Rattle Rattleson

Definitely a hand pump is needed for a DIY gearbox oil change. You can get pumps with specially made filler spouts that can get into the tight spaces surrounding the refill hole. Another very good reason for removing the refill plug first is that you are letting incoming air displace the oil coming out the drain hole. If people do not think that this matters, try emptying the gearbox with the filler bolt intact. It will splatter and "glug" all over the place and make a mess on the floor. With the refill plug removed first, the oil will come out smoothly and won't splatter everywhere.

Positives (from my viewpoint) are tried and proven port injection technology and normal aspiration. This avoids any potential issues down the track with upper engine carbon deposits and expensive cleaning (assuming you follow the oil change requirements). Car is probably the best ever Corolla in terms of smoothness, refinement and ride and performance is pretty decent too - infact a tiny bit better than the high performance original twin cams from the late 1980s. Bad points are that (if you want an auto), the CVT might not be your cup of tea, as it tends to make the engine run at maximum torque RPM (so somewhat "drony") rather than go through distinct automatic gears (though the Corolla has 7 "virtual" ratios but they are nothing more than pre-programmed relative positions for the respective drive pulleys) - it is still a CVT. perhaps given the age of your existing Corolla, you might be happier in a 1.5 Yaris if you are on a budget and wanted something a bit closer in size and weight to what you have now. Plus you get a traditional auto (albeit only 4 speed - what you probably have now anyway).

You don't mention what model year but for mine (2014) it has a PIN code (6 digits from memory). And that was set by me manually soon after purchase. I have it noted down in my owner's manual so when I have to disconnect or replace the battery, I know what numbers to key in. I think most work like this. If yours is new the PIN may just be a default of something like all zeroes. But otherwise if someone set the code previously, you may need to have it reset at the dealer. This incidentally is one reason why some mobile battery places will temporarily supply power when the battery is physically being replaced, since people often lose these codes.

Hi, Sorry for the delay in replying - I have been very busy. The IM intake will almost certainly fit because the airbox base, the engine air intake and all associated geometry is precisely the same in both the US valvematic engine and ours. But I wouldn't recommend at all going to the trouble - it just isn't worth it. I have been able to confirm (both by viewing photos of the intake plus the compliance documentation at the Californian Air Resource Board a.k.a CARB) that the intake includes the restrictive carbon filter mandated by Californian emission regulations. This being the case, you'd either leave it in place to reduce power over our stock intake and have it get dirty into the bargain, or attempt to remove it with a dremel or similar. And if you remove it, you are still going to be left with the interior "ledge" or "step" that the filter is heat-staked into (and which does not exist in the smooth-sided interior of our intake airboxes). The result is that it is more than likely fitting the air intake will at best do absolutely nothing whatsoever and will actually more likely lose you power. Our cars are already about 4 kw more powerful than the US version as it is and part of the reason for that is the incredibly restrictive intakes needed to satisfy legislation over in the US. In my view, the best option here in Australia - if you don't want to un-necessarily over-spend and you wish to remain legal, is to simply buy a better quality air filter for the stock intake and leave it at that. I have tried two - the Apexi and the HKS - both dry as I am not keen on the oiled ones - and I prefer the HKS as the power delivery to me seems to be a bit smoother overall compared to the Apexi (and that same result occurred when the HKS was tested on a Toyota 86).

Hi all, My mother's 2006 Yaris was subject to that front seat recall a few years back where they replaced the retaining tracks. Prior to the recall, the seat always felt fine. After the recall, the seat adjustment felt a bit vague and stiff though this feeling subsided a little over time (not to my satisfaction though, but complaining to Toyota got me nowhere). Nevertheless, ever since the recall, the seat has never felt secure in the adjustment "slot" or notch. Every time I am on and off a pedal, change direction or go over bumps, the seat feels like it is moving in the tracks very slightly due to free play. It is exactly how I would expect a really worn out seat to feel if it had been adjusted tens of thousands of times and had lways had really overweight drivers in it (I am not a lightweight but I'm not fat either). I have mentioned this to Toyota twice since that recall and they deny there is anything wrong with it. Has anyone else experienced this problem with their Yaris seats subsequent to that recall? Thanks

I just noticed. Those are the Podium II alloy wheels aren't they? I bought a set of 5 Podium II wheels for mine earlier this year (but I wanted the 16 inch). One of the reasons I bought the base Ascent is I really hated the alloy wheels as sold in the higher end models (they remind me of cheese graters) and always knew I wanted the Podium II wheels instead.

Thanks a lot for getting back to us on this. I will definitely try this next time I am cleaning out the back of the car. As you say, it is critical to re-open the latch via the hatch handle before attempting to close the hatch again. If this works on my model I will be more than happy to put the fuse back in the car so all my interior lights work again. The main problems have always been situations like yours where the hatch needs to stay open for a while - for me this happens with lots of shopping stops, cleaning, etc. Plus only a couple of weeks ago, I replenished the rubber seal around the hatch (using Swissvax Seal Feed - fantastic stuff) and you really need to keep the hatch open for quite a while to let it properly absorb into the rubber before a final wipe down. That is another instance where this trick will be very handy because I had the hatch open for a few hours to do that properly. I am just curious - did they come up with that answer really fast or did they have to think over it? If it was really fast, sounds like a lot of people have mentioned this annoying issue before! I might just add one little hint to this trick. Maybe buy some red or green (or some other bright colour) masking tape and just lightly put some over the catch once you've stuck it into position. That way when you go to close it again, you will see the tape, remember what you've done and release the catch before closing the hatch. I can just otherwise see people (including myself), just closing the hatch on autopilot and wrecking the catch mechanism.

That makes sense about that being a hybrid feature given the batteries are such an integral part of the way the vehicle functions. The reason I know my lights do not time out in the petrol model is I neglected to close the rear hatch one time and that rear cargo light drained the battery (same thing happened with the overhead dome light in our Yaris - no timeout combined with me not checking before leaving the car). Since those two episodes I make absolutely sure every single light is off in our cars when we leave them. As for my Corolla, I pretty much have that fuse semi-permanently removed. The pain of changing that bulb is such an issue that I actually prefer to have no lights at all than have to face replacing it (as an aside, does anyone know if all interior lights have to work - including rear cargo - for a car to pass a rego check - I am pretty sure they do need to all work?). At the very least you can complain to them and let them know other owners are not particularly happy with the lack of control over the light and inaccessibility to it. Anyway, despite all of that I am sure you will love your car. When I saw it I loved the look of it (seems to combine the best visual cues of my older model and the new one) and I just prefer the more conservative look over the new petrol model. And if I am regularly getting 6.5 litres per 100 in day to day driving with my 2014 petrol model I am sure you will get amazing economy and very smooth performance from the hybrid drive train!

That is pretty amazing when you think about. After all, there is only one significant difference between a Sportivo motor and the 1.8 motors employed in the rest of the range over the last decade. And that difference is only felt above 6,000 RPM. If you don't take it above that, you might as well not bother owning one! That's 40-something percent more power just gained through revs without sustaining a drop in torque! So given that I expect most Sportivo drivers actually drive the car - at least some of the time - as the engine designer intended - it is pretty remarkable.

I suspect the 20 minute timeout must have been introduced in the 2015 series update or is exclusive to the hybrid (probably the former). The lights stay on indefinitely on my 2014 model. I agree that not being able to directly control the behaviour of the light is an extremely annoying problem, made all the more problematic because of issues relating to access to the bulb itself (though as I say, it might be different for later models). That said, the rear cargo light of the Scion IM (same as our 2015 and later petrol Corolla) looks to be no more accessible than mine is and the 2015 Corolla and possibly the Hybrid likely wouldn't be any different. I would be very surprised if you could just lift or even pry off the cover in yours. The factory documentation on my 2014 model explains a prolonged procedure starting with removal of the rear seats, removal of all the rear scuff panel trim, rear boot trim and rear quarter panel trim. It runs in all to about a dozen pages and cross references a number of procedures in order to be able to do it. I know that after reading through it all I decided there and then that once the light bulb blew, I would never replace it (unless for some reason I cannot re-register the car each year with a blown cargo bulb). What seems so incredibly odd is that Toyota decide to grant access to the top of the rear dampers (where they attach to the rear strut towers) via a removal rectangular panel only a couple of inches below that light bulb, but never put an access panel on the bulb itself. I can only hope that Toyota employed some incredibly long-life bulb that they expect (hope?) would last the life of the car. I guess the fact that I cannot see any complaints in the internet yet about impossible-to-replace Corolla light bulbs (apart from mine) suggests that no-one has had to replace one yet and felt the need to complain about it.

I can't speak specifically about the Hybrid model but if the lighting system is the same as the petrol one, you are unfortunately out of luck as there is no actual switch or other "normal" way to disable it. The only way you can prevent that cargo light turning on is to remove the relevant fuse from the fuse box within the engine compartment (assuming that is where it is located in the Hybrid model) or (if possible) remove the actual bulb itself. For the petrol model the fuse is called something along the lines of the Dome or Dome Light fuse. The cover of the fuse box will show a "map" on the inside indicating where the fuse is physically located in the box. The box also contains a small plastic fuse puller to make removing the fuse easy. But when you remove the fuse, you will also lose the overhead lights in the interior so it is not a great solution. As for removing the actual bulb, I have not seen the latest (2015) models onwards but I know in the 2012 - 2014 models you can't even get at the bulb without ripping out most of the trim in the rear of the car including the rear seats! I suspect Toyota changed this in the 2015 models onwards as they came to realise that changing the bulb was ridiculously difficult, beyond most owner's capabilities and the cost of having a dealer do it would amount to several hundred dollars with all the parts and trim that have to be removed and re-installed. So I think those are your only options unfortunately. For my own part, I remove the fuse if I do not want the rear cargo light to operate. And to answer the other part of your question, no, the light stays on for as long as the rear hatch is open.

Something I just realised today: all the US-based TRD intakes have to have a charcoal filter that is fitted in series between the actual air filter element and the MAF sensor. Typically this secondary filter sits right on top of the normal air filter (so at the bottom of the top half of the air box. We do not have these secondary filters in our stock airboxes (and I can confirm that as I checked for this when I changed my filter during my service in April). That being the case, it would seem pointless buying the TRD intake since we will lose performance. Those charcoal filters are known to cause power loss which is why so many people naughtily remove them (they are required to meet Californian emissions standards). So yes, it really looks like the only legal and practical option is a panel filter only. Which one is anyone's guess as you can ask 10 different people and get 10 different opinions. As for me, I will keep my money and hopefully one day it will be possible to buy a DIY tune courtesy of Alientech / RD Technik,

Probably. The only difference as I say between dropping in a TRD / K&N versus the whole TRD intake is the upper airbox and the coupler. I don't know how much those two things influence performance. It may or may not be measurable in terms of outright power though the noise will likely be a bit different. One would logically think that, however, that the much more direct coupler in the TRD kit is a good thing for both induction note and maybe even performance. But yes, you just have to ask yourself are you prepared to pay the difference just for those things. I think it is safe to say that any difference in power between the TRD filter on it's own and the whole TRD kit might be around between 1% at most. Even the difference in performance on the Toyota 86 between a K&N filter on it's own and the whole TRD kit is very small (even unmeasurable) in terms of power, however the TRD kit does quite significantly provide no loss of torque anywhere in the entire rev range which is more than I can say for the K&N filters on their own (where typically you do gain top end power but also lose a little bit of torque at lower revs). That is something else to think about. The TRD kits are not supposed to reduce performance anywhere in the rev range, whereas a free flowing air filter on it's own such as K&N on it's own has been demonstrated in dyno tests to reduce torque at some points lower down the rev range. That is on the Toyota 86 which is obviously a different car but it is still a naturally aspirated VVT-I Toyota engine when it comes down to it.

http://www.trdusa.com/intakes.html Follow the above link and you will see a picture of it installed (second photo from the left on the bottom - click to expand to full size). Part no. is listed here: http://www.trdusa.com/parts-detail.html?p=PTR03-12160&years=2016&models=iM&categories=Performance Engine&subcategories=all I have attached the installation instructions PDF to this post. PTR03-12160 INSTALLS.pdf

I have the installation instructions and the news is good and bad. The TRD intake uses the stock intake plumbing to the stock lower half of the airbox. So the only replacement parts are the air filter, airbox top and the red coupler to the throttle body. So this is good news in the sense that installation should be very straightforward compared to an intake that replaces everything. The bad news of course is that it likely will not provide the same relative performance improvement as, say, the kit for the 86 which replaces some of the original intake plumbing and removes the resonator. On the other hand, given what I know about resonators and intake tuning, it is very likely Toyota engineers realised that removing the existing tuned intake portion of the system together with the resonator would have reduced low-down and midrange torque - something you really wouldn't want in a car such as this. Anyway, the above info suggests to me the intake is expensive for what it is - other TRD intakes have more parts for the same money. So it really comes down to do you have the money lying around and don't want to pursue aftermarket options or not I suppose! It looks like any performance increase would come from a combination of the replacement filter and the fact that the replacement coupler is slightly shorter but more critically dead-straight and (possibly?) slightly more rigid, as opposed to the stock bellows which are obviously quite soft, curve around a fair bit and are noticeably longer. I think the shortening and straightening of the coupler is achieved by the replacement air box top having a larger surface area (which in itself is achieved by having straighter, more vertical sides than the stock airbox top) and the resulting re-location of the coupling connector in the far corner of the airbox top. I may still get this kit at some stage despite the poor value only because it is still really the only viable option if you want to stay "in house" with Toyota parts and want to ensure that you remain strictly legal here in Australia. There are no other enclosed intakes that I am aware of and so far as the original air scoop plumbing is concerned, it really is a very involved process and is a right pain to go removing without damaging anything, let alone returning the car to stock.