Worried

[tom who?]

hi all, first post. i have just bought a rav on a 51 plate d4d. now after reading the posts in here i am thinking maybe it aint the best for reliability, and now will be thinking everytime i go out will i get there and back or break down. i got the car from a toyota dealer so have a years warranty, but a bit of paper is not a lot of help on the hard shoulder of the M25 on the way to heathrow. it has just over 43k on it but seems to have no bearing on when disaster can strike. it seems from some of the posts not if it will happen, but when. i bought it to tow my trike which is about 600kg so now i am thinking will the weight compound the problem they seem to have with the flywheel (apart from outer things) or is it a case of it will fail whatever or however i drive it. i dont collect it till 25th of this month but have signed all the paperwork, if i had looked here first i dont think i would have bought it. it seems also that its our fault because we bought the car and so why should toyota be botherd. i wonder how many on here heard like me.......buy a toyota they never go wrong. well i know one thing is certain i wont have it when the warranty runs out. i thought i would be posting about it being the best thing since the tv remote was invented. ok rant over, i will keep you up to date with developements.

cheers tom

[dave.m]

Tom,

Hi and welcome to the club. A couple of points I would like to make to you.

No 1. Take a serious chill pill.

No 2. Judging by your panic attack you've been reading one or two of the recent negative threads about

the Rav. I myself have had other 4X4's and in my opinion the Rav is the best in its class. You say you are

getting a 12 month warranty from a Toyota dealer so what are you worrying about ? If the flywheel is one

of the batch which were no use and has not been changed allready, then chances are by towing a trike or

whatever it wont be long before it needs changed. Buy your Rav, take it out and enjoy owning it.

Oh what the hell, No 3. Try reading some of the GOOD threads on here and be thankfull you did not buy a

Freelander/ Ugly CRV or something Korean.

With that I'm sure there will be a few fellow club members just about to lamb blast you with good advice.

Good luck.

Dave.

[bjw]

I think you have to put things in perspective with these type of forums you tend to get posts when things go wrong and with the amount of cars sold by Toyota a year you will hear of the odd problem.

On saying that they are a mechanical machine and things can go wrong but no more than another make .

I have bought Toyota's for the last 14 years and have found them reliable and do not be put off by the horror stories you have read on this site the only thing I would criticise Toyota for is the standard of customer service from Toyota GB head office.

You also may be able to extend the warranty with your dealer when it runs out if you want peace of mind

Just one last point you can join club Toyota for about £59 per year which gives you a good breakdown service

[anchorman]

You have to remember that problems are discussed on this site, mainly so that peaple can ask for and offer advice. It is inevitable that you will home in on various issues but they are only a tiny percentage.

It will be the most reliable vehicle you have ever owned so stop worrying and enjoy it.

Regards

[tom who?]

hi guys, yer you could be right, who knows i might be worrying over nothing, i feel a bit easier after reading your replies, and i am still looking forward to getting it realy, and i am sure the good points will out weigh any bad points. and it did look like it had been looked after ok. i did look at an x-trail but there was just something that said get a rav, i think they look more modern for their age.

cheers tom

[Red Yaris 54]

If you bought it from a Toyota dealer with a years warranty then you should have a years Club Toyota membership which gives you FULL RAC recovery and many more benefits.

As said above this is renewable annually for £55 (if purchased by direct debit)

One reason for the discounted price over normal RAC membership is that Toyota IS a reliable make.

Stop worrying and enjoy your new car

[tom who?]

cheers for the replies people, feel a bit easier now, roll on wednesday when i collect it.

tom

[Peter (Preston)]

Tom, as perhaps one of the poster of Negatives for the RAV perhaps I should tell you why I chose it in the first place.

Great Looks

Good Performer (4 someone that does limited off road use).

Economy

Diesel particulate emmissions at 0.3 ppm (Fantastically low)

CO2 emmissions amogst the best in class

MPG for my running (30K per year) in excess of 37mpg.

Goes round corners without scaring the hell out of me (The previous model of CRV didnt do this).

Do enjoy the car - I got grumpy due to the poor attitude of people not that the car wnet wrong.

Regards

Peter

[tom who?]

hi peter, yes i did read your posts, but also many others too who seem to be having more than their fare share of on going problems. some of the faults are beyond what i would class as annoying, and would place them nearer the dangerous end of the problem scale, ecu switching the engine to 'safe mode' for no reason might not be too 'safe' in the outside lane on a motorway as some people have found out. continued problems with the flywheel breaking, ok other maufactures seem to have problems too with this type of flywheel, but toyota should have seen a trend long ago and had a recall to fix the fault. sunroof leaks still on going. i had a smart roadster which were renowned for leaky roofs, mine never leaked because mercedes changed the design of the seals once people complained of the fault. like you say it seems to be toyota themselves that dont seem to be very helpfull to peoples troubles, the dealers cant keep reparing cars without getting payed from someone, but not everyone can just pull money from thin air to keep paying for ongoing faults that toyota seem to say dont exsist. ok i have a warrenty but if the car stops and i call out the rac or aa, how do i get my luggage and me to the airport from there on time. anyway i am still looking forward to getting the car on wednesday and maybe mine will be one of the many thousands that dont have problems (fingers crossed) but it will always be in my mind about the faults.

tom

[Steve@Aberdeen]

Let's get this in perspective.

1) Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality hasn't come from not knowing how to build high quality cars. Quality is my business (and has been for almost 30 years) and Toyota's manufacturing systems are still envied - and the European Rav4 is still built in Japan.

2) Toyota is the world's most profitable car manufacturer and is shortly to become the highest volume producer - they've achieved that through a focus on getting it right.

3) The percentage of Toyotas with faults is amongst the lowest (Toyota and Honda are neck and neck in SUV reliability data).

4) As hard as we try to get 0 defects, some always get through and, tough as it sounds, some customers will get cars with faults.

5) People are far more likely to report a fault with their car than to say they've had no fault; compound that with the fact that many people coming to this forum came to get help. The majority of discussions here will involve a problem somebody has had.

None of this excuses customers getting fobbed off - Toyota UK need to pay attention; a manufacturer with less reliable cars will try to compensate with a slicker fault response team. The fact that Toyota, once they realised there was a problem, actually got one of their experts over from Japan to investigate should tell you how serious they are (which is something I've known other Japanese manufacturers to do - the fact that a customer is having a problem is a real concern to the Japanese business). It's often us Brits who struggle to catch up with the concept of being entitled to good service.

My decision to buy a Rav4 (with which I've been delighted so far) was partly influenced by what I know about their quality.

[tom who?]

hi steve, i hear what you are saying, and i am buying the rav with the expectation that it will be fine. at 5.1/2 years old i cant expect 100% fault free motoring, but when i read numerous posts with people still having the same faults it makes me wonder how many of the people who write these serveys have long term free loan cars from toyota. but in the grand scheme of things in this one section of this one forum there are too many people having the same faults over and over, not just minor niggles. anyway i collect mine tomorrow (25th) and will be at the dealers bright and early waiting to get the keys in my eager hands so like i say i am not expecting it to break down, but would like to have seen more posts from people saying they have done a zillion miles and not even needed a side light bulb. who knows i might be that person, in the next 4 months i have 3 round trips to the moray forth, 670mls each way, and 2 to the north east, 350 each way, am i botherd about driving the rav....nope, but i will be glad each time i get home.

tom

[Steve@Aberdeen]

I wasn't thinking of user surveys as Toyota's reputation goes beyond that - their manufacturing quality is the standard to which others aspire. Their research, too.

Ironically, after writing the above, I was watching Sunday's "Best of Top Gear" I'd recorded - and it had the Hilux feature - buying a rusty one from a farm and then crashing it, submerging it, dropping it, dropping things on it, setting fire to it and, finally, parking it on top of a high rise building that was then blown up - and then driving it into the studio.

It was beyond any chance of being made street legal but it demonstrated one reason why high-tech armies in their customised Hummers and armoured vehicles often struggle against insurgents sat in the back of Toyota pick-ups!

The electronics we have in our modern cars give us engines with more power from a lighter block, using less fuel and generating lower emissions, with better traction and stability and, when it does go belly-up, a better chance of getting out alive. However, they're also at the root of many of the issues being reported (and which would have stopped the Top Gear Hilux on the first day).

These electronics are getting more reliable each day but it's still one of the most vulnerable features.

[tom who?]

hi steve, do you not think the very reason the hilux kept going was its lack of todays overly complicated electronics, one simple glitch in the system today and its game over. i know these days manufacturers have to find more and more ways of making their cars get better economy, but i think there is a point where over reliance on electronics is getting beyond what car manufacturers can fit at a price people will pay for the cars. i dont think todays cars are any more reliable than 5 or even 10 years ago, take the top gear hilux for instance.

tom

[Steve@Aberdeen]

hi steve, do you not think the very reason the hilux kept going was its lack of todays overly complicated electronics, one simple glitch in the system today and its game over. i know these days manufacturers have to find more and more ways of making their cars get better economy, but i think there is a point where over reliance on electronics is getting beyond what car manufacturers can fit at a price people will pay for the cars. i dont think todays cars are any more reliable than 5 or even 10 years ago, take the top gear hilux for instance.

tom

That is what I thought I was saying. The ECU seems to have got to a reliable stage but, reading the issues raised on these forums, that can't be said of all the numerous sensors. And that isn't surprising - many sensors have to be exposed to harsh environments to work. In an industrial environment, or where sensor performance is safety critical, it will be subject to regular calibration and maintenance - in many cases it will be duplicated and readings polled. That obviously increases the expense, both in manufacture and ongoing maintenance. If motorists were prepared to pay more, then manufacturers would do it. However, the motor industry is very cost competitive and, if it's not on price then it tends to be on performance.

If Toyota offered two ranges of the Rav4, the current one and another costing (say) £2000 extra for better fault tolerance and reliability, I wonder how many of the higher priced ones they'd sell.

[tom who?]

hi steve, i think it all comes down to the old saying, 'you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time'. no matter what the car manufacturers do someone will find a fault. anyway i got my rav today and must say for its year it still feels like new, no knocks, squeaks, rattles, groans, vibrations, interior unmarked, and very few markes on the paintwork. the service book shows a service and t,belt at 42k about 1k ago but no stamp in book, so i might look under the bonnet at the weekend to see if the timing cover has been disturbed. looking forward to its first decent run over the next bank holiday.

tom

[Steve@Aberdeen]

Tom,

Enjoy - and you have an extremely good chance of doing that. I've no regrets so far with my Rav4.

It was good news, too, for Peter with his T180.