Is this Toyota worth buying?

[Sala296]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to get my first car, and I'm going to view a W reg Toyota Yaris GS tomorrow (2000, 1L, Petrol, Manual). It has a couple issues, however I'm only paying £250 for it, so I don't expect a great car.

Yes, paying bare minimum for a car isn't ideal, but I just want something to get me from A to B for 6-12 months or so.

So here are the details I have so far:

• MOT Certificate and Log Book present
• Had 2 tires replaced about 1 year ago
• The windscreen washer pump has failed, however I'm competent enough with cars that I can fix that
• There is a warning light on the dash, that although having the light removed is reccurent
• Some advisories in the most recent MOT that, although don't seem too bad, I am not 100% sure what the implications are (attached screenshot)

So as I said, I doesn't need to be perfect, but will this be good enough for a first car for a little while?

 

Thanks Everyone!

[RUToyota]

Generally, the Yaris is a competent and reliable little car...but for £250 you have to expect issues and risk.

The vehicle clearly has issues (engine wear) but it may well see you through to next July when the MOT is due again.

I'm guessing that this would be used as a local "get you around" car.?.

It may worth a punt at the money, BUT you need to ascertain just what that dash warning light is all about...no point in paying even £250 if the car goes disastrously pear shaped after you've just bought it.

I'd keep looking a little while longer if you can...there are often little gems out there for pocket money...but the "Yaris" route is not a bad plan to stick with....great little cars.

[Sala296]

9 hours ago, RUToyota said:

Generally, the Yaris is a competent and reliable little car...but for £250 you have to expect issues and risk.

The vehicle clearly has issues (engine wear) but it may well see you through to next July when the MOT is due again.

I'm guessing that this would be used as a local "get you around" car.?.

It may worth a punt at the money, BUT you need to ascertain just what that dash warning light is all about...no point in paying even £250 if the car goes disastrously pear shaped after you've just bought it.

I'd keep looking a little while longer if you can...there are often little gems out there for pocket money...but the "Yaris" route is not a bad plan to stick with....great little cars.

Yeah, it is just a little get me around car. I also just want something that is of little value to start off in to get my NCD up for when I get a more long term car. I gave it a test drive today. It seems to run okay, the hunting is very minor and almost unnoticable. I didn't really notice the blue smoke, and yes I know it's a very mild tiny, but there was nothing, it seemed perfectly normal. I checked the discs and they were okay, They are worn, but they're still have more than enough life in them for the length of time I plan to own it. The tires will likely need replacing somewhat soon, however they have probably about 3 months left which is enough time for me to gather cash for some part worns. 

Regarding issues that need fixing straight away, the windscreen washer pump, which is on eBay for less than a score, and a new dipstick, which also is about a tenner. Those two, I'm perfectly capable of doing myself. So the £250 for the car, plus about £30 for repairs, I think is fine.

You said about engine problems (one of the areas in cars that I'm not really skilled in), do you reckon that it would last around a year? Even if at the end of the year it's begging for it's death?

One final thing, is it normal for the clutch in this car to have really short travel? Every car I've ever driven, the clutch goes most of the way, if not completely to the floor. This one, it only goes about 2-3 inches. It works 100% fine, but it just has really short travel.

 

Many thanks for the help.

[Cyker]

The short clutch travel is normal - It's fairly typical for jappy cars I think? I always get thrown when I drive e.g. my friend's Audi A3 where you have to push the clutch in 5 yards of deadzone before it actually does anything useful!!

I reckon you should be okay as the Mk1 Yaris has proven to be amazingly robust and reliable even when it's not been treated well.

I suspect you just need to to put in some fresh decent quality oil, and run a tank or two of engine cleaner through it to sort out some of the problems. I suspect the blue smoke during the MOT was due to them revving it up; Old engines tend to let through some oil when they're revved up because of wear - You can try using some slightly heavier weight oil if it becomes more noticeable.
The hunting is likely a sensor, maybe the O2 sensor?

The Mk1 Yaris is a very easy car to work on and the O2 sensor should be quite easy to unscrew and give a bit of a clean with some switch cleaner spray or something.


That said, there are bajillions of Mk1 1.0's out there so unless you are really up for some DIY there's no real reason to not continue looking for a less problematic one!

[Sala296]

19 minutes ago, Cyker said:

The short clutch travel is normal - It's fairly typical for jappy cars I think? I always get thrown when I drive e.g. my friend's Audi A3 where you have to push the clutch in 5 yards of deadzone before it actually does anything useful!!

I reckon you should be okay as the Mk1 Yaris has proven to be amazingly robust and reliable even when it's not been treated well.

I suspect you just need to to put in some fresh decent quality oil, and run a tank or two of engine cleaner through it to sort out some of the problems. I suspect the blue smoke during the MOT was due to them revving it up; Old engines tend to let through some oil when they're revved up because of wear - You can try using some slightly heavier weight oil if it becomes more noticeable.
The hunting is likely a sensor, maybe the O2 sensor?

The Mk1 Yaris is a very easy car to work on and the O2 sensor should be quite easy to unscrew and give a bit of a clean with some switch cleaner spray or something.


That said, there are bajillions of Mk1 1.0's out there so unless you are really up for some DIY there's no real reason to not continue looking for a less problematic one!

I'm a big fan of DIY actually. I've done a metric butt ton of work for my stepdads car. Unfortunately, this car is the only yaris I could find in my price range, excluding bigger engine ones or ones that were literally the other side of the country. I wouldn't mind a slightly bigger engine, if it wasn't for pesky insurers crapping on them.

Fortunately the only two issues that are current and prominent, are the windscreen washer pump being busted, which I can replace easily, and the dipstick handle being snapped, and after some research, that's mega easy to fix too. The other issues I reckon will be not too major for the couple months it will take to save up and have a look at, based on some research, and what you, and RUToyota said.

Only one last question, is there any way to replace the stereo head unit? It has a cassette player installed, but that isn't of much use nowadays, and it seems like you can't fit anything other than proprietary head units due to the design of the console.

 

[Cyker]

If you're into the DIY then go for it - As I said the Mk1 is really nice to work on; Everything is very accessible in the engine bay despite the car being tiny! :)

re. the stereo, you can't replace the built in stereo - As you've said, it's kinda built in,

HOWEVER, there is a square coin tray or something little slot underneath the main headunit which is the exact size of a single DIN radio - It is very easy to get a third-party headunit and install it in there and you can get conversion cables to power it and hook it into the Speakers, aerial, radio etc.. I found out not that long ago you can even get a converter box to map the steering wheel controls to most radios!

You do have to pop out the whole built-in head unit to get access to the coin tray thing to remove it, but it's pretty easy - An excellent guide is available here: http://www.fitaudio.com/?View=entry&EntryID=45

It's a bit weird since the built-in headunit will still be there, so you'll effectively have two, but that's the way to put in your own one!

You can also buy modules that emulate CD changers to play MP3s that plug into the existing headunit - I have an xcarlink in my one, but they are more expensive than a cheaper head unit!