mg85

It is usually VVT rattle changing the oil more often is the key for prevention of this problem. Cant see thicker oil helping.

On 12/17/2018 at 3:12 PM, JjCowley said:

Hi all, new to this site, but hoping someone may be able to help.

Bought a 2006 aurion, drives great, doesnt loose water, still has the power you would expect.

When i test drove, there was nothing out of the ordinary, when driving it home however.....when taking off there was masses of smoke comeing out tailpipe.

Pulled over and when you put foot on gas, heaps of smoke comes out, got it home, used heaps of oil. Ended up changing oil(did flush also) and put in new filter.

Seemed ok, took to work, but when the car gets to operating temp it starts blowing heaps of white/grey smoke, and i mean heaps, probably burnt through 3 litres of oil on a 60km trip.

People have said valve stem seals -but seams like too much oil loss for that.

Other thought cracked head or head casket -but not losing water or running or ideling rough.

Someone did a compression test on front 3 cylinders, it read very low, but wondering if that would be a correct reading as if there was low compression in 3 or more cylinders,would it not be lagging power, its definitely has got plenty of power.

Is there something that could be causing oil to be vacuumed straight into exhaust when the car gets up to temp?

Any advise or thoughts would be great,

Thanks.

Did you check the service history on this vehicle and verify it? These motors NEED to be serviced regularly.

Parking brake shoe drag I reckon

56 minutes ago, jeffy said:

i dont think springs can leak, as theres nothing in there 

it has to be the strut .. or the gas shock absorber.

 

Usually you'd want matching new things for the new shock, ie. the stress,usage, wear and tear of the old spring will not match the new shock per se, so wouldnt it be more ideal to replace the whole thing since the units are out anyway ? but at the end of the day, its the owners choice. Also yes, search for other places to get parts, theyre all generic. What you're paying for is the time and labour in the named businesses.

if you are handy with tools, you could actually even DIY, gives you a learning platform  

Bit of mucking around with the Aurion to do the Rear struts, I did mine a while back and entails taking the rear seat (base & back) out to get to the top mounts. Most other cars I have  done the top mounts can be accessed through the boot.

I would disagree that all struts are generic you get what you pay for generally, im sure you could get real cheapies from Repco.

The only thing that can leak is the Damper part of the strut it has oil & gas inside it, the rest is all steel and rubber mounts.

Can only be the struts. If your springs are not sagging you dont need to replace them. You will need another 4 wheel alignment on strut replacement.

You can get Monroe GT gas struts on ebay for $300 a pair, in my view they are better than the pedders.

Ive always found Pedders expensive

On 6/3/2018 at 1:32 PM, Victor Frankl said:

The parking brake of my Aurion does not hold when moving backwards. Really bad when parking in an incline because the only thing that holds the car is the gear in P. I holds quite well moving forwards though. I had this checked by Toyota probably 3 times already and they said that this is normal. They told me that the parking brake does not hold a backward motion. I don't believe this because my friend's Aurion works.

Does anyone have a similar problem? Should I get this repaired by a different shop?

You would probably have to get the park brake shoes adjusted (inside the rear rotor drums) rather than just adjust the cable tension. It certainly will hold the car from going backwards on a slope if is adjusted correctly. They wear a bit on the shoes and no amount of cable tension (under dash) will help if the shoe clearance is to big.

What is the service history on your vehicle? 

Could be VVT Variable Valve Timing which are know for noise at start up if the engine is not serviced correctly.

Most on this forum would agree this engine requires a shorter service interval than the is specified in the service manual, to be on the safe side say very 10,000km or six months (whichever comes first)

The level should be checked with transmission temp between 40-45c after putting in drive then reverse a few times to get the oil distributed.

Good decision me thinks sorry it did not work out.

2 hours ago, Myxalplyx said:

Maybe I should've been more specific in my previous post.   Was asking if any Aurion owners, that are looking to modifying their car for more power, have looked into possibly working with R9K.   I am not asking those with TRD Aurions or those that are already happy with the power as it was delivered or those without funds to do any modifications.   Hope that helps!  

I think you are really looking at the wrong vehicle if you want to get a substantial power increase at of of stock Aurion's It is not in my opinion a suitable vehicle to do this too, when there are numerous others imports Skyline ,Soarer, Silvia, even some local stuff XR6 etc. which are the ducks guts for this type of mods.

Substantial power increase in a std 3.5L = bang! in my book

Transmission= similar

Chassis=could not see it handling great some guys have put large dia sway bars on the rear only to have mountings pull off the body

Mate it is basically a family car

The TCS light is telling you there is a fault, to turn TCS off is quite a long sequence of actions, it is very unlikely you accidentally did this, also it resets to TCS on every time the ignition is turned off.

Go with Trent's recommendation and have the computer fault code read, you have to start somewhere ay.

If you are concerned I would measure the distance from the bottom mounting bolt center of the strut to the base of the the spring seat on the new strut and compare it to the old one.

Replaced mine a few months ago with Monroe GT gas there is some gas pressure in the damper but not enough to make the car ride 1" higher the difference may be in the strut.

Looks like you are in for trouble, I probably would not be blaming "bad oil" when you have not serviced it regularly. The 3.5 Lt engine is prone to sludging as it is.

I predict you will be having ongoing issues with this engine forever due to lack of regular servicing it is up to you how much money you want to throw at it.

Options are as I see them:

Get 2nd hand engine (could be just as much trouble if it has not been looked after)

Sell the car

Rebuild the engine/reco (expensive but will fix the problem)

Spend money on mechanics trying to clean up a worn sludged engine (could go on indefinitely)

Hi Keefy,

Tread depth is measured across the tyre if one side is down to the wear indicators the tyre is deemed unroadworthy even if the other side is OK.

Your tyre look a little worn on the outside which is not uncommon for a front LH due to U turns, roundabouts and such, therefore it is well worth rotating tyres every 10K using the method described in the owners manual.

I find you can get a pretty good picture on how the car is driven by looking at the wear on tyres. As mentioned in the fuel consumption thread by other experienced users roadcraft has a hell of a bearing fuel consumption and of course tyre wear.

3 hours ago, BenDavis said:

Thanks very much for all the advice guys, it's nice to see even though these cars are aging a bit there's still plenty of life in this community!

mg85, What do you mean saying Toyota came to the party? My dash is buggered from this problem so would Toyota maybe replace it? Or was that an in-warranty thing?

Hi Ben,

Have look through this thread

Looks like I'm not going to get any concession here, on behalf of satisfied Aurion owners let the record show I did in fact try  

15 hours ago, trentmeyer23 said:

VVTi controller/cam gear failures, dashboards melting, pull left issue, intermediate shaft knocks, oil cooler hose failures, VVTi hose failures, engine failures(more so TRD models), power window switches burning out. 

Surely, I am forgetting something.

As I said, just because your car does not have them, does not mean they don't exist.

VVTI is linked to regular oil changes

Dashboards yep on some but at least Toyota come to the party on them when pushed

Pull left easily fixed by a GOOD suspension specialist

Intermediate shaft knock was an issue with some earlier models

Oil cool hoses on earlier models yep

Engine failures this not a regular occurrence in a well maintained vehicle it's a great engine if you don't get 500K out of one you are very very unlucky

Power window switch on an Aurion you mean the one which effected the Corolla ,Rav4, Kluger, Yaris and Camry and recalled

I reckon the Aurion is a solid car sure a few faults but how would you liked to have purchased a any VW with DSG Auto and forked out 8K + (for component that has regularly failed) to get it fixed with no help from VW. Sure VW eventually after a number of years come to the party with some of them.

There are heaps of examples of major problem cars with out there a couple of recent ones below

Hyundai Diesel SUV's 50-100k motor failures

Anything Jeep 

Holden Captiva engines failures

There is a reason Toyota is number 3rd behind Lexus then Porsche in the US customer satisfaction survey and the likes of Hyundai & Kia are rated below the industry average in this survey. In my opinion these sort of surveys count much more than the Motoring press and to some extent Forums such as this.

Begin Rant -What gets on my goat is motoring writers, I swear some of them are doing an advertorial on the vehicles they test. Reading a piece in last weekends paper about a Range Rover on test, the journalist stated that being a Range Rover the vehicle would be great over Rocky trails and the beach as on the road. The damn thing had low profile tyres on it which would not last at all on rocky trails and would rubbish on the beach, the dude has no idea -Rant over.

Sorry if I've bored you guys 

I too have been reading Forum posts for years if the oil is changed at least every 10K I have not seen evidence of systematic faults, which issues would you say have plagued the Aurion?

I would have to disagree here, my GSV40 has done 100K and I have had not one thing go wrong with it, zero.  How many cars can claim that?

Sorry to hear about your issues.

As the oil flushing appeared to work for a while I would use this product http://www.costeffective.com.au/Product/27/flushing-oil-concentrate using the directions for a full flush it is made for this job and I have used it on diesel engines with good results and use it on the Aurion in its maintenance form.

FULL FLUSH:

• Obtain FULL operating temp drop old oil
• Refill with cheap oil add Concentrate and fast idle for 30 mins
• Drop oil and change filter
• Refill with good oil my recommendation A3/B4 Castrol Edge

Change your oil every 5,000km using the Concentrate in maintenance form.

Let us know how you go ay.

I upgraded my rear sway bar (ultra racing) and used the bushes that came with it, you need these because the sway bar is a different diameter I think it would be a waste of money fitting other poly bushes to the car. The new bar improved body roll on corners where the car used to lean too much for my liking.

It's a good cheap mod that works, the existing rear sway bar is ridiculously inefficient for such a nice well made vehicle as you point out.

I suspect Toyota call it "strainer" and not a filter as it would then put it in the category of a service item. It is pretty pointless asking most Toyota service dealers on issues such as ATF's service's above the scheduled maintenance , they generally quote the service book or in this case have no understanding of what is required.

I have personally heard the Aurion has a sealed ATF and no filter from them.

Probably a better place for advice would be is a reputable ATF specialist.

 Just as well we have forums such as this to get some real world advice.

For some reason Toyota now call the filter a "Strainer" same thing in my book but it may cause some confusion with terminology if you head into a dealer and ask for a Trans Filter.

Rear left

Rear Right

Front left

Front right

Not as important as it used to be with ABS but I still do it this way.

Camry 0906-1202 W/O smart key