common cressida issues?

[willow370]

hey guys, im looking at purchasing an old cressida, and i was just wondering what (if any) were the common issues they had? i chose it since we all know toyotas have a solid rep, but i just wanted to make sure that this particular car was as solid as its name.

cheers

matt

[CROCO]

Hi matt, I absolutly love cressidas, I actually nearly bought the last series of the cressida before I bought a commodore, I regreted not buying the cressida instead of commodore, I cant think of any major problems with the cressida, they were built when toyotas quality was at its best, there probadly one of the best cars toyota produced, mechanicaly there pretty robust, the old inline sixes went pretty good, especialy the 3litre ones , they went like the clappers, the fit and finish quality is second to none and they were state of the art with all the latest apointment, that were only avaliable on the top of the line german cars.

The only things I can think of to look for when purchasing one is , look for rust, thats the worst enemy of old toyotas and make sure all the electrics including the ac all work and interior is in good condition, because part replacement might be a problem as there getting rare these days, take it for test drive to see if theres any mechanical problems, that need adressing, if its all good then grab it, Iam so jelious mate , these are nice old cars, good luck with it, I like to hear how you go when you finally get one.

[willow370]

thanks mate, they sound like a pretty solid motor. ill keep you posted.

[CHA54]

the 7mge's are basically guaranteed to blow a headgasket at some point, check if it's already been done.

They also leak a lot of oil out the distributor after a couple of hundred thousand K's, to fix it you need to dissasemble the distributor and replace the internal oil seal on the shaft.

It's also common on MX83 to have worn bushes which causes the rear end alignment to wander a bit, aftermarket replacements are availalbe. If the car has a lot of K's then it's probably due for wheel bearings also.

If you're after a grande MX83, it's hard to find one with good condition leather front seats. If they're not well cared for the leather will be all cracked. I usually replace the seats with the cloth varient from a GLX.

Starter issues are also common, usually caused by worn contacts in the starter and carbon build-up in the contacts of the ignition barrel. The dodgey fix is to add a starter relay, proper fix is to replace the starter soleloid contacts and clean the barrel contacts.

An MX83 is a 20 year old car, so expect it to have some maintenance issues. They're still far bettern than an equivalent year commodore/falcon etc in terms of build quality.

[willow370]

ok great, i actually just read a fair bit of gear on the net about the head gaskets going. im currently looking at a 1990 glx, with 175k on the clock. we will obveously check for head gasket damage but is there any signs that its ABOUT to fail? i understand you can easily see signs of a blown head gasket, but are there signs that its going to blow in the nearish future? because i dont want to buy this thing if there are no signs of head gasket damage, but in 6 months it blows.

cheers