Sold Brown Avensis. *Eyes down*

[SiC]

More oil equals lower temperature so less burning, apparently.

Have a look at Toyota Owners club forum for more.

If that is the case, I wonder if an extra oil cooler would help?

 

60mpg is incredibly impressive from a petrol. Puts the 1.8 Vectra right to shame. They seem to struggle to get mid 30s.

[Wingz123]

I've been browsing AT today looking at these after reading this thread, nearly 60mpg from a 1.8 pez is insane.

Thats why you’ll find many avensis PETROL taxis as well. None of the aggro (injectors/turbos the like) that give headache with the diesels...

[Lacquer Peel]

Who needs a hybrid?

[Wingz123]

Who needs a hybrid?

Haha those who want auto AND economy...

 

Had as much as 76mpg driving conservatively inner city in my prius. Small tank £46 to fill

[Jim Bell]

Ill say what we are all thinking.

 

Why didnt they just fix this engine and put it in everything?

[Wingz123]

Ill say what we are all thinking.

 

Why didnt they just fix this engine and put it in everything?

Was it when we were all being told to buy diesels? And so didn’t deem it to be worthwhile investing in further testing?...haven’t a clue just a guess....then I suspect emission targets may also have had something to do with it....

[Walter White]

I've been browsing AT today looking at these after reading this thread, nearly 60mpg from a 1.8 pez is insane.

Really economical cars. I have the earlier 7AFE lean burn, mk1 1.8 petrol and have averaged 60mpg on a run to Surrey and back. It was "played for" with very steady driving.

Will typically average 45mpg with mixed bag commuting, 50mpg plus on long steady runs.

VVTi similarly economical.

 

As stated earlier by Bourne, such a shame the oil consumption issues tarnish Toyotas between 2000 & 2006.

[Jim Bell]

New wheel bearing to go on but cant get in to local friendly garage till NEXT Monday.

 

 

In the meantime with not much else to do, I decided to give it a good clean out and fabreeze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Close enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kringle]

What a wonderful looking servant you have there, poised and ready to do its duty of doggy days out and tip runs. Loving the sticker btw.

[rantingYoof]

That boot is ludicrously big and those seats look exceptionally comfy too.

 

And the car's brown of course.

[SiC]

Your gear stick is ridiculously long too.

[Jim Bell]

That boot is ludicrously big and those seats look exceptionally comfy too.

 

And the car's brown of course.

 

 

The seats are so mega comfy man and the boot is so mega bigly huge.  Its pretty practical for a big old hatch thats shaped like a saloon.

[Jim Bell]

Your gear stick is ridiculously long too.

 

 

Are you tryin to say I'm tryin to compensate for summat like mate?

[Jim Bell]

You can get quite a lot in here. Like a Shogun rear bulkhead thing.

 

 

 

 

Soz Scotland. AS is my country. 4 lyf.

 

 

 

 

 

Shite fwennnnnds.

 

 

[Walter White]

I found some posts from Toyota owners forum about oil burning which might help decide what if anything can be done to run the car as long as possible with the fewest ill effects.

 

There may not be lots of new information here, but here it is:

 

 

The oil consumption issues affecting 1zz 1.8, 3zz 1.6 & 4zz 1.4 engines is caused by a combination of several issues, leading Toyota to make several changes to the engines up to around mid 2005 where they managed to cure the issues,

1. Insufficient oil capacity, pre 2005 engines only came with 3.7 litres of oil, this caused the oil to remain very hot all the time reducing the cooling affect the oil has on the back of the pistons. The continued high oil temps causes the oil to degrade and sludge excessively between service oil changes.

Toyota increased the oil capacity from 3.7 to 4.7 litres reducing the oil temps in the engine. ( EDIT On post 2005 cars Toyota increased oil capacity to 4.2 litres, On pre 2005 cars which had the official modifications carried out due to excessive oil consumption the oil capacity was raised to 4.7litres except for MR2's which stayed at 3.7litres due to the compact / shallow sump fitted to them )

2. Poor piston design, the rear of the piston only had 4 oil ways allowing the hot oil coming from the piston ring oil scrapers to pass away from the piston rings. This meant that the oil stayed at the hottest part of the piston crown for too long exacerbating issue # 1 which in turn allowed the oil ways to sludge up. Once sludging started the oil would eventually start to burn and harden around the rings this started to wear away at the bores eventually misshaping them. Due to the Nikosil coating applied to the bores they should not be rebored or honed meaning Toyota replaced any block showing even the slightest of damage.

Toyota redesigned the pistons to include 8 oil ways which allowed the oil to pass away quicker.

3. The use of poor quality or overly thick oils (thicker than 5w30) increased the likely hood of the issues above occurring. Toyota noted that even dealers where using oils such as 10w40 and quickly pointed out that although the owners manual listed 10w40 it was for warmer climates and that 5w30 was the preferred grade and insisted that dealers use 5w30 when servicing and repairing #zz engines.

4. Poor piston ring design, In an attempt to reduce friction, increase efficiency and lower emissions the engine designers profiled the piston rings to a sharp point reducing the contact point on the bore, this on its own only increased oil consumption slightly but when combined with issues 1,2 & 3 caused the piston rings not scrape the overly thick oils effectively.

New piston rings where designed with a larger contact area and higher ring tension.

Initially Toyota fitted new blocks along with modified pistons, rings, thermostat ( to lower engine running temp ) and a modified dipstick ( to show the new 4.7litre levels) they also recovered the old blocks eventually leading to them switching the approved repair method to remanufactured short blocks fully assembled with the modified parts.

Cheers

Devon

very precise except the oil capacity change.it was increased by 0.5 of a litre from 3.7 to 4.2 .

 

I have the pre-modified engine, I marked the dipstick 5mm higher, so far I do not use oil.

 

I had a 2003 1.8 that had done about 50k when it started to use oil, eventually about 0.5L to 500 miles. I came on the forum to learn abot this problem and came across the claim that use of the best petrols was better as they had a higher level of detergent that helped keep the ring grooves/piston holes clear and stopped excessive oil consumption. I did not really think that would work but resolved to give it a try. Over a period of 4 months the oil consumption dropped from 1000 miles per litre down to 3000 miles per litre when running on supreme grade fuel. It stayed at that level then for 6 months when I continued using the premium fuel. I then started using ordinary grade fuel and the oil consumption started to rise and after 4 months it was back at 1000 miles per litre. I started using the premium petrol again and the oil consumption steadily dropped back to 3000 miles / litre. It continued then for another year on the premium petrol when I sold the car at 70K miles.

Before this experience I was totally sceptical about the detergent qualities of super grade petrol comared to nomal grade and how it would help keep an engine piston rings clear and reduce oil burning but my experience confirmed (to me) what others on this site had claimed.

I also filled the oil level to 12mm above the normal mark and never had any sign of it being over full eg burning oil going up or down extremely steep hills, hard cornering and heavy braking.

 

Why 12mm?

 

My understanding was that the higher sump capacity of 0.5 L was achieved merely by a higher mark on the dipstick of about 10mm. I tried 10mm at first without any ill effects and then settled a bit higher at 12mm and remarked the dipstick at what i think was 0.6L extra. I wished I had done the switch to premium grade fuel at a seperate time from increasing the sump capacity so I would have understood better what was going on but I just wanted a fix ASAP.

 

In order to make a lighter, more powerful yet economic engine to replace the 7A-FE Toyota engineers used several stategies in order to accomplish it. One stategy was to use lighter materials i.e aluminium block and hard plastic inlet manifold while another was to reduce friction and pumping losses in the engine by using low tension piston rings which in theory is a good idea but in practice it appears that they didn't always seal well enough resulting in blow by gasses escaping past the rings allowing for oil to be burnt. Added to that they only had 4 oil drain back hole in the ring glands under the oil control rings that were also unnecesarrily small that could easily get blocked up if the oil wasn't clean ir full of particulates. This encouraged oil glazing to build up on the pistons and inhibited the oils ability to cool them creating a self perpetuating problem i.e. hotter pistons means more oil deposits building up and more build up and glazing impeded and restricted the flow of oil making the engine run hotter (though of course you wouldn't see any difference on your coolant gauge as it measures temp of the coolant after it exits the engine).

of course this problem would be bad enough but in a spectacular own goal by Toyota they gave the 1zz, by anyone standards a small oil capacity, of 3.7 litres inc oil filter when you consider that the average engine of similar size had 4.5 litres or more.

What this means is that literally as soon as the oil drains back to the sump it's drawn straight back into the engine to work again whereas with a larger volume of oil would mean there is always a pool of oil in the sump allowed to cool, even if only a little, before being drawn back into the engine.This cannot be an ideal situation for any engine but remember the 1ZZ-FE engine is using oil pressure to work the vvti system aswell as it's usual duties that all engines require of their lubrication systems.

Now, if the car has had it's oil changed at the regular intervals recommended by Toyota,has used the correct grade of oil AND hasn't bad the nuts revved off it day in day out then there is a really good chance it won't develop any oil problems at all. I bought mine with 78,000 miles on the clock with 2 previous elderly owners and a full service history at all the required intervals so it was no surprise to find out, a relief aswell, that it used very little oil and way above the minimum miles per litre of oil that Toyota say is ok, that is the after they revised it in light of the engines oil problems.

This is of no solace to somebody who has bought one that they later find it has a problem with oil useage....... and exactly how can you tell on a test drive if somebody deliberately tries to hide it.

 

 

So there it is.

 

It seems not all of these are destined to destroy themselves by burning all their oil. Toyota may have addressed this earlier in the cars life or it was never burning enough oil as a newish car for a previous owner to have Toyota warranty work or some goodwill work done.

 

If it were mine, assuming it has had no new dipstick and warranty work.

I would:

Change the oil frequently say 3000 miles or quarterly and not use thicker oil, 10W40.

Fill the sump to 4.2L or thereabouts.

Use Super unleaded for a trial period.

Drive without thrashing or labouring.

 

and see what happens. 

Hopefully those measures might help keep the oil consumption under control and cheaper than replacement catalytic converter and oxygen sensor.

 

Long live the Derbyshire Lexus. 

[Jim Bell]

Good info man. I was going to try thicker oil but I think Ill just stick with 5w30 and do regular changes.

[Snipes]

The 7A-FE can suffer from very high oil consumption which always made me wonder if the ZZ was a development of it.

[Jim Bell]

The chill wind gushing out of the air con vents had slowed to a tepid trickle. Ive never had air con recharged before so I called the guise down at Kwik Fit auto who hooked me up with the gas gas gas. I like this car so Im happy to make minor investments in improving it slightly.

 

The AC now blows colder that a penguin prostitute. Its lovely. Especially with the temps round here racing up to thirty fricken degrees. Kwik Fit Alan reported that the vents were clocked at expelling at temps of 16 degrees when I took it in. With the recharge, its now 4 degrees. Hes probably full of shit, but if feels lovely.

 

£52 well enough spent.

 

 

4 star service.

 

[dollywobbler]

My Sirion came to me with a smoke problem and a can of 10w40 oil. I drained it and changed it to 5w30 for 1000 miles, then changed it again and the smoke problem disappeared. Pretty sure that had clogged rings.

 

This car is very appealing, though I could never own one in silver. This is pretty rare for not being silver. 

[Jim Bell]

5w30 and plenty of changes seems to be the way to go man. All the clever people seem to think so and thats more than enough for me.

[mrbenn]

Cracking car. That colour makes me go a bit weak at the knees if I'm honest.

[Jim Bell]

Checked the oil today, was about half way between full and empty.

 

As suggested elsewhere, I topped it to a couple of milimeters above the full mark. Ill now keep an eye on it and keep it topped.

 

 

 

 

[Jim Bell]

Filled the sucker up today. Got 450 miles out of the tank with 30 odd still showing in the range, but the low fuel light was advising me not to push my luck.

One long run back from Callender, the rest all local driving, 10 mile hops around the doors.

 

The computertron reckoned:

 

 

 

 

In actuality, pen and paper maths says:

 

42.3mpg.

 

 

Not bad like. My 998cc Yaris used to get 40mpg.

 

Impressive stuff for a very large and heavy 1.8 petrol.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I saw this parked a few doors from us earlier. Looks lovely in the flesh.

It was only shortly after that I clicked that there was no AS sticker on the rump, and that I doubt you’d popped to Mid Cornwall for a quick hello.

I’ll have to pap a shot of the local one if I see it again.

[Jim Bell]

Definitely not guilty guv! There seems to be plenty about in this colour though. Ive seen a few up here too.

[Jim Bell]

 

Put the Avensis in for the front passenger wheel bearing yesterday. Aparently it was a nightmare of a job. Bearing was stuck, disintergrated, retaining ring holed ends had snapped off meaning it had to be drilled to bits and prised out.

 

Its done though.

 

Now you can hear the drivers side front one starting.

 

I cheerfully said "you not fancy doing the other side then?"

 

 

He pushed me outside and pulled the shutters down.

 

[mrbenn]

I like their courtesy car. Yoiur garage man is clearly a connoisseur.

[Jim Bell]

Thats not a courtesy car. Thats an strategically placed anti ram raid security device.

[mrbenn]

He's certainly picked the right car for the job.

[Jim Bell]

Its actually his dailly/shop truck. I dont mind them me like. I wouldnt wish to drive one to Kent but theyre good round the doors.