Avensis T180 D-4D 2.2 Diesel Engine Oil Failure

[Nuzy]

Hi

Hope that you are all well, I am new to this forum but really need some advice with something. We just bought what we thought was a nice 07 Avensis with 70,000 miles less than 2 months ago. Sadly for the past few weeks the car was giving us some slight trouble for example it would randomly turn off when stopping at a traffic light. We took it to our local mechanic but he couldn't diagnose what the problem was. Unfortunately last week the engine totally failed, the AA mechanic said there was no oil in the engine even though we had checked this a few weeks earlier. Its only now that I have come to realise that there have been issues with certain Toyota engines which are covered by an extended 7 year/100,000 mile warranty. The 7 year point was reached only a couple of weeks ago, however the problems started before this point and we took the car to our local mechanic within the warranty period, is there any hope of getting this covered under the warranty?? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Devon Aygo]

Honestly unless your local mechanic was a Toyota dealer you have no acceptable confirmation that the fault is that covered by the extension and that it did present within the warranty period.

The 7 year extension ( more than double the standard warranty ) is absolute with no extension or goodwill offered beyond it, also running an engine dry of oil causing a failure would not have been covered, only head gasket failure or measured and confirmed excessive ( greater than 0.5 litres/621 miles ) oil consumption.

Something seems amiss in the diagnosis of " no engine oil " as the car holds 6 litres there is a litre between minimum and maximum on the dip stick, there is an oil level sensor to detect low oil level ( below 5 litres ) and an oil pressure switch if there is a critically low oil level, the oil must have dropped very rapidly for the engine to run out in a "few weeks" and both the level sensor and pressure switches must have been faulty for the oil to drop so critically low unnoticed ?

[Nuzy]

Thanks a lot for your help Devon Aygo, my father and I both checked the oil when we bought the car, we got the MOT done by the dealer we bought it from and our mechanic topped up the oil when he checked it. I suppose this whole thing is just the risk that is inevitably associated with buying a used car. A mechanic at my local Toyota garage said off the top of his head a new engine would cost upwards of £4000 but its a bit cheaper if I get a reconditioned one through my local independent mechanic. If I get a reconditioned T180 will there still be a risk of high oil consumption or head gasket failure or will these issued be resolved? and does anyone know how many of the T180 engines are likely to be affected by this glitch? Thanks for any help.