mayhewga

Yes kwach10, I looked at those and got quite excited especially with the wear factor and price, but the load rating is lower than that which the compliance plate requires; Toyo OPHT are 105H, compliance plate requires 107S. Thanks for your suggestion though.

Scottf, My KXR 2wd (Oct 07) has just hit 60,000 km and the centres of all 4 showed the same wear at the same point as yours, they have been rotated at every service and the spare hasn't been on yet. I put the centre wear down to running at 40psi at high speed on hot roads in North QLD and NT, and a lot of rough gravel roads in the outback loaded up with camping stuff. They are still above the wear bars, but I will replace them soon as I get a bit worried that there isn't enough meat to handle stoney roads. But anyway I am happy that they have lasted this long but I am having trouble finding replacement rubber... in fact there appears to be only Michelin available that are quiet highway tyres..... but at $450 I really hope they last well over 140,000km. Does anyone know anyone selling Michelins at a discount?

To Matt Kluger, At 60,000 km now and its due for new tyres, which I have had rotated every service (I wish I had included the spare in the rotation, as now I have an orphan brand new tyre because Dunlop don't sell that tyre in OZ so I have to go for a different set). Everything is running as sweet as the day I picked it up, I haven't had the dash rattles, broken arm rests or scrubbed out tyres that others have struck. It is a Sept 1 07 build so a very early one off the production line. we drive it predominately on very long trips from Sunshine Coast to places like Broken Hill twice, Bourke twice, Snowy mountains twice, Sydney and central NSW 10 times, Cunnamulla and Charleville 4 times, Uluru once, etc. We carry a tent and esky on our trips and if we cant be bothered putting up the tent, we lay the front seats down, remove the headrests and with the front seats butted up to the middle seats have two fabulous beds! We average 8.4 ltr per 100km on trips running PULP. I couldn't ask for a better car.

I mentioned my "pinging" at the last service and they drove it around and around and found it was actually a bit of metal inside the drivers door that would roll under acceleration or corners....... made me feel dumb, but he guys were very understanding!

Does pinging sound like marbles being shaken in a plastic drink bottle? If so I have the same problem at low speed when accelerating out of a corner. I have almost 50,000 on the clock. I have noticed it only recently here in QLD where we have had fuel supply problems caused by a breakdown at one of the refineries and have had to fill with a mixture of fuels ranging from E10, ULP and PULP. Whether or not that has anything to do with it I can't really say as I would have thought that the engine management system would be able to handle these changes. I will tell Toyota about it at the next service and report here what they say.

I should point out that because Fraser Island is a sand island (the worlds biggest I believe) that the scrapping was only through sand so no damage. I however ripped a plastic fuel line cover off just by reversing through some long grass out west (it sat in about the middle of the car at one side), which Toyota replaced, so I now keep an eye out for anything that could cause trouble. I have had no problems driving my fwd through bush tracks and up and down slippery muddy tracks and have used the snow button a few times in the slippery places, but I wont take it anywhere that I don't feel confident about.

Last year on Fraser I was surprised to find I was following a 4wd Kluger through the inland tracks (I was in a friend's Pajero as I like my Kluger too much to wreck it). We all noticed that the tracks in front of us showed signs of bottoming on some particularly deep tracks, and it wasn't until some time later that we actually caught up and discovered what the vehicle was. The Kluger was having no problems at all, and the tracks were pretty rough, being just after the Toyota fishing week there which attracts hundreds of cars. We struck up a conversation with the 4 young Swiss tourists loaded up with all their gear driving it and they had picked it up in Cairns (a rental car) with just 100km on the clock, and were driving it to Melbourne, and they said they had no second thoughts about taking it all over the island and just assumed it was like any "real" 4WD. They had taken it all along the beaches and the inland tracks with no problem They were loaded up so the scraping of the centre mound of the deep tracks was not surprising. (I hate to think what the hire company would say if they knew though)

Thanks for that info DJKOR, I didn't realise the plugs had such a long life!

My Kluger is presently covered by the $150 Advantage service and I am under the impression that spark plugs are changed at each of these 10K services. I am wondering how I can tell if this is happening, as it doesn't appear to be easy to tell, as I cannot even see the spark plugs, so I am thinking it would be easy for them to just skip that step, just like they skip rotating the tyres. I suppose they could also skip changing the filters too. Years ago, garages used to leave a box in the boot with all the bits they had changed so you could see what they had done, but that curtesy seems to have gone the way of most nice things these days.

I am very happy with the even wear I am getting on my KXR 2wd 7 seater, with 45,000km on the clock, the majority of which has been on sealed outback roads with some gravel roads. Toyota have rotated the tyres only twice in that time. I run the pressure at 38-40 all round and generally carry the missus and our camping stuff including lots of water and beer. At the last service at 42,000 the report says there is still 5mm left on all tyres (except the spare which I havent used yet).... not too sure what that measurement means but I am hoping to get 60,000km out of the set. The centre tread section has lost its pattern. Does anyone know what depth the tyres are when new, and what depth are the tyres "worn out" (or that the wear inicators show up at) in other words what percentage have I used up?

I find that keeping the rev counter just under 2K which is about 110 indicated, gives me the best economy on the open road and the green inicator will sit somewhere between 8 and 9 . As soon as it goes above 2k, the green line quickly stretches out past 10. I'm in a KXR 7seat 2wd.

It's interesting how many on this forum find that Toyota aren't doing the tyre rotations and balance, which are part of the "special" $150 service deal we get. At each of the three services I've had so far they havent done the rotation (and that's at two different dealers). The common excuse is that the tyres don't need it to which I answer, "if thats the case how come I can tell they havent been done"! I have done a lot of gravel road driving and being a FWD only car, the drive tyres show more wear than the rears in the very centre of the pattern. So last service at 30k, I waited whilst they did the rotation. Having said that, I am quite happy that with almost 40,000km on the clock, there seems to be plenty of meat left and I am hoping that I will get close to 60,000km. I run at 40psi, which both dealership service depts recommend, as do Lexus for their 350s.

When I went to look at the Kluger the week it was released last year, I had read somewhere during my research that Toyota Australia had to convince Japan to tool up for a right hand drive model. (The only other version being sold is in the U.S). I figured that as part of their pitch to Japan, they would have needed to put forward a pretty solid sales projection and so armed with this idea, I put it to the dealer that he would need to come to the party with me if he wanted a sale in the first week. I wanted the very base model 5 seater 2wd KX-R so he offered a 7 seater for the price of the 5 ($5k discount?) but would only give me the red book price for my trade (a 7 year old falcon with 250,000km). I wasn't happy that this was the best I could get. During all my research on the web, the ad for Private Fleet kept annoying me so I went to them and said that I wanted another $5k off the bottom line offered by the dealer which I promptly got without them even seeing my trade in! I had to wait about 4 weeks but the savings were worth the wait. I was very happy as this was the first new car I had ever bought in my 40 years of motoring, so I was pleased with myself.

When I bought my KX-R in October 2007, my previous insurer for the last 10 years (Budget Direct) couldn't match NRMAs $370 with $500 excess (maximum no claim). This October however, NRMA sent me a renewal for $420; a rise of around 20%. When I complained, they finally admitted I had been on a "special rate" to attract new customers, and had now reverted to the normal rates. (I notice that their billboard advertising which initially got me in, now says "for new customers only". I looked very closely at the NRMA policy to see what extras one gets for ones money, and noted it didn't include windscreen, which going by my driving record of no claims in 30 years, would possibly be the only thing I would claim. So I went back to my old insurer and got a policy for $340 ($500 excess). I added the windscreen because I do a lot of country driving and the rocks from trucks are numerous, and paid an extra $54 with $40 excess. So the bottom line is $394, with windscreen on maximum no claim. In our 50s living at Caloundra, Sunshine Coast, QLD.

I bought my KX-R new in 2007 and it only came with one key with electronic ring and one valet key. I asked the dealer if that was right and he said that's all you get these days. Now, after reading the posts above, I am thinking perhaps the spare parts counter took the other as they can sell it for a lot. Correction I just had a look inside the kit the dealer gave me which contains discount coupons, referal cards and other stuff I am not interested in and lo and behold there is a second key and electronic fob. Just as well this thread came about otherwise I would been in the dark forever.

My 2007 KX-R 2WD has done almost 40,000km , the majority of which has been on long trips. I generally fill up at around the 700km mark (depending upon availability of petrol sations when in the bush) and find that it takes around 65ltrs. When the red light comes on I work on getting at least 100km, which has come in handy a few times. The trip computer tells me that I am getting an average of 8.4 per tank on straight country trips, and hwy driving between Brisbane and Caloundra. This goes up to 9.5 if my driving includes running around in these cities. I reset the "previous trips" at the 10k services and the displays are never more than 9 for each. I have done a lot of experimenting with different fuels, and firstly I have to say that head and tail winds and speed make more difference than fuels, but that generally PULP returns better than ULP which returns better than E10. I recently did a 9,000km trip to Uluru and tried to do 3 tankfulls in a row on each different fuel. Because most of that trip is flat and I stuck to 110kmh (even on the Stuart Hwy which is now 130... in fact most people were doing 110, except the road trains). I found that I was getting 7.9 - 8.2 on PULP, 8.2-8.8 on ULP and 8.6-9.0 on E10. This is a general finding for that trip but when I try changing fuels for local runs I am getting similar differences, albeit I have to add about 10 for combined city/hwy trips. The higher cost of the PULP however, seems to nullify the extra economy. I have found that the independant fuel suppliers around the big mining towns, seem to have "better" fuels which give constant returns, in contrast to the big name fuels, and that fuels in far western QLD towns which seem to all come from the same unmarked tankers, generally give very poor results (are they stale?). Other travellers I have spoken too have also found this. Incidently, at about 35,000km, the motor seemed to become much free-er and responsive.... (has it run-in at long last), at that point I drove from Cooma to Caloundra, filling up Michalago near Cooma and again near Kempsey (both Freedom PULP) and still had 1/4 tank when I got home to Caloundra, with the computer showing 7.8 for both sectors of the trip which was fantastic. Next week I will drive from Caloundra to Wollongong, it will be interesting to see how it goes then.