A New Year and MOT time for the 20 (gulp) year old Corolla...

[Mooly]

And I'm pleased to report that it was a straight pass. Essentially the same advisories as previous years, corroded coil springs and slightly worn swivel joints and bushes.

This one is the 'all weather' daily driver but what a car it has been. Its only a 1.4L but it reminds me very much of the first generation Astra which could catch pigeons through the gears. It is super responsive with no drive by wire and strangling by ever tighter emissions systems. It pulls like a train. E10 petrol is no problem, if anything it runs better than ever on it... really, it does.

Please Toyota if you see this... lets have another compact 4dr saloon that can hustled through traffic, not the ever ballooning and over proportioned offerings of today. 

 

  

[TonyHSD]

They do Corolla saloon hybrid, but not for uk anymore. Your cars looks great 👍 

[Mooly]

Thanks Tony. 

[AisinW]

Congratulation. We are lucky not to have the USA version 1998-2002 clunker corolla 1.8L that always burn oil like tanker and rusty underbody and crispy plastic interior. 

I am not sure about that period of Corolla im Europe. I am also thinking to get one of corolla 2003-2008 model 1.6L with 4 speed automatic. Does anyone know what the common problem on those? 

[Mooly]

11 minutes ago, AisinW said:

I am not sure about that period of Corolla im Europe.

The one I have was built in Turkey. Hatchbacks were built in the UK, saloons in Turkey:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Motor_Manufacturing_Turkey

[TonyHSD]

From east side of Europe Turkey is probably the most powerful in the auto industry. They built most cars alloys and bumpers plus many big names has car factories there. Turkish people definitely knows how to do cars as well as best kebabs 🌮🇹🇷👍

[Crustyoldavensis]

MOTs are as stressful as childbirth for me...

Currently trying to get my 27 year old LDV patched up for MOT. So many holes!!

[Eddiefh]

What’s milage on your car bud 

[Mooly]

1 hour ago, Eddiefh said:

What’s milage on your car bud 

Who me?

The Corolla hasn't done that many, it belonged to my father who got it new it 2003. It's currently on around 44.5k so not many. 

The low mileage sort of flies in the face of all we are told about it being bad for cars. Some years it only did 500 miles and yet no trouble with batteries going flat or anything like that. It has had one Battery in 2013 and is on the original exhaust which I reckon must be all stainless.

I give it a good workout every so often and try and get some heat into the rear brakes to polish them up. Fronts were sizzling the other day, rears not quite but very close to sizzle temperature.

The 'oil guzzler' (my 1.33L Auris) is next up for an MOT in Feb/March time. That's getting closer to 100k but its the oil consumption that is the big worry on that one. 2 gallons (yes gallons) added over the last year. I guess about 1L per 750 to 800 miles.

 

  

[AisinW]

2 UK Galons per 10k miles is nuts for 100k miles car. @Mooly did you do a lot of short trips and city drive with 10k miles OCI? Use heavy duty diesel oil 10w-40 (high detergents and additives) may help a bit.

Many of 98-02 1.8L suffer oil consumption but it was caused by bad piston and ring designs. The remedy was putting higher tension rings, and add more oil return holes on the pistons.  I thought the 03-up had been revised too in europe. 

[Auris James]

Always nice to see an older car on the road.

I have a 1996 Volvo 940 automatic petrol estate. Bought 5 years ago for £250 and doesn't owe me a penny. Reliable workhorse with nearly 208,000 miles. One of my best cars, prior a 240 GLT Auto estate for 10 years. Bought in 2009 for £350. Sold in 2018 in full working order with 234,000 miles for £500. Covered 72,000 miles with me.

Lexus IS 220D in background my worst and most expensive car at £1475.00. Head gasket went 19 months after purchase. Hated the turbo lag and 6 speed that laboured. Build quality, comfort, colour and safety kit I liked. Mine was a basic SE. Way preferred the actual drive of the 940 low pressure turbo automatic. Now also have a Auris Hybrid.

James.

[Mooly]

12 hours ago, AisinW said:

did you do a lot of short trips and city drive with 10k miles OCI?

Well this is where it get interesting... the Auris has never ever done short runs. Ever. It gets fully up to temperature and most runs are of at least 10 to 15 miles, many are in the 30 to 80 mile region and almost always include fast A roads and motorway. Dealer serviced from new. I suspect 0W20 was often not used, I did ask once and was told 5W30. Did that play a part early on or not? There is a design fault that is well known on the 1.33L (weak and feeble oil control rings that get gummed up) but the use of the car should have been absolutely perfect to avoid such issues. Petrol has been 98% Esso, 2% Shell. I'm using Castrol Extreme Clean 10W40 oil for the last couple of years. It didn't seem to do much for the consumption but it definitely makes for an indefinably smoother engine note. It really does.  

The Corolla has done mainly short runs over most the last 10 yrs of its life. Short as in 3rd of a mile to a supermarket, 0.5 mile back with a detour to a newsagent. It would often sit for 7 to 10 days between such trips.     

[AisinW]

Probably the 1.3L has similar piston ring issue like 98-02 1.8L. The piston ring hole was doubled to fix it. Thicker oil always make engine quieter but does not mean less wear. Higher viscosity=absorb energy including sound.

If you do not do a short trips and use quality decent oil, it only reduced or delayed the on set of oil consumption.  The 2010-2014 hybrid 1.8L and 2.5L also love to consume oil if we do short trips and 10k miles interval. Post 2015, it is fixed completely with new piston and ring design, and the report of oil consumption drops significantly. 

@Auris James Old Sweden Volvo is tough but not so much post 2010 and current Chinese Volvo. Lexus IS 2.2D uses BMW engine if I am not wrong. For Lexus, avoid 250 (direct injection only) model too. The V6 3.0, 3.3L, 3.5L, and V8 are legendary. The 2.0L and 2.5L hybrid are excellent in any Lexus or Toyota. The true Toyota diesel in Land cruiser or Hillux are great. The Auris hybrid is good but need EGR and intake cleaning every 100k miles to prevent clogged EGR, induced pinging and head gasket problems. Otherwise, it can pass 200k miles easily. 

[Puglet]

Love hearing about older cars soldering on, we had couple 80s Fords owned for 25 years+ which were pretty reliable and only needed regular servicing to keep going and were our everyday transport. Going to car shows you can guarantee to see numerous sporty models of whatever flavour, but more interesting are the basic humdrum models that thankfully someone saw the importance of keeping alive. 

[TonyHSD]

The early use of 5w30 oil definitely didn’t help towards extending the time and preventing what actually has happened to your car.
The truth is that when the design of some parts was not made right at first place then whatever oil you use or how often you change the oil even at every 3k miles it won’t make much of a difference. A good quality oil and changes within service intervals are important but the most important is how the engine and components were designed.
Recent video of our friends shows that even at 5k miles service intervals in a car that been taken a good care after 300000 miles the car started to burn 1ltr per 150-200miles drive.
My Auris in its first 8 years was a low mileage car only used for a short school runs , 3 miles a day  20-30min total time. Service once a year 2000-6000 miles total travel and the car never burned any oil, never had 12v Battery issues, basically a trouble free car. Then back in 2018 I had taken over ans start putting crazy miles on 34-50k a year and until the car went past 130k miles mark didn’t consume oil at all, then started to use and now drinks a lot 1-1.5ltr per 10k miles and I expect this to go even further up. Performance, efficiency, drivability and Reliability remain unchanged and I am very happy about it. The exhaust will show when the car is an oil burner , I noticed that one day when I we parked our Aurises together, my gf one exhaust end was clean and rusty but my car had more darker one like on a vw turbo 😂

[christianr]

Yes my old 3 door auto RAV4 1998 is going for its MOT on the 20th , I am hoping to it will last out to its 25 birthday next December.

I bought it 5 years ago as a stop gap to tow my boat to the river in the summer , its has been superb . 

[Mooly]

30 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

I noticed that one day when I we parked our Aurises together, my gf one exhaust end was clean and rusty but my car had more darker one like on a vw turbo 😂

LOL, his and hers 🤣

I probably started to notice the oil burning as becoming significant around 40k I guess. The last couple of years has seen it get much worse although I'm wondering whether it has sort of levelled off a bit. There has to be a limit to how bad it can get I suppose.

[TonyHSD]

16 minutes ago, Mooly said:

LOL, his and hers 🤣

I probably started to notice the oil burning as becoming significant around 40k I guess. The last couple of years has seen it get much worse although I'm wondering whether it has sort of levelled off a bit. There has to be a limit to how bad it can get I suppose.

Have you tried an engine flush and then going back to 0w20 ? Or you just prefer to use this 10w40. I believe that regular engine flushes are very helpful for long term keeping engine clean and prevent harmful deposits. Moder engine flushes aren’t harmful for any seals and can’t break hard build ups but what they do is collect and dispose these tiny particles that with the time form harder substances called by some ca4bon or varnish etc. Higher quality oils that can withstand higher temperatures and don’t get burned easily, get darker will dislodge less of that matter on the internal parts. Some people says that quicker the oil becomes darker means it’s better and that it has better cleaning agents inside. Ok, but if the oil was good and correct one at first place it will withstand these high temperatures and won’t dislodge so many particles. I like to watch some oil experiments on YouTube and usually the poorest quality oils gets darker first when the guy heats them to high temp and the very same oils get frozen when he puts them in the freezer at - a lot C° 
Here what I use in my car. 

 

[Rhymes with Paris]

Dunno with modern cars Mooly, but no limit on a 1966 Anglia 105e van with windows in the side.

When I took it to the rip off car breaker to receive the princely sum of £4 for it, it was consuming a gallon a week, and increasing.

Luckily at that time we had a new fangled supermarket by the name of Hillards round here that did a gallon of some kind of  20/50 for a quid.

 

[Mooly]

13 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Have you tried an engine flush and then going back to 0w20

I haven't Tony and that's mainly because I've seen so many comments on this oil burning issue on the 1.33L and various things being tried and yet I've not seen one documented case of anyone saying they fixed or even significantly improved it.

It just feels a bit like the last chance saloon to go down that route tbh. At least at this point. 

15 minutes ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

When I took it to the rip off car breaker to receive the princely sum of £4 for it, it was consuming a gallon a week, and increasing.

Wow, that's seriously high. The thing with modern cars is the oil can contaminate the cat and sensors although I've not heard of the 1.33's failing on emissions anywhere. The old 20W50. Maybe I should try that next time... only joking. 

The Castrol Extreme Clean is pretty decently priced, even Halfords is often one of the cheapest for it at around £22 I think from memory. Even so its a like a £1 a week for oil.

[Rhymes with Paris]

The only cats in motors then Mooly, were the gf's tortoiseshell on the rear seat giving her a lift to the vets.