Toyota Problems

This hasn’t surfaced as a common problem, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening in some instances. The HiAce rear axle should have seals on the actual differential centre as well as each axle. If these are failing continuously, there are a number of possibilities.

The first is that there’s something bent or damaged that is placing undue force or damaging the seal, causing it to fail prematurely. The second is that the seal (and its replacements) are from a dud batch of seals with either poor manufacturing tolerances or a flaw in the material from which they’re made. The third culprit would be a blocked differential breather which is not allowing the pressure inside the housing escape, and that pressure is causing the oil to be pushed out past the seals.

Even though this model Camry has an official combined fuel consumption figure of 7.9 litres per 100km, the exact number of kilometres you get from each tank of fuel will depend hugely on how and where you drive the car. If your driving is all around the city and suburbs, you might average, say, nine litres per 100km. If it’s all freeway work, then that figure may tumble to as low as seven litres per 100km. Drive the car really gently and you might even get that figure to drop into the sixes.

In any case, the (higher) city figure means the Camry’s 70-litre fuel tank should take you around 750km before you need to fill up. On the highway, meantime, the same 70 litres should carry you almost 1000km before you need to start looking for a petrol station. In reality, of course, the only direction with such projections is down, and every cold start, traffic jam and headwind will take kilometres off those figures.

There are three ways of charging the Toyota bZ4X – two at home and one in public. The first is the cheapest albeit slowest method and uses a standard 240V powerpoint with the charging cable provided by Toyota. The 71.4 kWh battery with 64kWh of usable capacity takes 30 hours to charge from 10 per cent to 100 per cent, with average energy prices in Australia costing between 21 to 36 cents per kWh. Prices can depend on demand and which state you live in, though. Alternatively, owners can install an AC wall charger through a licensed electrician. On average, the cost of these ranges from anywhere between $800 and $2000, with additional charges to install. A 7kW unit will deliver 10 to 100 per cent charging in 10 hours, while an 11kW unit will deliver a 10 to 100 per cent charge in 6.5 hours. The cost to charge can be free if your unit is hooked up to solar power. Finally, a public DC charging station will deliver a charge of 10 to 100 per cent at the bZ4X’s maximum capacity of 150kW in approximately 45 minutes. Charges depend on demand and time of day, but as a general rule you should never pay more than $40.

The Rukus was a really interesting vehicle, combining robust mechanicals with a no-nonsense layout that made the absolute most of the car’s footprint without the trendy all-wheel-drive or faux off-roader looks that many SUVs were trading on at the time. For all that, it wasn’t a huge seller in Australia, so they’re a bit thin on the ground.

The 2010 Rukus was about $30,000 brand new, but its Corolla-based platform and Camry-derived running gear means than 230,000km shouldn’t put it beyond consideration (where such mileage might in a lot of less robust vehicles). Even so, you’d want to see a full service history and complete maintenance record to be sure that it still has some life still in it.

A quick online check reveals a few of Rukuses for sale right now with similar mileages and similar price-tags. Which suggests the price you’ve been quoted is about right, all things considered. Once again, assuming that the service record is complete.

The Toyota GR86 has 228 horsepower (168kW).

It’s probably quicker and simpler to tell you what passenger and SUV hybrids Toyota DOES sell in Australia (as well as reducing the chance of missing some obscure, foreign-market variant). So, right now, that list is made up of the Toyota Yaris Cross, C-HR, Corolla Cross, RAV4, Kluger, Yaris, Camry and Corolla (the latter in both hatch and sedan formats).

It’s a bit surprising to find you’re having trouble getting parts for a Prius C as this model was sold here by Toyota between 2012 and 2020. It was more or less replaced by the Yaris Hybrid, or at least that’s how many buyers saw it. Toyota has one of the biggest dealership networks in the country as well as plenty of dealers in regional areas, and that remains one of the brand’s strengths as far as servicing and parts supply goes. By the way, now that that all new cars sold in Australia are imported, nearly all spare parts beyond normal servicing items (filters, belts etc) will also be imported.

This is a pretty well known problem with the three-litre turbo-diesel that Toyota was fitting to Prados between 2009 and 2014. The problem began when Toyota redesigned the pistons of the engine to help it achieve Euro 4 emissions standards. Earlier versions of the motor that didn’t comply with Euro 4 did not have the same problem.

The piston cracking most commonly occurs once the engine has covered something like 100,000km or 150,000km. It was also most likely to occur in engines that had been modified to produce more turbo-boost or vehicles that had been used for extended periods of towing heavy loads.

Toyota did issue a service bulletin for the problem and began fitting post-2014 engines with different fuel injectors and a revised piston design. Piston failures in these later engines are rarer but still not entirely unknown. Even though a service bulletin was issued, Toyota did not issue a recall for the affected vehicles.