Stering Lock + Tracking? , Rear Rattles

[Ray1111]

Hi everyone I have in the last two weeks bought an approved used Toyota T-Spirit 1.6, 2002 it's my first Toyota and I'm a bit disappointed with it. Firstly to engage the steering lock I have to turn the steering wheel upside down, so the T of Toyota Badge on the steering wheel points down to the floor. I only noticed this after about 5 days of having the car. The wheels are out of alignment, when I'm driving in a straight line my steering wheel is slightly pointing to the left, it doesn't seem to affect the handling. From what I can gather it shouldn't be difficult to fix? I have contacted the dealer and it's going in on Monday next week, but I wonder if it actually had all it's checks as the workshop inspection certificate that you get with the approved pack hasn't been filled in, and the car was !Removed! filthy when I got it which also makes me suspicious. It also has some annoying rattles one that's really pi** ing me off coming from the rear of the car inside somewhere but can I hell track it down. Road noise is louder than any other car I've had (always had German cars till now) I could put up with certain things but the rattling is just doing my head in so much so that I would consider going into more debt and getting rid of it. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions that I could maybe work through, also does anyone know what checks it should have gone through before I got it?

Thanks in advance Ray ;)

[man-bing]

Firstly to engage the steering lock I have to turn the steering wheel upside down, so the T of Toyota badge on the steering wheel points down to the floor.

The wheels are out of alignment, when I'm driving in a straight line my steering wheel is slightly pointing to the left, it doesn't seem to affect the handling. From what I can gather it shouldn't be difficult to fix?

the car was !Removed! filthy when I got it which also makes me suspicious.

It also has some annoying rattles one that's coming from the rear of the car inside somewhere but can I hell track it down.

Road noise is louder than any other car I've had (always had German cars till now) I could put up with certain things but the rattling is just doing my head in so much so that I would consider going into more debt and getting rid of it.

I've not found a prob with my steering wheel lock, but then, not really used it since i got it from new, so i can't say much else.

If the tracking is of alignment, not much you can do apart from getting it realigned, but thats easy for the garage to fix.

Mine's doing that at the moment as well, but my own fault and the way i drive.

If you car was filthy, didn't you do pre-checks before you signed for it, the garage should of valeted it before you picked it up.

What sort of rattle can you hear (eg loose panel, trim, something moving about??) , and roughly when abouts in the rear do you think it might come from.

Have you checked in the tyre well, make sure nothing is moving about in there??

Yeah, it could do with a bit more soundproofing, which i did myself, but overall, it's not that noisy in my car, unless you speeding but even then, i wouldn't say its that noisy even then.

Did you get your car from a Toyota garage then, or somewhere else?

I've had mine since new, can't say i've had that much gone wrong with my car since then, usual wear and tear i suppose

Hope this helps you, let me know

Bing

Ps. not being rude, but please break you message up into paragraphs, rather than being one long sentence, thanks