Sebastian Woodhouse

Sebastian and I had a spa date in the garage for about 7 hours today. I’ve shown some of the swirling and paint damage before - and I had compounded a stack of the body, that’s the hazy look to the quarter in the foreground but didn’t do the boot lid, rear bumper or roof. I’d gone pretty hard on the bonnet leaving only the worst of the damage. But again, only with a diminishing compound and not a final polish. Today this was going to change. Roof compounded - yes the compound is a diminishing type and when worked fully dry will give a near complete finish. The clouded areas I had worked the compound damp (stops it from breaking down, increasing the cut time). Bonnet after final polishing. There’s still the deeper scratches etc but for the most part the finish is as good as it is going to get without risking the clear coat. After a lot more polishing, and then two (heavy) coats of Ceramic. His bad side, the rear door and quarter have had some of the worst paint repair I’ve ever seen. I might end up repainting the door myself if it gets to me enough. But for now it reflects nicely. The other side is factory paint, and while it has some mediocre scratch repairs they’re blended a little better after the compounding and polishing. I like the art level of capturing our other cars in the shot too 🙂 A close up reminder of where we started and where we are at right now.

I grabbed the rattle gun and chooched it. Having the correct 10mm square key meant little to no risk of chewing it up. Makes me think either the torque spec of the filter housing is well above “nip it up snug” - would have to be 50Nm compared to the drain bungs 25Nm - or we should be lubing the o-ring and threads differently.

I will see in a few weeks when I do this again 🙂 it’s a neat design in principle but I think you’re right.

You could try throwing a few doses of “Fuel Doctor” into it. You get it from Supercheap etc and it’s a green liquid. in short it’s a fuel stabiliser and treatment that deals with “stale fuel”. I know what you’re thinking “I use the car and fill it up every week etc, I can’t have stale fuel”. Well here’s the flip side. Once you’ve got a stale fuel in the tank it will contaminate the next full and the next full so the car never really gets past it. One of the signs of this are some very very bad exhaust smells, a much more “eye watering” chemical odour. Our MX5 was really bad for this, as it gets driven sub 2000km/year. I dose it quarterly with Fuel Doctor and it’s “back to normal”. It’s not cheap, but I’m my experience it’s worth the expense and did address a similar problem.

Today Sebastian had his first oil change in my care. some things of note. Sump plug was in really good condition which is nice. However. The drain bung in the bottom of the oil filter housing was well stuck in. Yeah this thing. I ended up using a rattle gun on it off the car. That revealed a nice pocket of sludge in the drain valve. the housing itself cleaned up nice with brake cleaner - but again some carbon crumbs and some varnishing. All that’s gone now. I did take a leaf out of Sludgies book and run through an oil flush prior to draining. Definitely got some extra muck loose compared to just dumping oil. Frah filter and a sump full of cheaply purchased Gulf Western synthetic. We will hopefully do some longer runs in the next couple of weeks and I’ll do another flush and change after that. Next official service is due in January-ish so he will go to Toyota for that. Overall still a happy camper. The sludge I could have lived without but I don’t know how many “book service” cars wouldn’t have some lingering around.

That’s a very Asian way of running a house as a second home. Have seen such arrangements in Malaysia where ex-pats simply sell the bundle on to the next ex-pat. Cars, furniture, golf club membership etc all transfers. If you could shake out the right buyer you’d be lucky, but I’m not sure ho many would pay a significant premium for it over the $15-20k bracket?

There’s a rather significant part of me that admires your persistence, but that’s tempered by the “damnit man, valve covers off, sump off, diesel and a brush” The sludge must be like a sandbar in the upper parts of the motor and really a day of effort on “mechanical” removal followed by another few of your extreme flushing changes would deal it it. That said I get the logic of what you’re doing and to each their own 🙂 Which does remind me I do have to give Sebastian an oil change and fresh plugs. Will send him to my gearbox whisperer for a gearbox flush before too long also.

Yep. A genuine kit, I found a dealer selling a bunch of then when I was trawling eBay for Genuine mats and Bootliner before Sebastian even arrived here. Most of the (family/practical) cars we’ve had in the last 20 years have had some form of footwell illumination so the $85 for the kit was a no brainer. It’s something that should have been a standard fitment or an easier install but I guess by some point Toyota AU had given up on the Aurion development and market.

And the night view. The interaction of the two globe types/colours does make for some interesting purple hues. Rear seat passengers have the light obscured by the front seat position. It definitely lights up the footwell!

Today I finally installed the Toyota Genuine Accessory Interior light kit. After removing a the lower half of both sides of the dash, the scuff plates and the B-pillar lower trim the fun job starts. Grab some tape and measure up as per the Toyota instructions. Once there’s a 16mm hole the lights can be installed. It’s a shame they’re light grey and not the darker grey of the trim. The control interface for these gets strapped to the wiring above the passengers left foot. A branch then runs across the car to the drivers side kick panel, and onwards to the B-Pillar. The shorter branch stays on the passenger side and journeys to the passenger B-pillar. There’s heaps of room to work, and yet it feels cramped. The kit taps the factory wiring with vampire clips at the A-pillar roof loom junction. End result looks good, but not as “polished” integration as I would expect from a manufacturer accessory. The lighting is a Warm-White and Blue LED hybrid which I’m looking forward to seeing at night.

Should note: ADR specifies the maximum error. The biggest change is now under any condition/test a vehicle as delivered by the manufacturer cannot have a true rod speed that is above the indicated speed. The are also some provisions around the visual accuracy of reading the instruments as well which is where the 4km/h typically can be explained off. From memory the 4km/h is arbitrary because it’s the largest whole number under 5, and the wording is something like “the operator must be able to determine the the reading within x% of the scale”. Which broadly means if you see the needle half way between the 90 and 100 marks you must be doing less than 95. But if parallax error due to seating position means you are seeing the needle position on scale differently (like your passengers do) then you would still have a margin of safety. This is why often a digital readout speedometer is “more accurate” than the gauge style because it doesn’t actually have to deliberately over read to get around visual interpretation of needle position. Obviously the percentage error is also about mechanical (and digital relationships between rotating items). Some cars have incredibly accurate speedometers that are near perfect to 40km/h then from that point adopt an exact 4km/h over read.

On the Ford stuff I play with we occasionally find that popping the “cover” (screwed not riveted on the Ford) and doing a proper gear of the wiper and contact surfaces with contact cleaner and then reliving with the correct contact lubricant works well. At the same time the drive motor gears get a clean and fresh live also. That said a replacement throttle body is $60-$250 range so you do wonder if it’s worth the effort. It would be interesting to split the Toyota TB open and see if the same clean routine can be performed.

So it’s said a picture is worth a thousand words. First the cluster, which we want to match the white and blue illumination. This is how the selector quadrant lights up with the White LED instead of the green. Lastly the white window switches. Perfect 🙂

I swapped over to the White LED illuminated window switches. They’re a much better look than Ice Blue in my opinion. But it does mean I have a set of Ice Blue illuminated switches available if anyone wants them. The LEDs in them can be swapped easily enough for any other colour you may want.

I’m sure by now you’ve worked out that I’m quite happy to make subtle tweaks and changes to Sebastian. Some are practical, while others are more about making him feel more like “ours” and a little less like someone’s Uber ride. The rubber shift knob was one of those things. It’s functional, it’s not too worn, but ultimately I felt it was a little more “base model” than mid-spec. Enter my stunning new knob. Looks like it should have been there since day 0!

The screen will (or should) be only 5mm or so from the sump floor - it’s probably more likely that you will be wanting to see a clean floor and not drifts of sludge around the intake.

And right now: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Gates-Micro-V-Belt-Kit-for-Toyota-Priusv-GSA33-Tarago-Aurion-GSV50-Highlander-/133713057529?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=705-154756-20017-0 You can buy the same kit within AU for sub $250 delivered. Always pays to do research 🙂

I buy intermittently, and yes the shipping is reasonable - I think it was $22 for belt, tensioner and waterpump in the last delivery. And the total order was close to $100 cheaper than the cheapest AU price for the same Gates parts. It’s certainly worth checking so I chucked a Gates Belt kit for a 2014 V6 into the cart: Would have to check if that’s the correct part number, and obviously it includes Belt, Tensioner and Idler as a complete ready to install set so will cost more than just replacing bearings etc.

I know it’s tight, but in my daily the waterpump gets removed through the void created by removing a headlight 🙂 Also price up OEM bits through rockauto.com. I bought a bunch of Gates parts for about 1/3rd the AU market price for a car that was never even solid in the USA so a 2GRFE belt/pulley set would have to be cheaper and easier!

Always the way. Have a car for a couple of weeks and during a lockdown and somehow the windscreen gets chipped. not that big But still a decent fingernail size. Pretty much a dead certainty I’d lose the windscreen during summer. So let’s be cheap and try a DIY COVID safe solution. Line up the thingo and suction cup down. Like some kind of alien face hugger! Add the fluid and twiddle the piston a few times. Level the surface and let cure. Clean up and applaud the success!

No. Service History of your car is free through the myToyota App if you have a history with Toyota. Also the Owners Manual and the Service Booklet is free. Yes these are the ones included in the glovebox if they haven't been lost. However if you need a service schedule, its there. The detailed service manuals and procedures are a charged Item, but I would question anyone needing them to perform the basic maintenance.

These were about 3-days within China then about a week to get on a plane and be delivered by Auspost. I try to use “AliExpress Standard Shipping” as these days the consolidate multi-vendor orders and forward on which makes it easier to track things.

Yep. I ordered a White set and will switch over to it. I then might do the LED swap to the 465nm blue LEDs I’m using for the rest of the car.

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A morning pic of the Ice Blue - I think I will get the white versions and sell these on. As for the boot… Yes I have to do something with it. Below is my commuter hatch. The standard factory light was on the right side. Much like the Aurion it only puts out whatever light a T10 bulb can muster. I also found the subwoofer blocked a lot of light. The upgrade consists of LEF panel version of the light fittings, and an additional one fitted in the mirrored location on the left. These are the light units. They clip into a 3mm plastic trim but there is no reasons why the can’t be mounted in the carpet on the sides of the boot using some ABS sheet to sandwich. I will have to see if there is an area with enough back-space for the assemblies.