Hi I am currently about to trade my immaculate Sportrak for an equally Immaculate Townace Lounge but am a little perturbed by the horror stories on this site of exploding cylinder heads due too overheating, is it a recognised weakness and what steps can be taken to avoid.
This is an immaculate (really) 1991 Townace turbo diesel showing 114K which I think roughly equates to about 71 thousand miles. It appears to have every conceivable extra including the fridge and everything works. Asking price is £2850 but the vendor will accept £2600. Is this a good price?? what sort of consumption can I expect from mixed driving. Can the TV tuner be used with some sort of convertor as per some imported radio tuners. Can the speedo also be similarly converted. Can service spares be bought from your average Toyota dealer?
Any advice would be really appreciated.
Thanks
George
- (#7347) George, 23 Feb 03
Phew, so many questions, so little time to answer them, many of these topics are covered in great detail on this Ace Answers website so visit there for more detail, but here goes:-
1) Yes the head gasket failure is about the only achilles heel these fine vehicles have, but with some precautions, trouble can be avoided, topic coverd in great detail on above website.
2) 71 K miles isn't too bad, some lower examples around, but if the rest is good, mileage isn't an issue, but get a warranty if it's from a trade source, otherwise take it for a good long test drive, with lots of high speed & hills to test out the cooling system, if it starts to get a bit hot, leave it & go & find a goodun', price is OK too.
3) MPG will be around 20-32 for a diesel, abysmal for a petrol.
4) TV tuner can't be converted for UK use, but can accept a composite signal from say a DVD, but remember the TV is NTSC standard, and we use PAL in the UK, so a DVD player would need to have NTSC output to match the monitor.
5) Not a legal requirement to have a MPH speedo, but you can either buy a stick on face to go over existing speedo, odometer will still read kilometres, or you can get an electrical convertor that makes speedo read 1.6 times less, so existing face reads mph in effect & as from date of conversion odometer reads miles, added to previous kilometres.
6) Toyota dealers fully support Townace & other imports, all parts available, but you may have a wait as most not stocked in UK, regular service kits available from your local factor or good car accs shop, just look at the site above for the part numbers you need, do oil & filter every 3000 miles (5000Km) to keep the diesel engine tip top.
Most of all, read fully Townace.co & this site as well as the others linked from these sites to really learn alot about your new car.
Hope this helps, regards Rob.
- (#7348) Rob Drinkwater, 23 Feb 03
Cheers Rob, it is a 2.0 turbo diesel so I can probably live with the consumption. I am cautious about imported cars as I previously owned an imported Honda Civic which caused problems with certain service items.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction though.
- (#7349) George, 23 Feb 03
The likes of Honda & Nissan don't recognise that inported cars exist, or at least Nissan do, but they cahrge you for looking up the parts, whetehr you buy or not. Toyota on the other hand DO support their import vehicles, if you go to a dealer & tell them what vehicle you have, they will simply switch to the Japanese CD & look up whatever you want, however always go armed with lots of info, like chassis code, chassis number, build code etc, as there are so many variations of the 'ACE' series, they'll never find your bits without this info. As regards the regular sevice items, I wouldn't use Toyota, but buy the ADL Blueprint equivalent from your local factor, if you let me know your nearest major town, then I can let you know your nearest stockist. HTH Rob.
- (#7350) Rob Drinkwater, 23 Feb 03
I am about 30 miles North of Newcastle Upon Tyne.
I have just contacted the seller, private not dealer, to arrange a suitable test drive as you suggested. He is adamant however that the vehicle doesn't overheat.
Incidentally what is the recommended mileage for the cam belt, assuming cams are belt and not gear driven.
Cheers
George
- (#7351) George, 23 Feb 03