RAV4 recalled for the 8th time.

[steve_earwig]

The horrible RAV (Revolting And Vile) is now 11 and today t'wife (who it's registered to) got a letter from Toyota. It's in forrin and jargon so I can't read much of it (and I'm not really interested anyway). It reads something like:

Firstly, thank you for the trust you have in buying a Toyota automobile (sucker). Toyota is strongly committed to blah blah blah ceaselessly blah when we learn blah blah our vehicles is necessary blah unsatisfactory blah a campaign waffle bullshit.

Something something what? something about condensation over time, driver's airbag, may split when activated etc.WTF?

Toyota are so committed to the satisfaction of their customers (har-de-har) have decided to call vehicles in and...

Oh. My. God - it's being recalled

This is it: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/probl ... mmary=true

I can't see anything on the TOC but no doubt they'll all be saying how wonderful Mr T is for fixing the cars when the cars are so old other manufacturers wouldn't bother. However I reckon it just shows how paranoid Toyota must be about more litigation, bad publicity, loss of sales etc.

It's all FOC but I have to take it in to a Toyota dealer in Zagreb sometime soon. Not sure which yet, there used to be one right near my bro-in-law but last time I was there I noticed it had closed. Ah no, I have it, they moved right near the Peugeot and Citroen showrooms - cool, I can do a spot of window shopping

[steve_earwig]

Update: I just got t'wife to read it, the recall starts in September. What? It could have killed me by then

[Welly]

Blimey!

Seems like an early attempt to save themselves from bad publicity (from merrycans). Shame they didn't recall the Lambda Sensors, the ECU's, the CAT's, the bodywork, the chassis, the running gear.......

You never know they might have to clear all the fault codes when it's in?

[steve_earwig]

Oh, I already did that, the only one that keeps coming back is the yaw sensor, whatever the hell that is...

I think the transmissions are generally good on this, although having no trick differentials or anything this one relies on the brakes to do all the traction work and I've had it spinning wheels trying to drive over lumps of ice (accompanied by the smell of hot brakes)

Electrics don't seem too bad either, just the yaw sensor thingy and half the dash lamps have blown and aren't replaceable without a soldering iron and a steady hand.

Bodywork, well they're not known for it but this one had the front suspension turrets rust through at less than 10 years. Horribly corroded wheels are common too.

Emission control, hahahah. Oddly I think the petrols in the next infestation, sorry, incarnation (4.3) are generally good. The diesels, on the other hand, seem to be a disaster, especially, the D-Cats which seem to need a new engine every other service.

I was reading about the automatic gearbox ecu's the other day (more of this later). The word was on the early 4.2's that the ecu was getting damp but now it appears they had an inherent fault- Apparently they'd try to select 2 gears at once. Obviously if left for any length of time they'd take the gearbox with them.

Never mind the horribly cheap interior.

[OllieNZ]

Yaw sensor is part of the traction control system and is there to detect loss of control at the back end and prevent a spin.

[steve_earwig]

Apparently it's under the centre console, needs introducing to the ecu and is very expensive. I think I prefer living in ignorance.

[Welly]

The Slushmatic capers is what killed off the 2002 RAV at work, you be happily* cruising along and all kinds of jumpy gear capers would start, we found a lot of stuff on the web about the ECU and traded it in sharpish.....