Need Help

[JosieEth]

I drive a 2000 petrol 5 door RAV4. The yellow engine symbol lit up and the engine stalled. I was able to restart but the engine stalled after 5 secs. Took to garage who were unable to rectify problem but they stated that it would appear to be ECU problem. Took to a Toyota dealer, it has been there a week they repeated all work previously undertaken by first garage. Toyota dealer now saying it is an ECU problem and atre quoting £2000 to fix which includes £500 ignition check which I query was required plus £750 replacement ECU which they state May rectify fault. Can anyone please offer some advice as to why Toyota dealer was unable to diagnose ECU fault in the first instance.

[anchorman]

Welcome to the club Josie.

I'm afraid that the dealer is limited to what they can do in terms of diagnosis on your vehicle. As time has gone on, vehicle onboard diagnostics (OBD) have become more and more sophisticated and can now give a huge amount of information but your 2000 model gave only very basic hints by way of 2 digit codes. The dealer probably followed the workshop manual fault finding procedure for non starting and although it points to the ECU there are lots of faults that can show ECU but they are an affect but not the cause.

For that reason with most early ECU problems it was a case of keep substituting parts in until it was fixed and with no guarantees. The problem is it is at your expense. You could try phoning to see if any good specialists will take it on. They will do the same thing but maybe at a lower hourly rate.

[bothwell_buyer]

just hope you didn't waste money to come overa watch Celtic get gubbed.

Ancs is totally right as usual.

You are better gettin the car to a Jap car specialist tuner - they invariably know much more about tuning Jap engines.

Dealers remember need to have maechanics that specialise in cars from a Prius (wots that?) through to Landcruisers. I've found in 15 years of Toyota cars wot I run that the Jap car specialist near me in Motherwell is fair, truthful and doesn't rip me off on faults that he takes more time to find....

Thankfully he and his workers have got my number 2 RAV sprintin g along and the number 1 RAV becoming one of the fastest accelarating road legal cars around.

Your car is 9 years old and the dealers will just replace anything they come across - find a place that knows what they are doing. Its easy enough to swap an ecu to try it out before charging you the price of 1000 gallons of Guinness.

[JosieEth]

Many thanks Anchorman and Bothwell Buyer.

Can anyone recommend a specialist tuner working in N Ireland? The main dealer I am using has their Renault expert working on the RAV.