mrbishi

Thank you all for your comments and thoughts, it helped a lot. I agree the bull bar is somewhat heavy and chunky looking and in the end, I have decided in favour of the Toyota nudge bar. Hopefully will not regret my decision. You made the correct decision Leeder, you want your new Kluger to stand out for the right reasons, I do some country driving as well and have hit roos in the two last cars they like jumping into the side of my rides, may be they dont want to walk or hope any more. I did not like the nudge bar at first (it came on the car as a demo) but now the others look strange with the standard broad face bumper look with out. Thank you PC Xt, appreciate your comments. 90% of my travels are country and half of it is at night. My old car was 1991 Nissan Patrol with solid bull bar ( I would prefer to call it "roo bar") and I did hit more than once (unfortunately) some big 'roos and if it had not been for the roo bar, things would have been really bad. I know its probably a bit late, but have you looked at bars from other manufacturers that might be a little more streamline, or have you considered getting one custom made. Regardless...,from your last comments, as much as I hate to say it, if youve hit roos before chances are youll hit them again, and when it comes to safety who gives a hoot what something looks like if its going to do the job you need it to do. Im not sure how much the nudge bar will help hitting a large roo at 100km/h, besides it doesnt have the coverage area a full size bar has so theres more chance of hitting an unprotected area. Also doing a lot of country driving at night Id say youre going to need some decent spotties that need solid mounting.

I expect that there are upgraded map. So they will not show I am off the road when I travel through the Pakenham bypass and the new area in the Tullamarine freeway. I hate to say this but what we get in Toyota Kluger satnav is very poor cousin to the most basic portable GPS unit. It is simply not reliable in more ways than one. I need to travel long distances and it helps me a lot, when planning my schedule, to know the arrival times, distances etc ... The Kluger satnav is not very good at this for a lot of reasons but the most annoying is that some of the proposed routes are, couriously, very challenging. So, I still take my Garmin 276C unit which has never let me down. The point is that Garmin uses the same software vendor as the Kluger, i.e., City Navigator Australia 2008 is "Whereis" software. For example, I cannot key-in my home address, it will not accept my street number but someone elses a few houses away and so on. I could go on with more examples .... there is not a logical reason for the limitations put on WhereIs V13 versus WhereIs on Garmin GPS units. Please keep in mind, this is software issue, not hardware and in this respect Toyota has let us down badly. Would like to hear comments from anyone with WhereIs V14 software I totally agree, the database leaves a lot to be desired as well as the rouites it decides on. I also many times cant punch in a particular street number, you then have to try and guess or pick one close, but as you know it can make a big difference in whether you turn left or right for that number and you could end up nowhere near where you wanted to go, this is for Sydney metro. Also the route it decides on can add many km's to your journey on experiments I have done. Its okay most of the time but I guess if you want close to 100% reliability Im sure there are better alternative units around. I hope the next software release fixes up some of the problems. Sometimes I wonder?.... when you buy top of the line you would expect that something as simple as software would be delivered with the best features.

I dunno about that one, it looks a little too chunky to me to suite the kluger. Seems like something more suited to a landcruiser or prado. But if you need it to do a job then you may have to live with the looks. Unfortunately I havnt seen any klugers with bull bars on them yet, so I cant compare it to anything else.

Thanks, I though of that style mount but I dont think its strong enough, they still have a bit of side to side movement and Im afraid it might move enough to hit the guard. Its a big HF antenna for short wave communications Im trying to adapt. Ill have to keep thinking.....

Anyone have any ideas on mounting a CB/2way antenna on the kluger. Looking at a HF antenna so its a fair size probably over 1.5m high. It needs to be a pretty hefty mount. Theres no bullbar so that easy mounting spot is not available. We have roof racks but its up too high and will be an inconvenience when going in undercover carparks. Im thinking if I can use the towbar attachment somehow, or a steel bracket somehow coming from out of the grill...but I dont like the idea of a steel protrusion coming out of the front of the car.

Thanks guys, good thread. Ill be upping our pressure next visit to the petrol station.

<_< I hate to break your ill-conceived perception. I own a Territory, purchased at the age of 37 and I am very fit & muscular. In all fairness, I did say most! Saw a Territory driver of the type I mentioned a couple of days ago. He was driving along, opening and closing his door. Each time he closed it, seemed to be more forceful than the last. Pulled up next to him at the lights and asked him what the hell he was doing. Turns out his drivers door has dropped and the latch doesn't quite line up properly. This is a problem that has haunted Ford since the early 70's and I'm suprised they haven't got it sorted out yet. On the other hand, if you buy a Holden, expect the glovebox to fall out. This is my first Toyota, anyone with more experience know what they are renown for? One thing Im concerned about in late model fords, in particular the territory is the quality of some of the plastics that are used especially in areas where strength and some sort of structural integrity is required, like door locks, widow rails, bonnet release levers and other plastics that clip or are required for some sort of strength. It seems like the plastic is too weak or brittle or they dont use enough plastic and eventually breaks and these days where plastics are used more and more in significant areas of cars I would be particularly worried. What may of happened to this guys door, is his plastic widow clip broke then it caused the window to drop which in turn broke his door lock and the door wouldnt close/lock, this is quite common. Imagine if this happened going around a corner with someone leaning against the inside of the door.

At least so far it seems all the things we dont like, are in the overall scheme of things, minor and a lot are personal taste. A lot of the things I dont like about ours I knew before we made the purchase, and they still didnt put us off buying one because overall as far as we were concerned it was the best option for us. As far as body roll goes, I cant say Ive pushed ours enough to feel a lot of roll, so as far as Im concerned its quite adequate for a 2tonne car. Youve got to remember what you have - its a 2000kg FWD/AWD/RWD, whatever, vehicle that will not respond like a lowered sports car. If you go stiffening up the suspension you might start to feel too confident and get yourself into a lot of trouble going around a corner. I laugh with horror when I see some people in their big 4WD's zooming around, speeding and generally driving like a regular 1200kg sedan, theyre a danger to everyone on the road and really shouldnt have a license because they are total twits, unfortunately I think they actually believe they have superior driving skills. Anyway the new generation of these so called soft roaders are very good and have dynamics closer to a normal car and probably better than many cars on the road but no matter you are always going to have to put up a fight against Newtons laws of gravity.

Mine are genuine Toyota and I only have two at the front. One at each end of the bumper bar, near the corners.

I think the front sensors are very good to have. Its hard to judge the distance when you cant really see the end. Its great when trying to swing into a tight parking spot. 1K sounds pretty close to the mark. The front sensors have an on/off switch that you really need especially when you have already parked the car close enough for the sensors to come on and you want to stay in the car with the engine on. Believe me it happens very often and rather than having them beep away you can just turn them off. You have to remember to turn them back on though. What the salesman probably means that the sensors are automatically de-activated when doing over 10kmh which makes sense, you dont want them going off when travelling in traffic.

Would non-genuine side steps effect the side airbag system???

Get a sports car if you want to go 200 not a 2 tonne truck.

Im glad it doesnt, you wouldnt want all the groceries all over the road. It will work while the engines on but it must be in park.

yep sure can...

Wow thats a lot of k's already.... Anyway where do we start weve only done around 7000ks, but no real problems. Its an AWD grande. 1. I dont like the handbrake or footbrake, but the XYL loves it. 2. Weve got a rattle that occasionally comes up in the dash. 3. Would have liked more storage in the back when all 3 rows of seats are up. 4. Would have liked a split 3rd row seat. 5. The navigation sat/nav cant be customised enough and cant be programmed when car is moving. 6. I think the sound system is pretty poor both in sound quality and control. 7. No memory in seats. 8. Need more road feel through the steering wheel, its too insulated from the bumbs on the road. 9. ABS is way too noisy and too much feedback to the pedal. ( for me anyway) 10. Would have liked a solid cargo cover instead of a blind, but then where would you store it. 11. Too many cup holders, especially the two in the centre console, I would have liked cleaner lines on that centre console. 12. No speed warning/ speedo is out/ and odometer resolution should be better. 13. Headlights dont seem concentrated enough, especially high beam on dark freeways. 14. I think the paint needs more coats, its seems a bit thin after the inside wheel arch was scratched when the kids draged their school bag over it. 15. I have a suspicion the plastics may also be easy to scratch after our centre console shows rub marks from a tissue box sitting there. Theres a few there and Im sure ill think of more, but in the overall scheme theyre mostly minor own preference type of issues.

Its annoying not knowing what youre real speed is, sounds like they must all be out, and a fair whack too. I cant even check it on the highway speedo check points because I cant figure out how to get the odometer or trip computer to display less than 1km resolution, even 100m accuracy would be good enough but cant seem to get better resolution than 1km?. You know on the odometer distance travelled eg 4359.8km instead of 4360km. We used to have the road warning/fog signs on the old F6 freeway between Sydney and Wollongong that used to display youre speed if you were going over the speed limit but they took that off when they realised people were trying to go as fast as possible to get the big numbers up on the display....... It was fun.... I think theyre treating/trying to dumb us down.

Only just read the guys problem. Seems like it must be an issue with the compatability of the toyota Bluetooth receiver and the Motorolas bluetooth. Nothing to do with the network. Bit strange though, I would have thought the fairly late model Prado should have supported the Motorola protocol....

Yes it doesnt sound right. The connectivity of a bluetooth device is not dependant on the network at all, but totally dependant on the handset. I believe toyota uses the two most common types of bluetooth protocol so most bluetooth handsets should be compatible. The chapy with the prado must be getting confused somehow, I have a NextG handset and its no problem with me. I assume he means NextG, I suppose you can call it 3.5G, which is backwards compatible with 3G in the very unlikely event NextG coverage isnt available. He may have purchased a NextG Handset and is still using a standard GSM or 3G SIM which he must upgrade to NextG to be able to use the NextG network, I think this is what he might be trying to say???

Ah, the land of the 'road safety camera'. Getting that way here too. That wasn't the bit I'd not be worried about. You can work around the c/c over-run as others have mentioned. :) I usually just flick it off towards the crest of a hill or when I hear acceleration. Not a big deal to me, even with Tassie's topography. Ahhh...yes the old speed cameras....there everywhere for our safety, and nothing to do with revenue raising......how stupid do the goverments think people are..... well actually we are all pretty stupid because none of us are doing anything about it......there was a nice write up in one of the Sydney papers about it today.... All for another thread I think.

Yeah, Ive noticed the same on mine, especially up hills. I makes you wonder if its going to stop accelerating sometimes. A little like going up a hill with a massive turbo then backing of hoping that the turbo lag doesnt last too long.

Congrats and great to hear.

Thanks guys, sounds like its normal. I think I was too used to teh Alfa which was very quiet.

Thought I would have a bit of a play on the wet roads weve been getting (Sydney) lately, in particular trying out the ABS. It all seems to work extremely well, but I was amazed at how loud it is and how aggressive the feedback from the brake pedal was....anyone else tried it and had the same experience. The reason why I ask is because our previous car ( Alfa-Romeo) had superb brakes and the ABS was so quite and smooth you wouldnt even know it was operating, all you would feel was a small rattle in the brake pedal and hardly any noise.......

I wouldn't say it's a big drama. Basically, sticking the boot in from standstill is enough to cause the front wheels to screech from the line. Personally, I expected this to be a non event. I guess it's a compromise between grip and slip. Mind you, turning the traction control off is very noticeable. It's enough for the front wheels to really get squealing. Other than that, I will be buying one tomorrow. Forgot you had FWD, traction or lack of may be something harder to tame with 201kw, but havnt experienced it in AWD yet.

good one there aardvark, thats great to hear your enjoying it, they are a good beast. I agree with you on most gripes, but you can work with it. The centre seat although can be bigger weve actually used it quite a bit and it seems to be quite okay for the passenger. Could do with another 150mm of space behind the 3rd row seat, but in reality there is so much room between the first and second row and because the floor is flat you can comfartable carry a lot of stuff there without being too much bother for the passengers. Totally agree on the 3rd row anchor points. Traction control - cant say ive pushed it that hard then because i havnt had a problem. its a nice machine though as you appreciate and the power although 201Kw is oaky it delivers it so well and the engine sounds pretty sweet.Its supposed to do 0-100 in around 8secs but I think with the right launch you could knock quit a bit off that. I actually had the pleasure of totally demoralising a poor chap in his hotted up machine (though a 4 cylinder) , the mongrel cheated and jumped the lights, but I was ready, revs up brake on, and as soon as they went green....launch like a jackrabbit, and he was eating my dust so quickly it wasnt funny....Ahh you really can enjoy this car.