My 57 reg Avensis 2.0 diesel has done over 80000 miles and also developed a cylinder head gasket leak but fortunately I caught it before it needed a new cylinder head. The dealer charged me £2300 including 15 hours labour at £90/hour (they told me they always remove the engine to do this job), then there were additional charges for parts and the VAT). It was also smoking heavily and difficult to start when cold and required a new set of injectors - another £1800! My previous Avensis was an 04 reg diesel with 5 speed manual transmission which kept jumping out of fifth (a known fault). It first failed at 59000 miles (just within the 60000 mile warranty), and during the following 18 months and another 60000 miles the gearbox was removed and repaired no less than 7 (seven) times under warranty. I thought this was just bad luck and decided to replace it with the 57 reg! Needless to say this is the last Toyota I will ever have. It's the end of the road for Toyota's as far as I'm concerned.

My Toyota Avensis 57 has 8400 miles and the cylinder head gasket went. I only had the car 2 weeks then it was of the road for 12 weeks. I was lucky I got mine fixed sort of, by the garage I bought it from. Need to ask is this a problem with 2003- 2008 Avensis?

Our 07 Avensis Diesel developed this well-known head gasket problem this summer. The Jemca Toyota service centre has told us that we might have done further damage and recommend that we get a reconditioned engine at a cost of around £4,500 incl. work.

We bought the car from a Toyota dealer - Jemca in Croydon - in December 2012, well after Toyota had acknowledged that these models were susceptible to blown head gaskets and had extended the warranty. As ours is over 7 years old, despite having only done 82k and having a full Toyota service history, Toyota are refusing to contribute to fixing it.

I am pursuing the dealer under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 - Misleading Omissions. The dealer was aware of the problem with this model when it was sold to us, yet failed to mention it. In fact, he specifically told us that the engine was good for 150-200k miles! Had he warned us that there was a potential problem, we could have taken out an extended warranty for less than £500 p.a.

We paid £6,800 for the car and spent over £1,000 on its last service and I'm not prepared - and can't afford - to pay for the repair or simply scrap it.

Edited by JohnnyC on 17/09/2015 at 15:50