Avensis problem?

Leonard Hofstadter

It's got the 1.8 1ZZ-FE engine and 177,000 kms up on it. Recently serviced (full service) at a main dealer.

The car sounds a little weird, maybe I'm paranoid but it just doesn't sound right. It sounds a little well metallicly I suppose you could call it. It makes a bit of a metal scraping metal type noise, now it's very faint but yet I can still hear it, it is noticable when it is being revved at idle or when the engine is being worked hard.

More worrying is that it has now started to make a very slight knock, again it's very hard to hear it but I can definitely hear something amiss. IF you rev it at idle there is definitely a knocking sound, well maybe not a knocking sound but a diesel clatter type sound anyway. It is very quiet, you'd want to be listening very carefully to hear it but I swear I can hear a bit of a knock;)! The knock is only intermittant though,95% of the time it is not there.

I thought it might be low on oil because I know these engines are fond of burning oil at higher mileage, but having checked the oil level and I found it is about 150 - 200 mls over the max, assuming that the difference between min and max on the dipstick is 1 litre.

If I got an oil extractor pump and drained out the excess oil would this make it sound like normal or is it something more serious? Could the chain have skipped a tooth or something? Or is the chain on the way out(though I think it would be louder if the chain was going, then again if it is just stating to go I guess it will get louder over time)? These have variable valve timing, could something have gone wrong there, I know BMW engines with VVT can get fairly rattly because there is a problem with the Vanos(VVT).

Aside from the noise the engine seems to go perfectly, fuel consumption hasn't disimproved and there is no power loss(and trust me I'd notice if it was down on power:D).

Or am I paranoid and everything in it is fine;)?

PS: the car was doing this before the full service, after the service it improved but has come back since and seems to be getting worse and it didn't have excess oil in it before being serviced, the car doesn't seem to be buring oil (yet) either.

Nissan doctor

Maybe let the garage have a look at it but tbh, with that sort of milage, I wouldn't say its anything out of the ordinary. Check that they are using the correct oil grade though as this can be just as important in modern engines.

Stoolbend

Toyota garages always fill the oil above max. I wouldn't worry about it.

Is it possible that the noise you're hearing isn't coming from the inlet manifold?

Theres a flat piece of plastic that comes loose in them and can make a knocking noise just as you rev it up a bit.

Leonard Hofstadter

Cool, I'll check the manifold this evening and report back! Thanks lads.

Leonard Hofstadter

Twas only the plastic piece in the inlet manifold:o, car sounds normal again, thanks:).

Gary ITR

Thanks for letting us know

I Was VB

I've the same rattles/sounds on my car too, 1.8 and 317K miles. Turns out it was the rockercover plastic.

I thought it was the timing chain on its way out.

Leonard Hofstadter

Same car, but different problem this time.

The a/c takes an age to deliver cold air. Car has dual zone climate control.

If you start it you get very warm air(even with the temp set for say 19 or 20 and like the past few days the car is melting when you get into it), which then cools down slowly, after say 1-2 minutes it is cold(although still not icy cold like a/c should be).

Even with the 'auto' button on, the air recirculation button on and the temp turned down to 16C or to "LO" you get warm air initially and then it starts to get colder after about 30 seconds before properly cool air comes out of the vents.

There is also a bad smell from the a/c as well, a bit like eggs, though it is still present when the a/c is turned off and just the fan is on.

The pollen filter was supposed to have been changed 3,000 kms ago so I'm presuming it's not that.

What has me confused is that once you get over the initial first 2 minutes or so the air out of the vents does get nice and cold and the car then does cool down after that(you can see the number of bars on the graphic showing the fan speed decreasing not long after the cold air finally arrives), but for the first few minutes you have to open the windows before the a/c does what it's meant to do!

Leonard Hofstadter

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but it in the end the noise that I thought was the inlet manifold turned out to be something much worse in the end.

During the summer the engine just sounding louder like it was low on oil.

Went to check the oil and the level was good and the colour was good. Checked the oil cap to see if we had HG failure etc. Engine all seemed good. After some Googling I found the rocker cover can get loose on these so I decided that was ok to drive on and when it was due in for a service they'd tighten it up and it would be fine.

That was a decision I came to regret. One night driving away it got rather loud, loud enough for me to think that there must definitely be something wrong with the engine. So I pulled in and checked oil etc and all seemed to be fine. As I was only a few miles from home I decided to chance it and drive on. I knew the car had a timing chain and it sounded like it was rattling or so I thought, and I know that timing chains normally give plenty of notice before they expire so I figured that as it had only just started it would be ok to drive on.

That was a bad decision on my part. Drove another half a mile to hear a loud bang and the car lost all drive. The penny finally dropped that it was the gearbox:eek:!

On hindsight I had noticed for a while that the car was a bit difficult to get into and out of first gear but I assumed it was only the clutch because of the mileage on the car and the fact it was still on the original clutch. Obviously that was not the case. The syncros were damaged and the cogs wouldn't move. The Toyota garage kindly informed us that this happens quite often with the VVTi Avensis. At least they were honest and didn't pretend they've never heard of one doing that before etc.

After extensive Googling I found that apparently Avensis's are quite bad for gearbox failure. I knew VVTis were fond of a drop of oil but I didn't know they like going through gearboxes as well. Granted we would clock up a lot of miles but I don't think gearbox failure is acceptable. Of course I could probably have prevented it from happening because originally I thought it was something engine related that was going wrong and to get it seen to but after checking on the internet the conclusion I came to was that the inlet manifold and the engine cover have a habit of working their way loose and there is nothing to worry about.

An expensive lesson indeed!

dotz

i worked with toyota for a while and as i was reading your first post, "gearbox bearing" poped into my head. in the garage we were doing 1 or 2 of them a week.

Leonard Hofstadter

The bearings went in it as well, I think they went first and that caused the synchros etc to go.

Can't say I'm overly impressed by the reliability of Toyotas to be honest, though in fairness the car has never developed any significant problems before this and the engine still runs very well even with 189,000 km on the clock, it feels like it will hit 300,000 km no bother and probably would get to 400,000 km if we tried!