Toyota Diagnostic - Dont Understand!

[Deniselw]

Hi there

My IQ is a 2009 and has done only 7444 miles and have had no trouble at all with it.

Last week i drove it to the cinema and all was well. I got out and tried to lock it electronically and it wouldnt lock and all dashboard lights kept going on and off. I could not start it again. I called Green Flag out and they said the alternator was ok but the Battery wasnt charging. It was charged up and i drove home ok. Took it to garage the next day to get a new Battery. It was driving fine. They tried 2 new batteries but when they then started the car it was juddering and vibrating badly.

Took it to Toyota for a diagnostic and they say i need a new catalytic converter, new exhaust pipe and a new fuel pump. ALL COSTING £2300!!

I dont understand this diagnosis. The car was running perfectly well beore the new batteries were tried - no juddering. IT ONLY HAS 7444 mileage!! Seems such major work for such low ,mileage.

Any suggestions would be welcomed

PS. I love my car but i know nothing about cars.

Thanks

[Grumpy Cabbie]

We can only speculate without being there. Could the car have been misfiring causing overfueling in the cat burning it out? Have you driven through a flood or deep water?

If you're not happy take the car to a trusted garage for their comments. Ask friends or work colleagues if you're not sure.

[ToyotaAuris]

Thats ridiculous at 7k miles!!! take it back to main dealer!

[tarquin]

Hi

The iQ has a problem with starting. If you are a bit "Lazy" starting it i.e not putting your foot firmly on the clutch ( manual) or ( brake ) auto the car tries to start and doesn't quite make it. In that short time you have flooded it and further attempts to start it floods it more and as its a 45A Battery and its a 2009 car, it gives up the ghost. This ending up with flickering lights etc. now because the Battery dropped very low the Current ECU map drops out and when you get it started it has to build it all again from the sensors. The result is the car judders and keeps trying to cut out. The trick is to keep driving it around not letting it cut out. If it doesn't stop juddering ( hunting ) on idle after.About 45min (usually slowly gets better then all of a sudden the idle stays at 900revs and all is well)you will have to Disconnect the Battery for 30mins and reconnect and try the same again drive it around. Some times the data gets out of sync between the 2 ECU buses and disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it sorts it out. I know a lot about this as it happened to me twice and i cam even replicate what you experienced. As far as the Toyota diagnosis, unless you have the dreaded "EGR" issue coincidently at the same time i would forget what they have said.

On another note. If you have flattened the battery then i would say that battery's days are numbered. They don't return to full charge state and come the cold weather it could give you problems.

David

[Deniselw]

Thanks everyone.

Tarquin - thanks for the advice. Really helpful. Sounds very similar to your experience. I've never had a starting problem before. Dont know what an EGR problem is but it doesnt sound good.

I must admit that driving it for a long time while juddering is a bit scaring. Could I do some lasting damage?.

I'm a bit concerned that a Toyota dealer's diagnosis could be wrong - are they not trustworthy?

Anyway if it is what they are saying then i wouldnt expect it at 7444 on the clock.

Many thanks

[tarquin]

A few things here. First people with 09,59 and some early 10 models suffered with carbon built up in the ports or inlet manifold no1. Causing slow hesitant pulling away from start at low rev's. Toyota produced a Bulletin notice to their dealers suggesting a "cure" for this which meant a lot of component change around the EGR valve. Cost £900. Although if its under 5 yrs old and you have a full service history they will do it for free ( note even if the car only has a 3yr warranty).

Now your car has done little milage so i would not expect that to be a problem but it is probably what Toyota dealer was referring to hence the cost.

I would disconnect your Battery for half hour then reconnect it. When you reconnect it, do it with determination meaning push the clamp on swiftly and hold it on tight while you tighten it up not letting it momentary disconnect. If it does take it off again and wait half hour again. Start the engine and keep it above 1000revs. Every now and then carefully ease off as it dips below the 1000. If it drops to 750/800 recover it again to over 1000 this could take a while until eventually it will stay at around 950 and be ok. I am convinced all that as happened like mine on about 10 occasions after disconnection of the Battery it looses its ECU map and has to rebuild one Most cars have a default map and appears to run normally then they build theirs and you dont know its happening but i think its because its a 3 cylinder ( assuming you have a 3 cylinder) its lumpy at best.

Take what Toyota dealers say with a pinch of salt. There are many examples on here of complete incometance

David

[sweet-dentist]

We had somewhat same problem..

Bad connecting key to car communication...bad starting and hard to lock the car with the remote.

Strangly.....

This was a known phenomenon in that parking aria. It was near a friend of my wife's place.... wierd but happened every time again. With the Smart / with the Verso ... and so on...

Al cars had problems with their software connecting with the car. This when standing away of the car at about 2 meters +.

We call it: Some "electronics in the air" ... No not "love"... :-)

Toyota advised to open the car with the built in key (mechanically) and start the car with the key-holder literally "on" the start button. There even should be a bulletin about this.

So could be an electric "mist" of some kind in this aria of the cinema. HighVoltageWires?

I personally do not think the EGR has anything to do with this / your symptoms are very different... SO no changing of anything at this young age... !

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Thats ridiculous at 7k miles!!! take it back to main dealer!

It's 5 years old and 7,000 miles. That changes things. One, it's way out of warranty as the 5 years/100k was from June 2010. Two, the car has barely done 1,000 miles a year, so will have spent a lot of its life doing lots of short journeys flooding the cat, or one or two long runs.

Very low miles on an aged car is as bad as high miles.

[tarquin]

Hi grumpy

I know my dealer quite well and recently tried to help another memer on here with the "EGR" issue He was quite prepared to do the work for free up to 5 years but outside of that he had to make a case for customer relations who would have accepted it under the condition that it had its servicing done at Toyota during that time. Most dealers dismiss it and wont go the extra mile.

Peter that problem at a friends house is due to wide band data being sent over power pylons whoose harmonics end up on 433.92mhz. Happens at my local Tesco all the time. With groups of drivers sitting around up to half hour waiting for it to pass. UK OFCOM should be held to account over it.

I agree all those short journey's could have prematurely clogged it up. But having had the problem the symptoms are not the same as he has

David

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Hi Peter that problem at a friends house is due to wide band data being sent over power pylons whoose harmonics end up on 433.92mhz. Happens at my local Tesco all the time. With groups of drivers sitting around up to half hour waiting for it to pass. UK OFCOM should be held to account over it.

I'd be interested in this. Can 4g affect it too? My neighbours RAV4 suddenly started alarming, not starting, unlocking or locking remotely etc (keyless car). Just suddenly happened out of the blue. But also our IQ could only be unlocked via the key the old fashioned way and my Prius would lock and unlock itself at random (keyless car too). All these happened within a day a 4g mast went up. Reported it to the masts owners, O2, who denied anything to do with it but the next day their engineers turned up at the mast, switched it off, tinkered with it for a day and then put it back on again and all is well.

Is that complete coincidence or connected? I'm open minded to both, but having seen your comments above made me think. I'm about a mile away from a big powerline too, so that is unlikely to affect things.

[tarquin]

Firstly, the key fob transmits on 433.92mhz and has a variant word encryption i.e the code superimposed on that frequency can be 64, 128, and 256 characters long this makes up the amount of combinations there are hence yours is different from mine and millions of others ( unique)

National grid send data over their pylon distribution system Multiples of that data frequency can end up on 433.92mhz but with no word code so normally it is so strong that it swamps the receiver in the car stopping it seeing the weak signal from the key fob until the transmissions finish. I have never heRd of it locking and unlocking cars but having said that i have heard of it ringing wireless door bells continuously. In fact my fob used to ring my neighbours door bell but with a different tune!!

Moving on to the 4G mast. Its transmission frequency is well above the fob frequency but can also transmit out of band frequency's i.e multiples of the local oscillator frequency. Due to not being installed and set up correctly.

I am a broadcast Transmitter Engineer

David

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Moving on to the 4G mast. Its transmission frequency is well above the fob frequency but can also transmit out of band frequency's i.e multiples of the local oscillator frequency. Due to not being installed and set up correctly.

I am a broadcast Transmitter Engineer

David

What if it were the new 800 mhz 4g band? I know it's above 432 mhz, but isn't there something above bleeding into other bands in the multiples that you refer to? 860/2 = 430 for example. It's all stopped now but I'd be curious on the technicalities of how it works.

Regarding my locking unlocking, whilst talking to my neighbour who's car had been continuously alarming for a few hours at this point, I noticed that my car clunked (as it unlocked) and flashed its indicators which I thought odd. Later that evening I saw them flash through the curtains a couple times. The Mrs wanted to pop out in her car after I'd spoken to the neighbour and that's when she realised the problem with her car. We own the only 3 Toyotas on the street and we all suffered issues that afternoon/evening.

The fact that the engineer was there at 8am the next morning after we'd all rung up AND the problem has not occurred since gives the impression the mast was to blame. If it had just been me, then I'd put it down to a dodgy remote etc.

[tarquin]

Normally you start with a fundamental frequency then its fed into frequency multipliers A simple analogy would be 20mhz oscillator fundamental then fed into say a x10 multiplier then x4 =800mhz. All these frequency's have harmonics. 20 would have 40, 80, 160, 320 etc. 200 would have 400, 800, 1600. All harmonics would diminish in amplitude the higher the frequency. It gets complicated as there other frequency's in between as the frequency's mix together making whats known as products. They can be difficult to calculate. Also added to this mix is the strength of the signal. Some masts can radiate a lot of power and my guess as the mast is close to the cars the operating of the locks is caused by large amounts of radio frequency entering the car/s and being picked up on the actuating cables that operate the the actuators of the locks or swamping the control ECU. Its not uncommon for cars parked near transmitting masts to not start unless pushed a distance away. I remember on one occasion covering my friends dash with bacofoil to enable him to start his

David

[sweet-dentist]

OFFTOPIC...

Ha ha ha ... "dash" ... sorry I heard "head" .... ha ha ha ...

ON-TOPIC again....

[tarquin]

Ha ha ha

David