Auris SR180 "Quirks" or fault?

[Neilc21]

Hi,

I have just bought an 2009 SR180 which suits me down to the ground as an all rounder for work commuting. I am loving the car when its upto temp and i dont look at the trip computer lol. I bought it from a toyota main dealer with warranty and they have been fantastic with me over the years. that is still the case now, i have contacted them with the below as i am not sure if this is 180 engine traits or if it has a fault. I expected lag and im getting it with bells and whistles on!

I collected the car last friday and since i started using it on monday i have noticed the following:

Fuel Economy
I drive around 81 miles each day, 65-70 miles of this is motorway cruising at 70mph or less. The car is returning 35mpg with a huge effort from me to keep it low. I can accept this if this is normal but it seems just a little too low. If the rev’s raise over 1900rpm it just seems to start guzzling fuel. Combined consumption is alleged at 45mpg in the documentation, so presumably extra urban is quoted as a higher return wheras I am getting 35mpg extra urban  driving like miss daisy's frikkin grandma. I know to take quoted figures with a pinch of salt but I was expecting 40mpg at least.

Power loss when cold
When I have been getting up and going to work all three days this week for the first 5-10 miles of my journey the car feels like it is in limp mode however there is no EML light on. There is just no power. i.e. when pulling out of junctions it is incredibly slow and the revs do not rise freely, there is just no power. This seems to improve with temperature but I have never experienced anything like this with my previous rav 4’s, all with 2.2 d engines including a RAV T180.

Lag
As a general comment the car is EXTREMELY laggy, i.e. if speeding up in gear nothing happens unless you down shift and raise the revs higher over 3000rpm, there’s no instant torque in lower rev range, figures suggest max torque is available at 2000rpm.

Just wondering if any of this sounds familiar, like how it is or if this is an indicator of a common fault etc? want to know my facts before i speak to the dealer on the phone.

Thanks,

Neil
 

[Artiom]

I never specifically checked the fuel consumption on my Auris - but it never felt economical - especially driving with revs above 2k.

As for other issues - I never experienced them. The engine is always responsive regardless of the temperature and has quite high torque even at 1200rpm (well, there may be a subtle lag until it gets to 1800 - after that it accelerates like rocket).

[Cyker]

Yeah the SR180 is not known for being particularly frugal. I remember when it came out we had a few posts from people who were annoyed that a diesel-engined car could have worse mpg than a petrol!

That said I don't think the lag is normal; From what I've heard that car should haul like a train! Do you mostly do urban driving? It may be the EGR/throttle body is sooted up or jammed or something and needs a good cleaning out.

Might also be worth taking it on a hard motorway/A-road thrash, with a tank of V-Power diesel or that bg-something-something that a few people on here swear by, to burn out any crap that's built up in the system, and get the DPF really hot to burn all the trapped soot out. Carrying a load of crazy paving up a long hill in whatever gear you can move in can also work 

I know my Yaris D4D gets unhappy with a small but increasingly noticeable performance loss if I don't take it on a run now and then to get the engine rascally hot!

 

[smudge-1991]

Your cold issues is the ecu limiting itself to stop damage when cold.

Clean your EGR

Run your car purely on v power.

Stick a panel filter in it.

And have you considered a remap to up the power and reduce turbo lag and bring the fuel economy up. That's what I did. 

[Neilc21]

Thanks for the replies, bit of an update it would barely move this morning so i took it to the dealer and got a courtesy car. They are going to put it right whatever it is. I mostly do motorway driving, i bought it as a motorway car with a bit of power and something that is a bit different.

Cyker/Smudge - the technician there said he suspected exactly what you have described so good call.

[Neilc21]

ps is the lindop tuning box a worthwhile buy for this to correct those issues?

[smudge-1991]

I have my EGR blanked now but I used to clean mine every 10k miles. 

A box is OK but a remap is better. I did some digging around and only found one place that could actually map the Toyota diesels so I booked in with them haven't looked back since doing it and cost me £190 

[Duggerz]

Hi smudge, thanks for your post. Would you be able to tell us who can remap Toyota diesels? I think there are plenty who would love to know, I know I would.

[ricklincs45]

Hi Neil, I hope by now your dealer has your car sorted.

Regarding the symptoms you've described, no, the SR shouldn't be laggy at all.  If anything, like most other turbo-diesels, it's more noticeable that it quickly stops making useful power the higher you rev it.  There is a small amount of lag at the bottom-end of the rev range compared to say, a 2.0 VW diesel, but nothing that you should really notice in isolation.

Fuel consumption; ours regularly hits over 40mpg, and it gets worked thoroughly, it'll nearly hit that on the urban cycle.

One thing I would say, and this applies to all modern diesels, you'll do it no favours whatsoever by constantly short-shifting and cruising at relatively low speed.  Diesels need to be worked hard, and regularly, otherwise you'll end-up with blocked egr valves/blocked particulate filters, poor economy and poor performance.  Repetitive short journeys where the car struggles to get up to temperature is another no-no.

Top tip; stick a piece of black tape over where the idiot 'change-up' light is on the dash (unless you want all the above problems!).

Good luck,

Rick.

[Neilc21]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the info about the power delivery, i will be spoiled it seems when i get mine back as I have briefly been accustomed to a malfunctioning 180, its my work car and I ran a berlingo van before so the auris on two cylinders had more grunt than i am used to.

that premature shift light is pretty funny, i'd concluded was it was telling me to shift at 1900 rpm in attempt come anywhere near the claimed mpg figures 40mpg on my drive to scotland will do me just fine.

As an update on the car they fitted a new EGR valve on Thursday and also a fuel filter as a belt and braces thing. They kept it over night until friday morning to try it cold start and the fault was still there to some degree. They are going to keep it until he's sorted it. ive faith in the tech there we had a tonne of Toyota's over the years and they have always fixed any issues and the guy is enthusiatic and very knowledgable. I have a courtesy car too so its no bother i just want my auris, to get all my own stuff in it but also to sample its actual capability.

Cheers,

Neil

[smudge-1991]

Get the SCV updated common issue for cold starts 

[ricklincs45]

20 hours ago, Neilc21 said:

 

Hello again Neil, 

one other characteristic of not just our car, but also a friend's Avensis diesel is that when the outside air temperature is approx' 4 degrees or lower, it goes into 'fast idle' mode until the car is fully up to temperature (roughly 1100 rpm).  Can't comment on other people's 180's, but ours does take a long time to warm up - on cold days we can do 6 miles and it still isn't fully warmed up.  Just a quirk of the ECU I guess.  

Hope you're guy is making progress, I'm assuming they've hooked it up to a fault-code scanner?

Rick.

 

[Neilc21]

Hi,

I got the car back this afternoon and its all sorted. I'm unsure what else has been done since Saturday but i know its had some sort of cleaning. Ultimately the main fault was the EGR which was replaced last week.

It feels a different car to the one i bought, starts pulling as soon as the revs reach around 2k which is what i would expect tbh. I can start to get used to the car now in terms of normal behaviour, not a constipated car that sh**ts its pot full if you keep your foot down long enough, as was last week! I will keep my eye on how long it takes to warm up etc which is interesting. my berlingo van was warm pretty quick but the vehicle was **** slow, i will take the opposite 

Looking forward to my drive to Scotland tomorrow now. I'm expecting 40 mpg and to be able to overtake at will...

Cheers,

Neil

[Heidfirst]

5 hours ago, ricklincs45 said:

one other characteristic of not just our car, but also a friend's Avensis diesel is that when the outside air temperature is approx' 4 degrees or lower, it goes into 'fast idle' mode until the car is fully up to temperature (roughly 1100 rpm).  Can't comment on other people's 180's, but ours does take a long time to warm up - on cold days we can do 6 miles and it still isn't fully warmed up.  

This is pretty much par for the course for AD series engines, not just the T180.  The fast idle should drop back before the engine temp is showing normal though (unless you have a lot of extra load on e.g. aircon, heater, lights etc.) & this series is known to be slow to warm up..

[ricklincs45]

12 hours ago, Heidfirst said:

This is pretty much par for the course for AD series engines, not just the T180.  The fast idle should drop back before the engine temp is showing normal though (unless you have a lot of extra load on e.g. aircon, heater, lights etc.) & this series is known to be slow to warm up..

Yes, having a/c on and the heater set above 'roughly' 19 degrees does make a difference to the tick-over speed.  Once the engine's warming-through, dropping the temp' on the heater control drops the tick-over speed back to normal.

[ricklincs45]

18 hours ago, Neilc21 said:

Hi,

I got the car back this afternoon and its all sorted. I'm unsure what else has been done since Saturday but i know its had some sort of cleaning. Ultimately the main fault was the EGR which was replaced last week.

It feels a different car to the one i bought, starts pulling as soon as the revs reach around 2k which is what i would expect tbh. I can start to get used to the car now in terms of normal behaviour, not a constipated car that sh**ts its pot full if you keep your foot down long enough, as was last week! I will keep my eye on how long it takes to warm up etc which is interesting. my berlingo van was warm pretty quick but the vehicle was **** slow, i will take the opposite 

Looking forward to my drive to Scotland tomorrow now. I'm expecting 40 mpg and to be able to overtake at will...

Cheers,

Neil

Glad it's sorted Neil, hope you enjoy your new-found performance!

Rick.

[babatunde]

On 01/12/2016 at 9:30 AM, smudge-1991 said:

I have my EGR blanked now but I used to clean mine every 10k miles. 

A box is OK but a remap is better. I did some digging around and only found one place that could actually map the Toyota diesels so I booked in with them haven't looked back since doing it and cost me £190 

Where did you get it remapped? How had the mpg improved, will it put more strain on the transmission parts? 

I had my old mk4 golf gtitdi 150 remapped. It was super frugal and very nippy indeed.

[smudge-1991]

5 hours ago, babatunde said:

Where did you get it remapped? How had the mpg improved, will it put more strain on the transmission parts? 

I had my old mk4 golf gtitdi 150 remapped. It was super frugal and very nippy indeed.

Well my transmission has been fine for 40,000 miles now and feels as good as it did the day I bout it 84,000 miles ago 

Economy has improved sometimes it's vast like cruising on the motorway bit when I'm enjoying the car it's the same as it was but much faster so technically more economical haha