2001 Corolla Buying Qus: Keys, Toyota Warranty Etc

[dvdmeister]

Hey all - I'm new here, as I am currently in the midst of buying a 2001 Corolla Calida 1.4 VVT-i from Toyotas Approved Used scheme thingy. It's a nice one, only done 29k, even if its not cheap at £5k (although in London even non-Toyota traders are charging £4300 for similar GS spec cars with another 10k miles at least!). I'm due to finialise the deal next week, but I have a few questions I hope you guys can answer;

Firstly, how many keys should there be for the car? I've read somewhere something about 2 black master keys and 1 grey 'valet' key, but I have no idea if this is right or not! I would like to know so I can kick up a fuss if there are any missing :) Is there anything else that I should double check regarding 'things the car should have with it but might not have', if you get my meaning?

Secondly, does anyone have any info on the Toyota Approved Used warranty? I asked the sales guy about it and he didn't seem to know much about it! He just kept saying that it covers everything except tyres and batteries, but surely it has other exclusions too like clutch and friction brake parts at least, as well as exhausts (although he said it did include exhausts I don't believe him :P ), possibly also ICE exclusions, and there must be various excesses n other rubbish like 'wear and tear' exclusions. If anyone has the terms and conditions of their warranty I'd appreciate some info as I don't really trust the sales guy on the subject. I've also been told by him that I can extend the warranty from the free 12 months to 2 or 3 years for £310 or £475 respectively, which I could purchase at any time after purchase. If someone could clarify whether I can actually buy an extended warranty like this on a used car, even after purchasing the vehicle, I'd appreciate it a lot.

Thirdly I'd like to know what people pay for servicing 2000-2001 vvt-i corollas at dealerships, and any recommended dealerships either in the North London, or SW London/North Surrey area, or the Lancashire area - I had a look at the servicing records for the car and they have been done every year since new on the dot, and the dealership has just done the 40k/4yr service which cost them £400, but that did include two new tyres and new number plates and several other dealer 'tarting up' sundries. The 20k service was £130 which seemed reasonable by dealer standards. I understand from reading other posts that the engines in these cars have cam chains, which would undoubtably make the 60k service cheaper than for other cars, but I don't know if there are other expensive items at 60k, or if there any other particularly expensive services I should prepare for in the future!

Thanks to anyone who spends the time imparting their knowledge and experience to me! Feel free to add any buying tips you can think of :)

Cheers

Alex

[dvdmeister]

Can't anyone give me any advice?? :( I'm sure someone must know something! :)

[Twincam.GTi]

Hi there and welcome,

My own experiance is that the Toyota used car approved warranty is Ace. However both my Toyotas were bought from a very decent dealership that has now closed: 'Hylton of Telford' which is a shame.

So it might have been the dealer as well who was helpful.

My own findings were that the Toyota Warranty is backed by Toyota UK, a lot of 'so-called' car warranties offered by certain car dealers are not warranties but just a sort of mechanical breakdown 'insurrance' on major items. These examples have been on consumer programs on telly of late.

The warranty to my knowledge does not cover the friction parts of the vehicles i.e. brake pads, but... it would cover the discs in the first few months because the Toyota dealer (as it is coming from an approved Toyota franchise) should have noticed/checked these when the car was being prepared for sale. This is why your exhaust would also be covered in the first few months. If you are not happy with the way you are being treated by the dealer or feel they should of rectified something before car was sold to you, you can contact a complaints centre at Toyota UK.

Finally hows this for service: 4months out of warranty my Toyota Corolla GTi had one of it's rear handbrake cables seize. I went back to the Toyota dealer (Hylton of Toyota) I bought the car off and booked it in for repair. They striped and cleaned both rear calipers and replaced the seized handbrake cable...cost...none! "You bought the car of us sir and we can see you look after it". Needless to say when I wanted another Toyota I went straight back to them.

As used approved car Warranties go you will be hard pushed to beat a Toyota from a Toyota Dealer for peace of mind and No, i'm not conected with Toyota dealers in anyway

[Scottish_SR]

Yeah, I got 2 black keys and 1 master grey key when I bought mine.

[Twincam.GTi]

Oops forgot about your keys question

Yes I had 2 'black' keys and 1 'Grey' Key (Believe the grey key is the one that people can't copy from)

[Twincam.GTi]

Twincam.GTi Posted Today, 01:55 PM

  Oops forgot about your keys question 

Yes I had 2 'black' keys and 1 'Grey' Key (Believe the grey key is the one that people can't copy from)

...for my later 90's Corolla that is

[dvdmeister]

Thanks for the replies! I will make sure I get the right number of keys now or else get em to make up the ones that are missing :)

Regards the extended warranty - if this is done by Toyota does this mean that it will cover all the stereo stuff and interior electrics if anything stops working or whatever? It certainly sounds pretty good cover, especially as it includes the club toyota membership thing which means free RAC (not that I expect I'll need it). So long as no-one knows of any funny exclusions or anything like that, which it sounds like there aren't.

Am I right in thinking that if I were to buy the car now, then I could buy an extra one or two years extended warranty at the end of my 'free' 12 months from any Toyota dealer? I could buy it now, but I don't know what I'll be doing workwise in a year, so I don't know whether my mileage will be sub-10k a year or not (which apparently makes a difference to the premium).

I'm still open to good-dealer recommendations! :) I'm surprised someone hasn't set up a special bit of the forum for this actually - would be very useful to know peoples experiences at specific dealers and their prices!

[Twincam.GTi]

Although I said earlier I was full of praise for the Toyota approved used package, with regards to 'extending' the warranty package even further than the 12 months (with an older car) be warned of one point: That for servicing you will have to take the car back to a Toyota dealer for servicing to maintain that warranty. As the car gets older you may feel 'it's value' is not worth main dealer servicing pricing so thus you paying for a futher two years may not be beneficial. As always you take your chance...

On a different 'note' about servicing, the service guide states that the AE111 range of petrol engined Corolla only needs an oil change every 12 months or 9000 miles . If you are keeping the car a long time or do short runs I would have the oil changed at least every 5000 miles and or 6 months/twice a year.

It shocks me that manufacturers get obbsessed with claiming they now have "extended service charges to help cut your motoring costs". In the long run it is not 'cheaper motoring'. A mechanic friend of mine showed me the inards of a Fiat Punto engine that was in his workshop that had only done 80,000 miles that was 'worn out', apparantly in the late 90's Fiat 'claimed' that some of there cars engines could run for 12,000 miles between oil changes. He pointed out the various wear on certain components and quite simply said "Lack of oil changes".

[dvdmeister]

Well I picked the car up today :D Just drove it home from my relatives who live near the garage I got it from, so the first 100 miles are down already! I have discovered that I'm going to have to watch myself in it on the motorway - I found myself creeping a tad over the speed limit a few times because its so quiet :) For some reason my average speed according to the trip computer was stuck at around 30mph the whole way back, so maybe it just didn't reset the timer between me driving it to my relatives from the garage and me leaving about 5 hours later! It's a bit mental watching the 'actual mpg' figure while driving around, especially as it goes to 99.9 whenever you take your foot off the accelerator while moving I have no idea how accurate my particular trip computer is, but it wasn't giving me totally insane readings most of the time, although its the first car I've come across that seems to get better fuel consumption round town than on the motorway!

Its an interesting decision regarding the extended warranty requiring toyota servicing - at least I have a year to think about it :) I'm still not sure exactly what the cover excludes, but apparently the details of that stuff will be in the post so I will have a good look at it and decide based on that probably. I'm only really considering it because modern cars have some things which are damned expensive to replace if they do go bang - notably the craptalytic convertor, all the ABS stuff, ECU's, AC, basically anything thats an acronym :)

The official servicing intervals according to the manual are 10,000 miles or 1yr for the VVT-i 2000-2002 models like mine with the VVT-i engines - it did seem quite high on the mileage side to me too, but then this does seem to be the standard these days for petrol cars so maybe I'm being old fashioned :) The Vauxhall Signum, at least, I know has a 20,000 mile 2yr oil change limit! Hopefully Toyota will have actually based their servicing intervals on empirical evidence, unlike Fiat no doubt who probably picked the servicing interval figure out of a hat lol.

Anyway all that stuff I shall worry about later in the year - for now I'll just enjoy driving me new car :D

[Fmrl]

Well I picked the car up today  :D Just drove it home from my relatives who live near the garage I got it from, so the first 100 miles are down already! I have discovered that I'm going to have to watch myself in it on the motorway - I found myself creeping a tad over the speed limit a few times because its so quiet :) For some reason my average speed according to the trip computer was stuck at around 30mph the whole way back, so maybe it just didn't reset the timer between me driving it to my relatives from the garage and me leaving about 5 hours later! It's a bit mental watching the 'actual mpg' figure while driving around, especially as it goes to 99.9 whenever you take your foot off the accelerator while moving  I have no idea how accurate my particular trip computer is, but it wasn't giving me totally insane readings most of the time, although its the first car I've come across that seems to get better fuel consumption round town than on the motorway!

Try holding down the button until it beeps to reset the average mpg and mph.

[SMW]

yep you've got to reset the trip and also it won't 'count' the time the car is left parked in your average speed.

My experience of Toyota warranty is good - even got bulbs (yes bulbs) changed under warranty - but you do need to keep the TSH up