Longdan

Hey, nice ride. I'm sure I've seen you cruising down the motorway before. I've had a lot of Corollas but never came across that panel with mode A, B & C, auto/ manual. Is that a climate control thing? I think its pretty cool that you have hunted down the rare accessories, but do all those air purifiers really make a difference? Nice pics. Where is that street art wall?

Cable

The weather here in NZ is very cold at the moment. Typically 1-3 degrees overnight. In the morning, my car is just undriveable until it has warmed up. When I first bought it ( at 50,000 km) it wasn't too bad when cold. But now (120,000 km), it won't do anything more than idle until the temperature gauge has risen to about 1/8 past cold, even though the heater can be pumping out warm air. This can make it interesting when pulling out into traffic on a barely warmed up engine. It's like " C'mon Gertie, you can do it', as the car idles across the line of oncoming traffic, and then all of a sudden, after the danger has passed, the engine leaps into life, as the computer senses that some tempersture threshold has been passed. But it seems as though its been gradually getting worse. Could this be a thermostat issue?

I don't see any reason why you can't just get in and drive it. Whats the difference between doing 4000 kms in 40 hours or 40 days? If anything, the 40 hour trip would cause less wear because there would be no cold starts. I read somewhere that a 2zzge is rated to do 4000 rpm continuously. I'd rather put those miles on my car at 100-120 km/h than at 0-40 km/h in rush hour traffic.

I can vouch for the Thule racks. They will carry whatever you want. You just got to get the right foot mounting kit to suit your car. There is an online list telling you which one you need.

Should I be careful to not let the positive battery lead touch earth while its disconnected? The way I see it, this would instantaneously discharge the circuits and there would be no need to wait half an hour for them to discharge by themselves.

Problem solved! All it took was to reset the ECU. Then took it for a blat down the motorway hitting lift a few times. The take off is as it should be. Its funny how so many issues can be solved by disconnecting the battery lead.

Yep thats how I would describe it. I'll pull the battery lead tomorrow and see if that makes any difference. Whats involved in a TB service? Take it out and clean it?

I checked the coils, and the plugs. No cracks in the coil housings or signs of arcing. Its a momentary lag when I put my foot on the accelerator from stopped. Then it picks up again and off I go. Maybe I should get my mechanic to have a look.

Its not the auto slipping. Its more like the engine bogs a bit before the revs pick up when stating from stopped. I asked about tuning the trans because it seems to be getting a bit jerky on the gear changes, possibly with age. I don't think the 2 problems are related, but they possibly could be.

I've got an Allex with a 2ZZ-GE and a tiptronic auto box. Lately, I've been noticing it 'misssing' when I go to take off from stopped. It's like the ignition cuts out for a split second whenever I accelerate from stopped. Then it gets going and all is fine. If I put my foot to the floor as soon as the light goes green then I don't notice it, but if I try and take off normally, the car gives a bit of a lurch then off it goes. This is something that is recent. The car has just gone over 100,000 kms. Maybe the trans needs a tune up. Is that possible with these transmissions? Someone suggested that maybe my throttle position sensor was dirty and needed cleaning. Any ideas anyone?

Where?

I've just fitted 17" rims and 215/45 tyres to my ZZE123. It previously had 195/60/15 on it. The interesting thing is that the speedo used to read about 5 km/h too fast at 100 ks. Now, with the new wheels and tyres, it reads bang on. I've checked this with 2 different GPS units and here in NZ, we have these signs that display your speed as you pass them which are handy for checking your speedo.

That looks great. Can it be fitted without taking the springs out?

I recall on a visit to WA many years ago that some cars I drove in produced a rotten egg smell from the exhaust when you stepped on the gas going up a hill. When I asked about it, everyone said it was something they put in the fuel. Not all fuel did it, and not all cars either. Maybe some were better sealed than others, or had the vents set to recirculate. But everyone just lived with it, and i got used to it as well.

I have a similar problem in my ZZE123. But it's more that the seat 'rocks' backwards and forwards. Not the whole seat, but just the front bit that is height adjustable. I can stop it by setting it at either one end of the adjustment or the other, but this isn't ideal as i prefer it set about mid-way.

Castrol Magnatech 10W-40. Does the job for me.

No chipped key on this car. I use a copy cut from the original. Yeah I was hoping to only have to disconnect only 1 plug, not 4, and maybe not have to take the big plastic engine cover off. BTW - does anyone just ditch the engine cover? Or is there a good reason to keep it on?

Is there an easy way to disconnect the ignition system on a 2ZZGE so that I can make the engine turn over without the spark plugs firing? I like to do this after an oil change so I can fill up the new filter and oil galleries before actually running the engine. It was easy when I had 4AGE cars. They had a distributor which made it easy to unplug the central HT lead to stop the engine from firing. The 2ZZGE has several low voltage wires going to each plug. I know I can unplug each sparkplug after removing the plastic cover, but I was hoping for a simpler way to do it. Maybe removing the fuse to the EFI?

Just thought I'd share this story with you all. I own a 2001 Toyota Allex (same as a RunX) with a 2ZZ-GE and tiptronic box. A few weeks ago I was heading back home after being out of town. It was holiday season and lots of cars on the road. I noticed what I thought was dust in my rear view mirror but at that time didn't think anything of it because I had just been through some dusty roadworks and all the cars were trailing dust. But after about a minute, I thought "why am i the only one still trailing dust?" I thought "this is not right" but I was on a windy road with nowhere to pull over and in a long line of traffic. By this time I could smell burning oil and knew something wasn't right, and as luck would have it, a sign said rest area '1km' so I carried on, at 100 kph with my oil ****** out the bottom of the car. I pulled into the rest area and shut down the engine. The oil pressure light had not come on, but the engine was making a bad clicking noise. I had a look under the car and it was soaked with oil, and there was a trickle of oil coming off the sump. I felt around behind the sump where the plug is, and found that there was no plug. I had lost it along with most of the oil. This was bad news. But as I said - the oil pressure light hadn't come on. I was out in the middle of nowhere with 1 bar of reception on my phone. And it was a sunday afternoon. I rang a mate and got him to look up some towing companies and eventually got one that would take me to the nearest town (I was about 300kms from home). The guy turned up with a transporter and loaded my car onto the back. Off we went. He said he had a mate that might be able to help me out. We went to his mates place ($180 fopr the towie) and he dropped me and my car off there. As luck would have it, his mechanic mate had a sump plug that fitted and some oil. That cost me another $80. At this stage, I wasn't sure whether my engine was stuffed or not, but I was miles from home and it was the best I was going to get. So we put the new plug in and filled up the oil and off I went. The car drove just fine. The next day I drove it to work and got the mechanics next door to have a look at it. They checked the compression, did an oil analysis, and plugged it into the diagnostic machine. Everything checked out just fine. I gave it another oil and filter change, just in case ther was some metallic particles floating round in there. It drives just fine and still revs to 8k with no problems. I've heard people say that the 2ZZ engines can easily seize if starved of oil, but that wasn't my experience. When I told the mechanics what happened, they asked me what kind of oil I was running, and I told them magnatech. They reckoned that this is what saved the engine.

Hi all I have a 2001 Allex (same as RUNX / Sportivo) with tiptronic auto. It has 55,000 kms on the clock. I love driving this car, especially since having it lowered. I do a lot of country road driving, and I love winding it out in 1st and 2nd. But I was wondering just how much of this the 2ZZ-GE can take. I usually don't exceed 7.5 k, but I get close on a regular basis. Is my engine going to be stuffed at 100,000 kms? I run Magnatec oil and Purolator filter and keep it weel maintained. Also, will I need to change the trans fluid at some stage?

Supercheap sell jumper leads that have a capacitor wired between the 2 leads. This is supposed to absorb any spikes that could affect the electronics when you connect. Be sure that the ignition on the car with the flat battery is off when you connect the leads.

Hey everyone. This is my first post here. I joined up because I've just bought myself a 1.8 ltr Toyota Allex Hatch. What a cool car, with a very cool engine. It replaces my 1.6 ltr Carib 20 valve blacktop. I live in Auckland, New Zealand. Ok - hit me with the sheep jokes, and the fush and chups ones.