RAV4

[DaiTooth]

My daughter has just bought a 55 plate RAV4 petrol car with a warranted mileage of 50K. We have two older RAV4 's in the family but this is the first drive by wire. She comments that on cold starting it revs. to 1800 - 2000 rpm then settles back to around 1200 and ticks over at 800 when warm. Also when doing a long hill descent with the throttle 1/4 open the car lurches as if it has fuel problems. On the open road it drives well returning about 31 mpg. Are there any checks that can be made on the numerous sensors that these cars deploy?

[firemac]

We've owned 3 petrol RAV 4.2s, all automatics, and one of their many attributes is an excellent smooth drivetrain (I've owned a manual diesel 4.2 and its drivetrain was similarly smooth so I'd guess the petrol manuals are even silkier). Depending upon the cars that your girl has driven before, it may just be a case of getting used to the RAV especially, as with most Japanese cars, the engine tends to be very quiet and vibration-free (almost like a sewing machine!) so they tend to be "over-revved" for want of a better description by new owners that are not used to them.

Does the car have a Toyota service history? If so, I'd have thought that it would be in good shape. Nevertheless you can buy an OBD Analyser from eBay, Amazon, etc that allows you to plug in and check if there are any fault codes stored in the ECU that may be causing problems. I have a Memoscan unit that I bought for £15 on eBay and although simple, it reads all the codes and comes with a full dictionary of all the fault codes and allows you to then speak to a garage with some authority about any fix required. Certainly cheaper than the £50-100 a dealer would charge for plugging the car into their diagnostic machine. But hopefully it will simply confirm that there is nothing amiss. If you are getting 31MPG on average (is that as per the OBC display or a calculated B2B figure? The OBC read-outs can be innaccurate to varying degrees so a manual calc is recommended) that would seem to indicate that the car is running reasonably OK - the petrol RAV is not known for its frugality but that is more than made up for by its reliability and durability.

Good luck.

[DaiTooth]

This daughter's car is a 5 speed manual, she is resigned to it reving a bit at start up but it's the jerkiness when going downhill on a slightly open throttle that is annoying. No engine warning lights have appeared. I presume that there is a continuous period of time that the fault has to exist before it activates a code. If it corrects itself within a certain time the code does not appear.

[firemac]

2 hours ago, DaiTooth said:

This daughter's car is a 5 speed manual, she is resigned to it reving a bit at start up but it's the jerkiness when going downhill on a slightly open throttle that is annoying. No engine warning lights have appeared. I presume that there is a continuous period of time that the fault has to exist before it activates a code. If it corrects itself within a certain time the code does not appear.

If there is a fault, it will generate a code imediately and it will stay in the ECU until it is cleared. That can be done with the OBD reader, should you get one.

The higher revs on starting from cold is normal and from what you have said, they settle down fairly quickly so that sounds like the injection system is working correctly. If she goes downhill on a closed throttle, i.e. foot right off the accelerator, is there still jerkiness?

[DaiTooth]

22 hours ago, firemac said:

We've owned 3 petrol RAV 4.2s, all automatics, and one of their many attributes is an excellent smooth drivetrain (I've owned a manual diesel 4.2 and its drivetrain was similarly smooth so I'd guess the petrol manuals are even silkier). Depending upon the cars that your girl has driven before, it may just be a case of getting used to the RAV especially, as with most Japanese cars, the engine tends to be very quiet and vibration-free (almost like a sewing machine!) so they tend to be "over-revved" for want of a better description by new owners that are not used to them.

Does the car have a Toyota service history? If so, I'd have thought that it would be in good shape. Nevertheless you can buy an OBD Analyser from eBay, Amazon, etc that allows you to plug in and check if there are any fault codes stored in the ECU that may be causing problems. I have a Memoscan unit that I bought for £15 on eBay and although simple, it reads all the codes and comes with a full dictionary of all the fault codes and allows you to then speak to a garage with some authority about any fix required. Certainly cheaper than the £50-100 a dealer would charge for plugging the car into their diagnostic machine. But hopefully it will simply confirm that there is nothing amiss. If you are getting 31MPG on average (is that as per the OBC display or a calculated B2B figure? The OBC read-outs can be innaccurate to varying degrees so a manual calc is recommended) that would seem to indicate that the car is running reasonably OK - the petrol RAV is not known for its frugality but that is more than made up for by its reliability and durability.

Good luck.

 

14 hours ago, firemac said:

If there is a fault, it will generate a code imediately and it will stay in the ECU until it is cleared. That can be done with the OBD reader, should you get one.

The higher revs on starting from cold is normal and from what you have said, they settle down fairly quickly so that sounds like the injection system is working correctly. If she goes downhill on a closed throttle, i.e. foot right off the accelerator, is there still jerkiness?

Thanks for your interest, there is no jerkiness when the foot is completely off the accelerator  but the car slows down and so to keep up with the traffic flow a light throttle is engaged which also restores the jerkiness.

[Grumpy stumpy]

Mine is a 2004 manual petrol and can be a little jerky at low revs and low speed, I think this is a normal characteristic of these, just something to get used to. 

[crofter]

Could this be something as simple as a "sticky" pedal

[DaiTooth]

I discussed the above symptoms with a retired Toyota mechanic who had worked on many petrol vvti RAV4  engines. His opinion was that there was a slight problem with the throttle position sensor but unfortunately on this 2005 model the sensor is riveted to the throttle body and both are replaced as an unit. A very expensive undertaking even if you do the work yourself.