Just bought the missus a Rav4 T180, then found that a number of engines have failed to the degree that Toyota have been replacing engines on cars up to 7 years old.

Not sure of the number affected but was wondering if there is a way to minimise the risk. Guess this is aimed more at Fluffyninja (at least I think it is he who has the knowledge) and if there is a particular batch of engines affected. I know it's pre Dec 08 cars which mine is.

Any info gratefully received.

Not on Toyota forum yet so thought I'd ask here.

 

We've had a T180 for almost 3 years & you are right on the engine side of things - 7 years & up to 112k miles.

EGR valve is easy to take off & clean & head gasket failures aren't that common. Two of the main issues are very poor fuel consumption & high oil consumption which can result in the engine being replaced FOC by Toyota even if you didn't buy the car from them. See here for full details:

http://www.toyotaown...and-its-issues/


We had our engine replaced by Toyota not long after buying the car as ours was using a fair bit of oil & have since put over 40k miles on it without a single issue.

You should be able to check if your T180 has had its engine replaced already in which case you should be okay.

One thing worth noting is that Toyota are being superb over this whole issue, if your vehicle is identified as having a problem they are just cracking on with it and they are not trying to hide behind anything or fob you off with BS like other manufacturers.

 

ha, spent about 3 hours yesterday and tonight reading all 50 pages and am still not sure whether to cancel the order for the car. its not really fuel efficient at the best of times and even if it has had the engine changed it seems some of the new engines have had issues.

Will see what the petrol ones are like. Pity as the T180 has a great spec but will keep an open mind on it before i commit.

Not to mention the cost of new tyres.

Have you chipped yours?

 

A few things to bear in mind, there are known issues with the 08-09 S rattle of death which doesn't seem to put people off buying them, it doesn't impact all cars and as far as I am aware Honda have not openly admitted that there is an issue with the 08-09 engines.

Compare the above statement to Toyota have recognised and admitted that there is a problem and as long as your car qualifies (which is fair enough IMO otherwise everyone would be trying for a new engine) then they do exactly what they have committed to and even if your car doesn't have a problem now you still have up to 7 years or 112k miles.

When we bought ours from a main dealer nearly 3 years ago there were some known issues at the time such as the water pump failing and the EGR valve sooting up. Our water pump had already been replaced by Toyota due to it leaking and the EGR valve had been checked with no issues found. A few months after buying ours my wife changed jobs and her weekly mileage went up considerably which is were I realised the car was using more than it's fair share of oil. After taking it to Toyota they simply checked the oil level, filled it back up and told us to do 1,000 miles & come back. When we did go back it was a case of yes, yours is using too much oil, we will order you a new engine and a few weeks later all was done and dusted. My point being is that is was hassle free, we had a courtesy car whilst ours was getting sorted and we have had no issues since. As with any forum you are going to have people moaning about the failures, bad experiences, etc and not enough about what was done right, good experiences, etc. I have posted on there a few times to say how pleased I was with whole process and so have others but they get over shadowed by the others complaining.

As far as I am aware there are only a handful of engines that have been replaced that have experienced the same issue again and are on essentially a 3rd engine.

Fuel wise, get it chipped and you will see at least 6-7 mpg improvement in addition to the car being so much better to drive. The numbers go up from 177 bhp & 295 ft/lbs of torque to 212 bhp and approx 400 ft/lbs of torque. When we had the engine swapped I took our chip kit off about a week before and my wife who is not usually bothered with power, acceleration, etc, asked my what I had done to the car!! If you do decide to go ahead & buy one look up a trader called 'Kingo' on the Toyota forum, he is actually a Toyota main dealer (my local one which is very handy) and he supplies the kit which from what I can gather from many people trying various other kits is the best one for the T180.

As for tyres, yes they are expensive but you will easily get 35-40k miles out of a set so it essentially works out no more expensive than paying for 2 sets were you would get say 15-20k miles. We changed our fronts last February after 40k and there was still 3mm of tread on them!!

 

Yep had already taken the S issues into the equation. The car is coming from the main dealer that supplied the car and have done every service. I will be asking if the engine has been changed but the car will have a 12mth warranty with it and I will probably extend this to 3yrs.

Already looked at kingo's box. Just got to find a way of getting it on the car without the missus finding out.

Couldn't believe the missus went for the T180. If I'd have steered her to it she would have said no and gone to the bottom of the range one lol.

Guess it is only affecting less than 10% of the 2ad engines so the odds are in our favour and I would hope problems would have shown up by now 73k miles.

 

Where's Fluffyninja (Toyota engine testing engineer, IIRC) when you need him ...

 

He's researching the faults and history of my car and doing a top job as always.

 

As I elaborated on another thread, do not expect Ninja-san to post on this one.

 

Not seen your other post Nick but the info I was really after was whether it was a batch between certain numbers or ones between a period of time.

I am going with the odds that I'll either be unlucky and get a new engine or lucky and get a new engine. Or not have a problem like the majority lol.

 

I'll guess that as with the S2000 issue, it will be a time period as the engines would be called off from storage as they are fitted to several vehicles.

The problem is like the S2000, the failure rate is probably so low (but unacceptably high for a Toyota) that there is no way of knowing which engines are afflicted until they break. That's why Toyota are only repairing the broken ones.

Again the VIN will tell you (or your agent!) whether it has been subject to such a warranty claim, presuming it is in 'range'.

Anyway, what I've read suggests that Toyota has paid up and looked big over this. And a load of its other recent QC woes, which they've acknowledged.

The jury's out however, wrt. Honda & the F20c...