Its a good result for you I bet your heart missed a beat when they gave you the costs for a new engine.

Tony my 55 plate Landcruiser has gone the same way as yours unfortunately, Toyota have taken the decision not to help in any way, very frustrating as we have had the car for six years and now find ourselves stuck with a car that is too expensive to fix, I have spent hours in an e-mail debate with Joe the customer service manager who admits there is an ‘improvement program in place to change the washers out but as our car had not been maintained by a Toyota service centre we would not fall under their goodwill scheme that I think you did.

Joe pointed us towards the dealer we bought the car from Toyota World Tamworth but they again are not interested, they took our hard earned money quickly enough, so I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone, in fact the whole episode has turned both my wife and myself off Toyota completely which is shocking considering I was their biggest fan only last year.

Not knowing where to go for an engine is the show stopper, there are so many unscrupulous engine companies out there trading under so many different names we have been left with no option but to sell it ‘as is’ on e-bay in the vague hope that we can recoup a fraction of the cost we spent on it.

We are looking to take Tamworth to court under the trade description act, can anyone help on this?

Hi,

Glad to hear you were lucky that Toyota paid for the repair. Some of us are not so lucky. My 08 Avensis 2.2 diesel had a head gasket failure last year - and toyota refused to pay for the repair!!! They cited it was 'outside' the three year warranty and not serviced by a Toyota dealer - even though it was serviced using Toyota genuine parts by a VAT registered garage. The car was an ex company car from where I work and was purchased from them within the warranty period. I was lucky that my firm provided me with a free secondhand warranty that paid the majority of the bill. That was galling enough but the Toyota dealer was even worse!! They said I needed a water pump at circa £200 + fitting which I declined. Upon inspction by me, there was no sign of a leak and 12 months later its still looking fine. They also reported a low oil level fault on roadtest - which was ok before it went in. The sensor to fix the problem was circa £250 + fitting which I again declined. I did research the oil problem on the net and was advised to change the oil to the correct spec...something I thought the dealer had done. I changed the oil making sure it was correct spec and hey presto!!! problem sorted. So, respect for Toyota and their dealers??? None!!! Buy another Toyota??? NEVER!!!

Looking at the new Kia Ce'ed Estate??? Oh, yes indeedy

Robin the Technician - I fix, therefore I am