A few problems: SVC and Turbo Siren

November 27, 2022

Hi there,

Background:

I have a 2011 2.0L D4D with 136K km on the clock. I do about 30k a year and get the car serviced every 15k, once per year at the Toyota main dealer who give me a health check break down, the other interval I do myself where I will change the oil and filters and also carry out the maintenance that the main dealer has flagged, etc., break pads, disks, bushings, linkages etc. to keep the cost down. The engine has never been opened in it, e.g., the EGR, Turbo, DPF have never been touched. My mechanical skills are limited.

SVC:

I got an SVC error 3 weeks ago which went away after a few hours but has returned twice since and gone away pretty quickly again, within the same hour if I parked and returned to the car to continue journey. The SVC will kick in while driving, I will feel an instant loss of power and getting up to 100k or beyond just takes more time but it will get up to 120k. I notice that I can get a miss when I am accelerating during this time from low speed and revs, but it's rare. I drive lightly anyway so maybe I'd get more if I had a heavier foot. Fuel consumption is reading the same as before with 6.5l to 100km. While it starts easily, I had noticed it a few times, starting and then dying straight away on the first turn. It would start fine then again and run away. In total this has happened about 4 or 5 times so again is not regular. Also, I have a sticking rear brake caliper that needs to be replaced, it is squealing from time to time and I plan to do this with the back disks and pads at the next service interval at 137k - 2 to 3 weeks time.

Turbo:

At the same time, I have started to notice the turbo is doing a siren impression. The car has no noticeable power loss but still, I expect that I need to get this seen too as I have read that a repair from a failed turbo could get costly.

Airbag Light:

I am taking it to an auto electrician this week and he is going to fix that for me.

Potential Issues:

While there, the auto electrician can hopefully read from memory what the SVC was related to, as the SVC only appears for a few hours at a time so hard to catch it. From my reading online, people are suggesting an injector or suction valve for the SVC, possibly a dirty EGR as well. We have been getting awful rain for weeks, but I've never driven through floods so assume that my various sensors are ok - other than the brake caliper. Someone suggested glow plugs but it starts first time so I don't think it's that. For the turbo, reading suggests it could be a split in an inlet pipe, maybe a dirty EGR or the turbo itself - bearing. I saw one guy outlining how a MAP filter should be added to the maintenance schedule which was interesting.

Is it coincidence that the SVC and turbo started happening together? What would the best approach be for troubleshooting this down, I have read where it has taken a few goes to sort the SVC problem with labour costs raking up.

Sorry for the long-winded explanation, thanks in advance for any advice.