Toyota Problems

BASICALLY, the H point is the spot where your hip is located when you are sitting in the driver's seat. It can be raised by lifting the base of the seat, the height of the floor or even the whole vehicle. So cars such as the Toyota Camry have a high seat position, but a Subaru Forester has a high H point because of gravel-road suspension settings. You really need to walk around a few showrooms to see the difference.

YOU can't expect a cheapie to be ultra-reliable, no matter what the brand. The best approach is to look at the established brands -- Toyota Corolla, Mazda 323, Ford Laser and Nissan Pulsar -- and pick the car in the best condition. Concentrate on the popular Japanese brands, but keep an open mind on other makes.

CHECK the history of the car, its service record, etc, so you know what it has been doing. Also, get one of the motoring associations to check over it for you if you're not confident. It should have had the cam belt changed by now, so check to see this has been done. Otherwise you will be up for that. The asking price is steep, despite the low mileage. I would be trying to negotiate it down to $9000 or even less. Remember, it's a buyer's market out there.

No, I don't. I once asked the late Rene Rivkin, an avid car collector, if he thought buying classic cars was a good investment, and his answer was an emphatic no. There is nothing about the Camry wagon, including rarity, to suggest it will appeal to collectors in the future.

IT'S a little-used function in Australia where we seldom have to drive in snowy or icy conditions. But in other countries where snow and ice are common it's very useful. Most often it switches the gearbox over so it starts off in second gear. It's harder to spin the wheels when you start in a higher gear.

TOYOTA generally doesn't recommend converting its cars to LPG. Fuel use of 9.9 litres for 100km is fairly economic, and the car probably would lose performance if converted.

I WOULDN'T buy the BA Falcon with the dedicated LPG system. It's old LPG technology and suffers stalling, stumbling, surging and lack of performance unless it's well maintained. A better alternative is to buy a regular BA wagon and have it converted to dual fuel using one of the latest gas-injection systems that have no drive-ability problems. I get too many complaints about the Falcon to recommend it. The VZ wagon was available with a dual-fuel LPG system developed by IMPCO and using a gas-injection system. That is a good way to go, but I wouldn't recommend buying a VZ wagon and having it converted, because there are said to be problems with the regular Alloytec engine when running on LPG. The Mazda6 is a good car with a good reputation for reliability, as is the Corolla, and I'd be happy to buy either.

BUYING from auction leaves you little room to move if something goes wrong. It's a ``buyer beware'' scenario, and unfortunately you didn't show enough caution. The fact that it was a 1999 model -- when Toyota didn't start selling the Prius here until 2001 -- and the price was $10,000 should have tipped you off that something was amiss. Toyota's technical people say the earlier Prius is quite different to the car they sell here, with a different ECU and battery pack. The result is that Toyota dealers don't have the diagnostic equipment to determine what might be wrong with your car. Even though this is a grey import, Toyota is willing to help out if you call their customer hotline.

THERE'S always a debate about the ability of front-wheel-drive cars to tow as well as a rear-wheel drives, with most people preferring the latter. But it comes down to the sort of towing you are doing. If you're trying to pull a boat out of the water then I would prefer a rear-wheel-drive car, but if most of your towing is on the highway and on relatively flat going where traction isn't a significant problem, then a front-wheel-drive car will handle the job satisfactorily. The Aurion's towing capacity is 1600kg, so it should handle your 1000kg van without a problem.

TOYOTA dropped the Camry wagon from its line-up because its sales figures were falling and demand for Toyota's extensive range of four-wheel-drives was growing. The decision freed space at Toyota Australia's factory at Altona for the building of the Aurion, and made it easier to build export sales for the Camry and Aurion sedans. The real replacement for the Camry wagon is the Toyota Kluger, which is now available also as a front-wheel-drive car. You should consider it.