Toyota Problems

The first thing to check would be the fuse or relay that protects the power-windows’ electrical circuit. Designed to protect wiring from an electrical spike or short-circuit, these fuses and relays can also fail for no apparent reason apart from old age.

If one window went south on its own, you’d be looking for a problem specific to that door, but since they all went out at the same time, you need to look for a fault a little deeper into the wiring. Which is where a blown fuse or dud relay comes into the reckoning.

The first job is to find the fuse or relay in question. The owner’s manual (which should still be living in the glove-box) will have a chapter that shows the location(s) of the fuse boxes in the vehicle. You might find there’s one under the dashboard near the steering column, and another under the bonnet. The same chapter in the handbook should also identify which fuse and relay does what, but this info should also be printed on the inside of the fuse-box cover.

Once you’ve identified the fuse or relay, you can check the fuse visually, or have an auto electrician check the relay for proper operation. If that component is the problem, a quick, simple and cheap replacement will restore the windows to full health.

If that doesn’t work, then an auto electrician is probably your next stop, as you could be searching for a broken wire or a failed switch-block or some other obscure fault.

A noise or vibration that is engine speed dependent is usually associated with the driveline, while a similar problem that occurs at a particular road speed is more often a problem with a wheel or suspension component. The main exception to that is the differential which is part of the driveline but determines the vehicle’s speed, so can contribute a speed-dependent noise or vibration, too.

Beyond that, you could be looking at a fault with a wheel bearing, a deformed tyre, bent rim, worn suspension bush, bent axle or suspension arm or pretty much anything else. A rolling-road dynamometer (kind of like a treadmill for cars) might be one way of achieving the problem speed while a mechanic looks and listens on.

The Crown is a popular grey (private) import and there are plenty of them getting around in Australia these days. Mechanically, they share a lot of components with other Toyotas and some Lexus models, including the hybrid variants. Technically speaking, because the latter-day Crown was never officially imported here (earlier versions were) a Toyota dealership may or may not wish to take on the maintenance. But you should have no trouble finding a workshop that knows its way around these cars and perhaps even specialises in them.

Mechanical parts should not be too hard to get hold of, but body parts and trim pieces might be another matter as they will be Crown-specific and not shared across other models. As with any car, the price you’ll pay will depend on availability and whether you want brand-new or are prepared to accept second-hand parts.

While the sedan sold alongside the hatchback version of the Corolla in Australia, the hatchback easily outsold the sedan. And that’s pretty much the reason you still see a lot of hatchbacks getting around, but sedans are thin on the ground. They just didn’t sell in the same numbers back in the day. Fundamentally, buyers were much more likely to go for the extra practicality of the hatchback layout.

Of course, that’s in Australia. In some other markets (China, for example) the sedan version of a particular make and model is often more popular than the hatchback variant. It’s a cultural thing, in essence.

Torque converters have been known to seize and, if that’s the case, it could stall the engine because there’s no slip to allow the engine to idle while the car is stationary. You need to have this checked by a transmission specialist who may have seen this very thing before. Either way, the vehicle won’t be going anywhere under its own power.

Even if the gearbox itself had frozen solid, the torque converter should still allow enough slip to let the engine idle. So that’s definitely where to start the investigation.

The Corolla of this vintage has a fine reputation as a vehicle unlikely to fail in such a spectacular way. Assuming, as you say, the servicing has been by the book and the car has not been abused, used to tow massive loads, or operated as a rally car, then the suspicion is that the crankshaft of this particular example may have contained a casting or material fault from day one. This wouldn’t be visible to the people who assembled the engine, but could lead to such a failure after a period of time.

I’d be inclined to talk to Toyota Australia’s customer service department to see if there’s any financial or mechanical help on offer to repair your vehicle. Even though your vehicle is out of warranty, you might find Toyota will be as horrified as you at such a major failure at such low kilometres and will do something about it. Assuming that a manufacturing flaw is, indeed, the cause of the failure.

If you don’t get anywhere but wish to pursue it, an independent examination by an appropriate engineer might be able to pin-point the cause of the failure, at which point you might have another bargaining chip. Certainly a broken crankshaft at 62,000km is neither normal nor acceptable.

The last decade of dual-cab four-wheel-drive utes have emerged as the tow-vehicles of choice, and you see them everywhere filling roles exactly like the one you have planned. Popular models include the Ford Ranger you’ve nominated, Toyota HiLux, Mazda BT-50, VW Amarok, Mitsubishi Triton, Nissan Navara and Isuzu D-Max. But there are also cheaper alternatives including makes like the South-Korean made Ssangyong and various Chinese brands like LDV and Great Wall.

Just make sure you know exactly how much you need to tow before making a decision as some of the cheaper models don’t have the same outright towing capacity and even if they do, some of them don’t have the engine performance to make towing as easy as it should be. For parts availability, the Toyota would be king in really remote areas, but any of the major brands are pretty well covered in Australia.

Meantime, don’t rule out ute-based wagons such as the Ford Everest, Isuzu MU-X, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and Toyota Fortuna. These offer better ride comfort when unladen thanks to more sophisticated rear suspensions and most have as much or almost as much towing capacity as their ute brethren.

The petrol V6 engine in an FJ Cruiser is a fairly conventional piece of equipment and shouldn’t represent too much of a problem for a mechanic with decent experience. Poor starting can be caused by any number of things but will usually come down to a fault with either the ignition or fuel system.

An engine that takes two attempts to start can often be suffering from poor fuel pressure, so a check of the pump and filters would be a good place to start. But a slack ignition system can also cause the same symptoms. If the problem is a relatively new one, it’s possible that you might have unwittingly bought a tankful of old or contaminated fuel. Start with the basics, including a mechanic that knows their way around this engine.

If the car won’t accelerate beyond 40km/h, it could be because it has gone into limp-home mode in order to protect itself from further damage. If so, that’s possibly because there’s a major problem somewhere in the driveline. But the chainsaw noise is pretty worrying, too, and suggests that something is rubbing on something else that shouldn’t be.

The best advice is to not drive the car any farther until it’s been checked by a mechanic. Continuing to drive it risks doing more damage to whatever is already wrong with it.

Even though your car has a hybrid driveline, the bit that runs on petrol uses the same technology as any other Toyota petrol engine. So E10 is fine according to Toyota, although it also says 10 per cent (hence E10) is the highest percentage of ethanol you should consider using. Likewise, 95 RON petrol presents no problems.