Advice Needed, Newbie With Mmt Gearbox Problem (flashing N)

[Dariaa86]

Hi everyone,

I bought a Toyota Yaris 1.33 2010 yesterday and unfortunately on my way home from a car dealer the gear slipped into neutral. I had to pull over, restart the engine multiple times and wait a few minutes before I could start driving again. I was driving for an hour after this with no problems, however after reading a number of posts in regard to MMT issues I'm thinking of returning the car.

Do you think I should return the car? I've read that this is a recurrent issue and I'm worried that once the dealer fixes the car (it's under 3 months warranty) it might happen again after some time. This is definitely not the experience I was prepared for.

I would greatly appreciate your comments.

[mrpj]

Bad move purchasing a five year old car with that transmission. It's a Marmite transmission, not liked by many but others like it. I had the misfortune of owning one from new (2010). I hate Marmite too.

Is it a Toyota dealer?

I, personally, would write a rejection letter to the dealer, you've only had the car a day! If you do reject it don't use it further. I suspect they knew there was a problem. You will not be far off the end of the 5 year Toyota new car warranty depending on whether the car is post 1st June 2010 or before. Obviously out of warranty if it only has the three year.

You are leaving yourself open to some large repair costs with the MMT if it gives any further trouble and I suspect it will at that age. It's quite a specialist system and possibly most independent garages will not go near.

[NWCarParts]

Definitely return it as it is not fit for purpose.

As mrpj says it's a marmite transmission and we see lots of these scrapped with unusable transmission. Try and stretch to one of the later model cars if you can as these were an improvement.

[Dariaa86]

Thank you for your advice. I'll send a rejection letter today.

I bought it from a non-Toyota dealer. I spoke with them yesterday and I was told that taking out the Battery for 20mins will fix the problem permanently as it will reset the computer. First thing that came to my mind was that it might also reset all the error codes so I said that I'm not going to do that and I'm not interested in repairing the car. They offered a different car instead but they don't have anything else that could interest me. I hope they will give me a refund without making it extra difficult, I used a credit card so I guess it should be easier to get my money back.

[Catlover]

The Toyota Yaris has a good reputation generally speaking, its just a few things on certain models/specifications which can cause problems and unfortunately for you Daria, the type of automatic gearbox you bought with that car has become to be known a a no no.

Pity you didnt find the forum before you bought it. In theory it seems a great idea, its a manual gearbox with controls to change the gear automatically. With this system the fuel economy of the car stays the same a a manual g/box (because it is) as opposed to the "normal" automatic gearbox which suffers on fuel economy. Shame really.

[Wiz201]

I had a 2009 Yaris MMT Yaris that did flashing N thing but it only did it when I was changing from E to R for example. Unfortunately it developed other problems and I got rid.

My 2014 Aygo MMT does occaisonally do the flashing N but again it happens spasmodically only when I've stopped and I'm changing E to R etc. Its had no other problems but fortunately I'm protected with a 5 year warranty so I'll hang onto it for the finance period of three years.