Warning Lights

[T5NELtim]

Yes, way. The car is booked in for 08:00 tomorrow morning. Originally the lights came on after the engine warmed up, now they come on immediately. Petrol consumption at 35 rather than 40 +, lumpy at low revs, and rattles like hell under load. Exactly the same as before. I'm going to get the damn thing fixed and seriously consider a petrol Focus - I'll just have to stand the loss, I paid 11500 for it, I'll be lucky if I get 4500 part ex. Bugger.

Petrol consumption???

Would certainly explain the lumpiness and rattling!

Joking aside I feel your pain Springy. I have had enough of modern diesels and paying for repairs so went back to petrol!

Back to the present.

I think you have every right to insist that they:

Investigate the problem as a priority

Explain clearly what they did last time (was it a new 3/4 engine)?

Explain what the current issue is, how they will fix it and make sure that you are not out of pocket.

On the +ve side you are prepared for the worst already (shagged engine) so if it is not as bad as all that then...

Good Luck

Tim

[Mistermena]

Yes, way. The car is booked in for 08:00 tomorrow morning. Originally the lights came on after the engine warmed up, now they come on immediately. Petrol consumption at 35 rather than 40 +, lumpy at low revs, and rattles like hell under load. Exactly the same as before. I'm going to get the damn thing fixed and seriously consider a petrol Focus - I'll just have to stand the loss, I paid 11500 for it, I'll be lucky if I get 4500 part ex. Bugger.

Petrol consumption???

Would certainly explain the lumpiness and rattling!

Joking aside I feel your pain Springy. I have had enough of modern diesels and paying for repairs so went back to petrol!

Back to the present.

I think you have every right to insist that they:

Investigate the problem as a priority

Explain clearly what they did last time (was it a new 3/4 engine)?

Explain what the current issue is, how they will fix it and make sure that you are not out of pocket.

On the +ve side you are prepared for the worst already (shagged engine) so if it is not as bad as all that then...

Good Luck

Tim

Nice color car Tim btw... Same as mine

[Springy]

I meant Diesel of course!

Garage phoned an hour ago. "You had the engine changed, but this does not involve changing the injectors, so you still have the old ones. Our diagnostics show that one of the injectors has failed and needs to be replaced. £(I'm finding it hard to type this next bit)750 + vat, not covered under warranty, so stump up please". A quick call to customer services 01737367600, rant in a totally gentlemanly way (I don't think I said f@ck once) and they are paying for it.

I may consider going back to petrol, on the interwebs it says that on average a diesel has to do 32k per year for 3 years before it becomes more economical than a petrol car. I do 10k, mainly urban, which I found out too late doesn't do diesels any good.

How much does an injector cost? Can these be replaced by smaller garages any more cheaply that £750?

Watch this space.

15:55 update - I phoned the garage to ask when the car would be ready. They asked if I had spoken to head office, and asked what had they told me. I said that they are going to pay for the new injector. He said that there was more to it than that, I will not have to pay anything but head office told them to replace all 4 injectors with new "modified" ones. Seems these engines have another ongoing problem that they are prepared to fix under extended warranty. The car is in overnight now, I'll let you know the outcome.

Edited January 17, 2012 by Springy

[T5NELtim]

I had a mondeo TDCi which had an injector issue (among many others) at about 75k miles.

The ford dealership checked all the injectors and said that they were all on the limit of adjustment. They also pretty much refused to change one single injector saying and gave a number i reasons for this. In the end I px'd the car before getting this done. Under warranty I was told Ford would only ever replace all injectors as when they tried to do them individually the number of times the car came back in a week made it cheaper to do them all at once. The one clear difference between Ford and Toyota is that there is NO WAY Ford were entertaining paying towards this work on a 4 yr old car, it is great that Toyota are paying but it must be seriously hurting them. I wonder if they would be so generous if there hadn't been all the recall issues a year or so back...

Still on the plus side at this rate you will have an entirely new car by the summer!

Anyhow don't blame yourself, I used to swear by diesels and I still prefer the way they drive. The 32k thing is just about the crossover point of costs between diesel and petrol and even then only if you buy new. If you want to buy a diesel and drive it 10k per year it should do that just fine. There is no way that a car should fail in this way whatever your driving. It is fair enough that some systems like DPF need some periods of time at sustained higher rpm BUT engines and injectors should not be failing.

Tim

PS Whilst the problems are a nightmare I am still impressed that Toyota HQ are fixing it for you FOC I really don't think any other manufacturer would.

[cabcurtains]

PS Whilst the problems are a nightmare I am still impressed that Toyota HQ are fixing it for you FOC I really don't think any other manufacturer would.

Too right, thumbs up for Mr T

Please dont mention the F word again, its making me angry just thinking about it

[Springy]

I have to agree regarding the way Toyota have handled this, they have been brilliant. I obviously have gripes with the car, but I have no issues with either head office nor the dealer, and will be mailing them to thank them once this is all over. When I walk in now they know me by name and sit me down with a cup of coffee.

The injectors are a bit of a fright, if they had insisted on payment then I could have eventually been out of pocket by £700 x 4!

[Mistermena]

I meant Diesel of course!

Garage phoned an hour ago. "You had the engine changed, but this does not involve changing the injectors, so you still have the old ones. Our diagnostics show that one of the injectors has failed and needs to be replaced. £(I'm finding it hard to type this next bit)750 + vat, not covered under warranty, so stump up please". A quick call to customer services 01737367600, rant in a totally gentlemanly way (I don't think I said f@ck once) and they are paying for it.

I may consider going back to petrol, on the interwebs it says that on average a diesel has to do 32k per year for 3 years before it becomes more economical than a petrol car. I do 10k, mainly urban, which I found out too late doesn't do diesels any good.

How much does an injector cost? Can these be replaced by smaller garages any more cheaply that £750?

Watch this space.

15:55 update - I phoned the garage to ask when the car would be ready. They asked if I had spoken to head office, and asked what had they told me. I said that they are going to pay for the new injector. He said that there was more to it than that, I will not have to pay anything but head office told them to replace all 4 injectors with new "modified" ones. Seems these engines have another ongoing problem that they are prepared to fix under extended warranty. The car is in overnight now, I'll let you know the outcome.

Hiya mate... I've just picked up your post!

Well it looks to me that Toyota have stepped upto the plate for you on this one! I believe that other forum members (Charlie) had the injectors changed alone with his new 3/4 engine. When I had mine done I just had the 5th injector changed, but I wonder what would have happened if you'd not contacted Toyota Uk! I think the dealer would have smiled and charged you for the injector! so to get all 4 (Massive amount of money) is a true testament to how seriously Toyota are taking these issues and standing by there customers! A very well done to Mr T on this as they must be taking one hell of a hit considering how many units are being changed.

Looking back it would have been better for you to have had a petrol powered car over an oil burner considering the amount of miles that you do! but you now have (Or should have) a fantastic car with 3k of injectors alone with a new engine that hopfully will last you for very many years!

Just remember that you are doing lots of town driving so it would be prudent (On some occasions) to give the car a good Italian tune up every now and again on the motorway ect to blow the !Removed! out of the cylinders and EGR valve and DPF. I'd also consider running it on V-Power as I've just cleaned my EGR out today and there was hardly any carbon/soot build up and none of the breather holes were bloked at all. So I believe that the fuel is doing some good along with my BG244 every 10k...

Lets hope that this is the last major problem you have with the car!!!

Ps... I'd keep it now and try and enjoy what you have :D

[Springy]

Thanks for that - now I am really going to show my ignorance with a couple of questions. The italian tune-up, how long, how often, and at what revs on the m-way?

V-power? What is that? Finally, I hear mention many times of the "5th injector" -what is that? My garage tells me I only have four.

Just sitting here waiting for the phone call from the garage now....

[Mistermena]

Thanks for that - now I am really going to show my ignorance with a couple of questions. The italian tune-up, how long, how often, and at what revs on the m-way?

V-power? What is that? Finally, I hear mention many times of the "5th injector" -what is that? My garage tells me I only have four.

Just sitting here waiting for the phone call from the garage now....

I would do it onece a week and go to around the 4000rpm. V-Power is Shell's top of the range fuel and the 5th injector is for the emissions that you should have had replaced when you had the new engine fitted. The other 4 injectors are the ones that sit at the top of the rocker cover so thats all good...

[Heidfirst]

d the 5th injector is for the emissions that you should have had replaced when you had the new engine fitted.

isn't the 5th injector only fitted to -D-CAT equipped cars (in the UK on T25 Avensis mostly T-180s)?

[Mistermena]

Yep!... your correct mate! Got lost in the thread with all these engine issues.

[Springy]

Just read Charlie's post re the engine swap, it says on there that the injectors should have been changed anyway. Interesting point re the engine number change being reported to DVLA, I hadn't realised.

[T5NELtim]

Re the italian tune up...

make sure the engine is up to temperature!!!

Then what I used to do is accelerate briskly through gears up to 4000rpm

Then cruise for 5-10 minutes at over 2000rpm - you will need to choose a lower gear to do this probably.

There is not point in just thrasing around like a **** you really just need to get the engine outputting some power for an extended period.

It is important to do the cruise bit as this lets the engine and exhaust get up to a high temperature naturally which aids all the cleaning systems (cat, DPF etc). Wastes some fuel but meh....

Tim

[cabcurtains]

I dont want to seem pedantic but...just to clarify.

The blast is to get the soot out to try and keep the EGR clean.

The steady cruise is to try and enforce a DPF regen cycle, its only required for DPF equipped D-CAT cars. It should be a non stop run and take more like a minimum of 15mins. If this type of driving is on your commute its not really needed.

Springy wont have a DPF.

Diesels only, unless your a petrol driver and really dont go anywhere!

[T5NELtim]

I dont want to seem pedantic but...just to clarify.

The blast is to get the soot out to try and keep the EGR clean.

The steady cruise is to try and enforce a DPF regen cycle, its only required for DPF equipped D-CAT cars. It should be a non stop run and take more like a minimum of 15mins. If this type of driving is on your commute its not really needed.

Springy wont have a DPF.

Diesels only, unless your a petrol driver and really dont go anywhere!

That's not pedantic, that's helpful! Like I say it is the practice that I used on a DPF (handicapped) vehicle. Noted that OP does not have DPF.

Pedantic would be me pointing out that heat is also necessary for exhaust catalytic converters to work effectively - though this is less likely to cause an issue in car behaviour but is useful if you find that the vehicle is struggling on emissions at MoT time.

Tim

[Springy]

Thanks for all this guys, it is really appreciated. As you have probably guessed I am a complete noob and know very little about these engines (or indeed any other engine). So, as regards the Italian tune up we have decided that my car (see profile) does not have a DPF (I thought these were compulsory) and all I need the Italian tune up for is to blast the EGR clean every now and again.

According to http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuels-and-environment/diesel-particulate-filters.html

"The exhaust emissions standards for new cars have effectively required fitment of a DPF in the exhaust of diesel cars since 2009 when the 'Euro 5' standard came into force. In fact, many cars registered before 2009 will have had one fitted too in anticipation of the change in standards."

Can we be sure that I do not have a DPF on my 2007 car?

BTW, I've got the car back and am just waiting for the fuel consumtion to settle down - I hope I can get it back up to 40+ from 35!

Thanks again chaps.

[cabcurtains]

Only the T180 on a 2007 has a DPF.