First time Toyota owner

[EuRoZac]

G'Day all.

First time owning a Toyota.  2015 Aurion Sportivo.

Have been a long term Magna driver but she finally had too many issues that I'd patched up to keep her going.  She looked great visually and mechanically ran well but all the plastic exposed to high temperatures was starting to perish, plus some other critical plastic bits like the automatic window regulator motor pinion gears...

I was active in the Aussie Magna Club and hope to do the same here.

Will be finding my way round here looking for things like the service manual for details on part numbers, how to remove something or even where it is, as well as ideas on things like tow bars that don't hack through your bumper to be fitted and/or removed.

I'm interested in basic car mods, mostly car audio but like to keep the 'stock' appearance, just with a little more grunt!  Happy to answer general questions on those sort of things.

 

[ZZT86]

Congrats & welcome. How are you finding the Aurion Sportivo in comparison ? How many clicks, what did you pay ?

[EuRoZac]

G'day and thanks for the welcome.

Given Maggy was a 2003 and <to be named> is 2015, there's a huge difference in factory "standard". 

I'd kept most things stock and well looked after, but had reworked the sound system in Maggy with mostly Alpine and Parrot gear and it was great.  There's not a whole lot to do in the Aurion except speaker upgrade and standard speaker out to line and amp it.  I don't want to lose the vehicle config like auto lock @ 30km/h (this is great when you have kids/wife and they drive at night).

The 6 speakers (2 x sets of 6x9) is pretty slick which will give plenty of fill plus some low end. 

Just gotta figure out how to get the dash console out, rear parcel self  (frigged around with this last night to fit an anchor for the booster seat - both the anchor and trim are missing on the RHS but centre and right are there) and door trim off.  Have looked around the forum so far but most is for the GSV40 so there is subtle differences.

There's a fair more road noise than I was used to from the Magna *but* all the other make/models I test drove were very similar including the Commodore Sports wagon.

Granted too, I cam from 15" factory alloys to the 18" on this.  Also found while taking trying to recover a spacer from fitting the car seat anchor that most of the sound deadening is styrofoam, not thick underlay and carpet.  I can't hold that against the car at all since it's a change in attitude in manufacturing.

SUVs were shight [sic]!!!  Terrible gear boxes and rev'ed through the roof from a slow crawl up hill which is why I wanted the Aurion with the V6.

It handles well (sticks and feels solid and responsive) and the gear changes are smooth.I did have torque converter lockup in Maggy and had that in my previous one too, but for $2k to fix I didn't worry about it for many years in this one but did in my previous.  That's a nice change in the Aurion especially maintaining speed up hill.

I hardly do many kms and she's in the garage at home and underground at work so I'm hoping <to be named> will be with me for a while too.

Looks like <to be named> was an ex-police or similar vehicle.  80k kms @ $19k.  

A little on the high side, but for the Sportivo and grey, I was comfortable to pay the slight extra as there isn't a lot of selection as they aren't an easy vehicle or vintage to find.  Plus the dealer took my trade and the cost of <to be named>  was the same with or without the trade which their transparency there was great.  They slightly upped the trade and helped me with cash flow with a partial credit card payment which all added up in savings of time which reduced the overall hassle and other expenses, so +/- it all worked out!

 

[ZZT86]

The low profile tyres would make a fair bit of noise depending on the tread design & the Sportivo has a firmer strut setup, all of which would make me a happy chappy in an Aurion personally. The lack of insulative material is most likely cost cutting, still a really good car though & one I wouldn't mind owning for a daily. Keep us posted on your thoughts regarding economy, I reckon it has the potential to do well there if you're careful with the right foot ;)

One tip: change your engine oil twice as often as required by the book, ie: every 7,500K & use semi-synth or full synthetic if you can.

[EuRoZac]

Cheers and thanks for the tip!

Economy is already better than the Magna despite giving it a little squirt a few times.

The Aurion itself is an impressive looking vehicle too; that's why I ended up here instead of the Commodore forums.   

The flappy paddle shift is interesting - operational in both standard Drive and Sports mode.  According to the owners manual in drive is more for engine breaking which i used to do with the triptronic in the Magna.

 

[KAA]

Welcome to the forum Scott

KAA

[EuRoZac]

Thanks Robert!