Previa Breakdown - Total Loss Of Power

January 30, 2008

I've got an unresolved and worrying problem with my 54plate Previa Tspirit D (76,000m)

I was in the third lane on the A3 doing about 50mph when all the revs went out of the car and the engine Management light came on - the engine was still running but I had no power in the accelerator at all, I had to cruise my way across 2 lanes of traffic and down a very welcome slip road before I ran out of steam.

The RAC guy plugged in his diagnostic laptop and got the Fault code P1252 - the code wasn't on his system but after a couple of phone calls he said it was a problem with the fuel rail or a valve connected to it. On re-starting it was working fine again, but he said that it could re-occur at any time. I was 2 hours from home and had to go on the M25 and didn't fancy taking the risk, so I was taken home on a low loader.

I've just got the car back from my Toyota garage - their computer diagnosed a completely different fault - a problem with the turbo stepper motor. They cleared the fault and road tested the car for 20 minutes and it was fine.

They said it was the turbo cutting out to protect it from damage. I was only doing 50mph in steady traffic and in 5th gear (as confirmed by the RAC diagnostic at the time - amazing what those things can tell you!!) and the garage said it wasn't anything I had done, but they couldn't say why it had happened.

I've found out tonight that a colleague of mine had a similar problem a few months ago (same model) and and it was diagnosed as some kind of fuel valve problem that took about £500 to fix. I'm worried about these conflicting diagnosis - I do alot of miles for my job on motorways and I'm quite concerned that it could happen again at any time, it is quite scary.

Has anyone else had this problem or can shed any light?

May 6, 2008

Hi,

I have a Rav4 2003 GX D4D. I have had the same problem but it has always happened whilst climbing a hill, although not very steep ones, I also occasionally get a slight stutter when accelerating.

Toyota when tested it say it's the stepper motor ?

Does anybody have any more info

May 7, 2008

I've got an unresolved and worrying problem with my 54plate Previa Tspirit D (76,000m)
I was in the third lane on the A3 doing about 50mph when all the revs went out of the car and the engine Management light came on - the engine was still running but I had no power in the accelerator at all, I had to cruise my way across 2 lanes of traffic and down a very welcome slip road before I ran out of steam.
The RAC guy plugged in his diagnostic laptop and got the Fault code P1252 - the code wasn't on his system but after a couple of phone calls he said it was a problem with the fuel rail or a valve connected to it. On re-starting it was working fine again, but he said that it could re-occur at any time. I was 2 hours from home and had to go on the M25 and didn't fancy taking the risk, so I was taken home on a low loader.
I've just got the car back from my Toyota garage - their computer diagnosed a completely different fault - a problem with the turbo stepper motor. They cleared the fault and road tested the car for 20 minutes and it was fine.
They said it was the turbo cutting out to protect it from damage. I was only doing 50mph in steady traffic and in 5th gear (as confirmed by the RAC diagnostic at the time - amazing what those things can tell you!!) and the garage said it wasn't anything I had done, but they couldn't say why it had happened.
I've found out tonight that a colleague of mine had a similar problem a few months ago (same model) and and it was diagnosed as some kind of fuel valve problem that took about £500 to fix. I'm worried about these conflicting diagnosis - I do alot of miles for my job on motorways and I'm quite concerned that it could happen again at any time, it is quite scary.
Has anyone else had this problem or can shed any light?

My 03 Previa D4D with 35k miles had the same symptoms as your Previa (see previous post on Previa turbo failures). We managed to get through the summer but it went bad again during winter. I learned how to drive the car to minimise the issue i.e. I was very light on the throttle but any attempt to push the car a wee bit brought the light on and as you have said, the engine continued to run but it wouldn't pull at all and in my mind, was dangerous. My Toyota dealer told me it was a stuck turbo which they later described as a stuck servo. I didn't get the codes from them so I can't help you there, sorry.

In my case, I had the turbo replaced which cured that problem. I managed to get the old turbo from them and I can see that the wastegate valve is stuck which fits right in with my problem diagnosis.

I can't say that you have the same problem but your symptoms are similar to the problems I had. My dealer always claimed it was the turbo and replacing it did fix that issue.

Replacing the turbo is expensive so get a quote before going down this route. I managed to get Toyota to help a bit with the cost of the turbo and the dealer helped with the labour costs a bit.

I found this chart when I was Turbo fault finding. It did fit with my fault symptoms.

http://www.arturbo.co.uk:80/fault_diagnosis.asp