T180 No Acceleration Or Power When Cold

[Jim1758]

Has anyone else experienced the following problem with their Corolla Verso T180?

When started from cold the car has very little power and struggles to accelerate, or rev over about 2000rpm, for the first 2 or 3 miles. After that it seems to quickly come to life! It is so bad that a slight climbing road forces me to drop into second gear to maintain progress, and speeds over about 20mph are difficult. Like I say, it clears after the first couple of miles. Any ideas??

[Parts-King]

Get in touch with your dealer, it may be subject to an ECU re-flash! ;)

Kingo

[MikeT180]

Had exactly the same problem last August with the car requiring a new turbo; fortunately £5k worth of work under warranty.

Problem came back again recently - another new turbo, ecu upgrade amogst other things. Dealer could not explain why it had failed twice or the cause of the failure, unheard of fault with the car. Collected today from the dealer £2.3K bill, again under warranty.

Off the road for a week with no courtesy car both times. Not even an apology from Toyota. Had run in parallel with poor fuel economy - low 30's.

Won't buy again :(

Best of luck, at least Toyota are aware of the problem now.

[Jim1758]

Thanks for that information. The car is going into my local Toyota garage next Tuesday so I'll post their findings up once I know more......

[Jim1758]

Well the car has been with my local Toyota garage since Tuesday and they haven't found the cause yet. Apparently they agree the fault is there but the ECU is not displaying a fault so they are scratching their heads and trying replacing things - sounds expensive already! Wait and see I guess.....

[MikeT180]

Had the same initially with my local dealer - can't track down the fault, errors not logged on the ECU - they ended up talking to Toyota HQ who had them run tests to identify the turbo problem. Even now not convinced they know what caused it, even though it is now fixed.

The ECU fix posted elsewhere did not correct the fault. Insist on getting them to focus on the turbo. Best of luck, hope its covered under warranty.

[Jim1758]

So the Toyota garage could not prove that the turbo was (or wasn't) the reason for the fault. They gave me the car back as I told them I'd rather get the turbo reconditioned than have a new one fitted becuase of the cost. I am going to get it done and see if that sorts the problem. Thanks for the inputs on this forum which have helped me decide that this is the way to go. Still amazed that a main dealer cannot isolate the cause of a fault but there you go!

[jonnyfalk]

Has anyone else experienced the following problem with their Corolla Verso T180?

When started from cold the car has very little power and struggles to accelerate, or rev over about 2000rpm, for the first 2 or 3 miles. After that it seems to quickly come to life! It is so bad that a slight climbing road forces me to drop into second gear to maintain progress, and speeds over about 20mph are difficult. Like I say, it clears after the first couple of miles. Any ideas??

hiya i have just bought a T180 and mine has the same prob . but also when is has warmed up mine seems to a bit slugish in the lower revs as if its abit luggish when you put yr foot down until you hit the 2000 revs mark

[karjon]

Hello

I had all sorts of problems with my T180, starting, sluggish and losing power when travelling. Been into the garage loads of times.

I took it back after reading on this site of a possible recall and sure enough they said, oh yes we were going to recall because of the problems. Anyway they have done the computer update and the MPG is much better since, possibly because the idle is now set at only 900 when it was 1100. But I do now notice how sluggish it is especially in the lower gears.

Also had new front discs due to the problems with grinding breaks (again a known problem). This was done free of charge. I am fairly happy with my car at the moment.........my fingers are firmly crossed.

[jonnyfalk]

Hello

I had all sorts of problems with my T180, starting, sluggish and losing power when travelling. Been into the garage loads of times.

I took it back after reading on this site of a possible recall and sure enough they said, oh yes we were going to recall because of the problems. Anyway they have done the computer update and the MPG is much better since, possibly because the idle is now set at only 900 when it was 1100. But I do now notice how sluggish it is especially in the lower gears.

Also had new front discs due to the problems with grinding breaks (again a known problem). This was done free of charge. I am fairly happy with my car at the moment.........my fingers are firmly crossed.

have you noticed a noise from the engine when you excellerate sounds a bit like a rattle . untill you hit the 2000 rev mark. mainley when u poot your foot down hard or going up hill

[zorba_g]

Argh - I just bought a '55 plate T180 thinking 'need a people carrier, want 180bhp and a smile, what could go wrong?'

Since then, the 29mpg and laggy hills have been worrying me a bit. How do you know if the ECU update has been done, and is it free? I got it from a local non-Toyota dealer but I had them service it at Toyota first - are they supposed to do updates during a service?

Thanks :-(

Z

[RobinH]

For the record, my T180 Verso has had 3 replacement turbo's since new (Nov 2007). The problem is now back again i.e. very poor acceleration when the engine is cold so the car will now go back again (no doubt for a further replacement). I am very frustrated at the Toyota Dealers inability to identify the root cause and prevent recurrence.

Over 3 years ownership, the car has had approx 10% downtime (as a result of Turbo and cylinder head problems)and so far no apologies from the Toyota dealers despite repeatedly over running the quoted repair time.

Fuel efficiency has also been poor (circa 30MPG) but despite reporting this at the early 10K services the Toyota dealer could find nothing wrong!

Aside from the reliability problems it has been a great family car.

[zorba_g]

Quick one - my T180 started belching out white smoke and using more fuel and oil recently (than usual! - down to 23mpg ffs). Took in to Toyoya for a service and apparently there's a recall of some sort on the engine. Going to leave it with them for a week to do the replacement under some sort of extended warranty thing that they've decided.

[zorba_g]

An update - in December 2010 Toyota replaced the engine on my 55 plate T180 for no charge, despite the car being out of warranty. I have taken in back in once as it was still getting 24mpg - they discovered that a sensor had not been reconnected (wouldn't say which sensor). It still won't top 28mpg so I'm taking it back in.

[zorba_g]

Further update- in again for another free engine swap in August. Has been fine for the past three Weeks, even got 40mpg on the motorway once. Yesterday the turbo started howling and the mpg has started to drop once more. Sigh.

[zorba_g]

Yet another update. I've had the car in for a check on the howling turbo and I'm told that the blades or fan on the turbo are going. Despite the engine swaps, I'm told it's not a part that was changed, and it will be a four figure repair job. Does anyone have any idea where I can get a recon turbo done on it by someone competent? I'm at the end of my tether.