the valves are sticking, or even leaking.

The repairs seem to have been carried out competently and the tests confirm that the engine is in good condition, so I would be happy to buy the car. The price your friend is asking is about the current market value and the kays are about average.