Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability

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Tue 2 Oct 2012 18:01
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - bulkedward

I bought this car partly on HJ's recommendation and whilst essentially excellent at 55,000 miles it suffered an engine failure, without prior warning.

Toyota are doing their utmost to deny laibility and have fudged a £1000 repair without finding the cause.


Despite being Toyota serviced from new they are treating me like dirt and deny the existence of the service alert as listed on the What's Bad in the HJ website.

Any suggestions how to get Toyota to wake up?

Bulkedward

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Tue 2 Oct 2012 18:26
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - Peter.N.

Sorry to hear of your problems especially as Toyota are usually one of the better firms in dealing with problems, have you actually contacted the company yourself?

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Tue 2 Oct 2012 18:55
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - Collos25

Toyota did not replace a blown engine for 1k what was actually wrong or what were the symptoms.

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Tue 2 Oct 2012 19:12
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - madf

Insufficient detail to make any comment except a £1000 rebuild will pay for very little.

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Tue 2 Oct 2012 20:26
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - Galaxy

Chap at work has a Toyota Avensis with which there was a known engine problem issue.

Toyota paid for a complete short engine to be fitted at a Toyota main dealer.

It's unusual for Toyota, or any other Japanese company, to shirk their responsibilities when a known problem occurs.

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Tue 2 Oct 2012 21:29
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - Collos25

Piston rings disolved on petrol Toyota Avensis engines.

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 13:21
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - bulkedward

This was a 2.2 litre diesel.

This issue was a blocked ERV pipe that made the electronics shut down.

My gripe is they fixed the symptom pipe for a £1000 and did nothing to resolve the cause. on which basis it is a very expensive and temporary repair.

bulkedward

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 13:30
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - bulkedward

Toyota's cure for a car with shut-down electronics was to replace a £15 ERV pipe for £1000 cost of labour rather than suggest or address the cause of the failure.

I am trying to think of railway arch garage that would offer a worse solution than Toyota main service agents..

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 13:27
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - bulkedward

The electronics shut down twice into limp mode. Once in London and Inchcape reset the codes and told me to try again, then the warrenty ran out, and 5000 miles afterward a Toyota service it happened again conveniently one kilometre from the Spanish northern border.

Doesn't give an owner a feeling of reliability when stung for the cost of an incomplete repair.

bulkedward

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 13:24
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - bulkedward

No Jemca suggest they are representing me in discussions with Toyota.

Tricky whilst on one hand saying I have been treated shoddily on the other they tell me Toyota's offer of a free service is a great treat.

I contend they have done an incomplete repair.

Bulkedward

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 13:58
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - thunderbird

I bought this car partly on HJ's recommendation

Honest Johns fault then, nothing to do with Toyota.

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 15:34
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - Collos25

I find this post very hard to believe if its true there is more to the storey than is being told.

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 15:59
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - bulkedward

Happy for anyone to call Inchcape or Jemca to hear from their perspective. If you hear anything contradictary then do let me know.

All builds up a case

Bulkedward

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 16:02
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - bulkedward

Not at all.

Just surprised by the outcome. Lots of possible excuses, the oddest of which is that whilst being the world's largest car manufacturer Toyota only offer 2 diesel passenger car engines in the UK.

Perhaps they just have limited experience building diesel engines?

bulkedward

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Wed 3 Oct 2012 20:40
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - coopshere
In deed they have had problems with the Diesel engines in their cars built from, I believe, around 2003 to 2008 predominantly related to the head gasket which has resulted in them extending the warranty from 3 to 5 years and 100,000 miles on vehicles with these engines.

Their petrol engines have been far more reliable.

Talking to a senior Toyota salesman recently and he stated that Toyota will be moving out of the diesel market in the future and concentrating on their petrol and hybrid models.

As a motor manufacturer with a long history of innovation and high technology this makes sense as the long term second hand diesel market will undoubtedly collapse, due to the DPF and their related problems, meaning fleet buyers will have to abandon them too because of low residual values.
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Fri 14 Dec 2012 13:27
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - ChrisCross

Our Verso Corolla Verso went off to the garage today to have its heater fixed - I have just been told by the Toyota garage that it is essentially dead. The head gasket has gone which means:

£700 for a diagnosis whether the engine is damaged beyond repair

£2500 for replacement of a gasket if the engine is OK

£9000!!!!!!!! for a new engine fitted if the cylinder block/pistons are warped.

The car is out of MOT on Monday

£9000 is probably twice what the car is worth it is 7 years and 13 days 'old' from a Warranty perspective. This is where it gets interesting. Thanks to this site I was quickly able to determine that this is a known problem and that the warranty has been extended to 7 years or 100,000 as a result (Toyota CR have confirmed this). If Toyota had bothered to warn us and what signs to look for then we would have been okay. The red heating light came on briefly and went off on 26th November - inside the warranty period. As the red light went off quickly and was not on for long we were not too worried but the heating had packed up - I assumed some valve into the heater matrix had failed. As a precaution we did book the car in for a service with a Toyota dealer but today was the earliest we could manage - this is 13 days beyond the warranty period. We are comfortably inside the mileage limit at 87,000 miles. Toyota Customer Relations have decided we are on our own - this seems very unfair bearing in mind this is a well known issue and we are on the cusp of the warranty period.

Any advice on what we can do now ?

If anyone has the 4D4 diesel version of the Corolla Verso and the red engline light comes on - no matter how briefly - and the heater blows cold air - get it into a Toyota dealer immediately - don't try and book a service - get it in. Our plan was to keep this car for a long time until it died - obviously this was a bad plan based on the actual reliability of Toyota diesel engines but how were we to know. Toyota never warned us about the head gasket issues. This compounds the issue we had with an Aygo which needed a new clutch after only 40K. Our personal experience therefore is that Toyota reliability/longevity is sadly a myth.

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Fri 14 Dec 2012 16:36
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - skidpan

Our plan was to keep this car for a long time until it died

You have achieved what you set out to do, well done.

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Sat 15 Dec 2012 13:38
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - Collos25

Anew HG will cost about 500ukp to fit,it will be pretty obvious once the head is removed if there is any collateral damage .Why on earth people take cars to glass palaces once out of warranty for repair I will never know there is always a good cheaper alternative.

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Fri 11 Jan 2013 20:56
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - Radon

Same problem here.

Verso 2.2 Deisel. 57 reg Done 71k. Now with a blown head gasket. Right now the car seems to drive ok but it is drinking coolant.

Toyota is refusing to fix it under warrantee because I only have a 50% service history and they have set the minimum for warrantee claims to 80%. I've had each major service and missed some minor services but this is known issue that happens to lots of people, service history or not. It's an excuse.

What is really annoying is that after I first bought the car, it was using up oil quite a lot. I was getting the oil warning light come on every 5000 miles or so. I complained when the car was less than one year old but I was told to not worry about it, some cars are just like that, and just top up the oil if it runs low. Now down the track the problem is worse, I'm told I'm on my own.

I have to wonder, is it worth trying to get it fixed, or can I just keep topping up the coolant? I've not had any warning lights yet.

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Fri 11 Jan 2013 21:05
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - gordonbennet
Toyota is refusing to fix it under warrantee because I only have a 50% service history and they have set the minimum for warrantee claims to 80%. I've had each major service and missed some minor services but this is known issue that happens to lots of people, service history or not. It's an excuse.

Those minor services you missed are oil and filter changes, hardly surprising Toyota are not picking up the tab for this one.

A decent indy mechanic should be able to sort this out for you, but it sounds as if you've been using the oil pressure warning light as a dipstick, so in your case i'd suggest a used engine might be a better bet.

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Sun 13 Jan 2013 12:58
Verso 2.2 - Toyota Corolla Verso unreliability - madf

Man admits to missing oil and filter services and then complains that the Manufacturer will not supply a free new engine.

There is a one word answer for such behaviour...

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