Help Needed

[Cannonc]

Hi All, I'm just looking at buying a 1999 1.6 Avensis with high milage, approx 150k miles on the clock. What sort of stuff should I be looking out for. I know the car has been serviced well but has had several sets of Discs (All Genuine Toyota) fitted due to warping. Is there anything that can be done to cure this i.e. a different make of disc?

[jamesholden]

The engine will be fine as it's the earlier pre-VVTi engine the 4A-FE which ran in Carina II and CarinaE taxi's forever, there are a few faults with Avensis' in general, mostly to due to inferior British build quality but all mechanical trouble seems to be with the later VVT-i engines, although quite a few Manual gearboxes do pack up.

As I say to quite a few people though, see if you can find a Camry instead, there made to a much better standard and don't cost anymore than the Avensis, for around £1500 you should be able to get around an R-S reg 2.2 which will have digital-climate control etc.

[nezerr]

As a taxi driver i have many friends with toyotas, one of whom has a 1.8 vvt-i thats done 170k miles. He’s never had any trouble the engine, I’m told the main things are electrical and check the gearbox, id be unsure about buying a 1.6 with high miles though, its such a big heavy car for a small engine, it would have to be at the right price. I have a 2.0 d-4 vvt-i and must say the engine feels as its not having to do any work at all, unlike my old pre 2000 lean burn 1.8 avensis that needed the boot to get anywhere.

Hope this helps

Neil.