mrbishi

Nice Avatar PC XT, looks really good in that pic, where abaouts was that? Anyway will definitely need more investigating on the sat-nav. I wonder if there is an invisible button on the screen that you need to keep pressed to invoke any menus similar to the Range-Rover Denso units?

Im sure the standard alarm also covers the bonnet.

Hi Jason, Welcome and hope you decide on the right car for you. The Kluger seems to be pretty good, smooth, quiet, powerful and drives quite good. I dont know if theres many out there with a lot of km's, not enough to show any problems anyway.... We only have about 7000km on ours and no problems or gripes at the moment. Theres a couple of silly odd things like some odd menus, and odd ways of doing some things, probably more to do with the grande though. All in all were pretty happy with hours and Im sure also many other owners out there. Price wise not to sure on the KX-R but comparing on percentages Id be hoping for atleast 10% discount on the RRP for a new one on the road so Id say you should pay even less for an ex-demo. Cheers

seeing only levels 0-5, I selected 2 it was on 0 Nope, its Fujitsu Ten Cheers Not sure about that when I interrogate the dvd player it says its a denso 16b2 or something like that. Not sure if they have different versions. Cheers

I think I get something different. I can see two different menus. I have my car running and have the parking lights on, keep the finger on the info button and switch the lights off-on three times, or keep my finger on the display button then off-on 3 times. Lots of interesting info and diagnostics but I couldnt fint the screen for the blacking out features, found a screen to adjust the mic input level for the bluetooth though, which was a bonus as I always thought the mic was a bit low. Looks like theres lots to play with and it could even provide info that gets used by the toyota service guys.???

Great find, How the heck did you think of trying that.

Estimates give a very rough idea, but when it comes to crunch time and you have as fist full of dollars ready for the deposit thats when the real bargaining can start to happen, thats what Ive found anyway. Dealers always say we can give you a good price when you are ready to buy but many wont negotiate too much further down or say thats the best we can do, I say its rubish. If the dealer wont haggle too much go somewhere else. You can usually get a good price from the big dealers that have a lot of turnover, but dont go to them first, get some good prices from somewhere else, then go to the big dealers to get their price, then go back to a previous dealer that you were most comfortable with and give them another chance and see how you go. The difference between my first quoted supposedly low price and my final price was over $12,000 go figure that out.

As long as they dont use a Mclaren ECU we should be right. For the F1ers...... :D

I agree too, save your money. Most cars these days dont suffer form problems that plagued cars of the past like poor paint, or rust problems. Theres always an escape clause or two or three, for all these companies that sell these protection products because they are limited to the amount of protection they offer. A scenario I imagine if you got rust on your car goes like this. You try and make a claim from the the electronic rust zappo company but only to be told it was functioning perfectly but they cannot be responsible for the rust because there was a bad earth or your electrode was not connected properly because of some dirt that caused an intermittent connection. Then you try and make a claim from the car manufacturer only to be told that Uh Uh we dont know what that electronic rust zappo was doing to the body, you better take it up with the zappo company. Same goes for paint as well as leather. Just look after it yourself and clean off any tree sap etc as soon as you can, as well as the leather. Thats my two bits worth anyway.

Thanks guys, Thought about doing it myself, but its a lease car so better leave it for the service dudes. BTW Im not sure how straight forward a footbrake adjustment would be. Not sure how the travel works because to release it you have to push it down further so if its too tight can you still release it without fully stretcching/pushing the the pedal????? not sure how it works.

My Mrs drives the car most of the time but from almost day 1 I suspected the handbrke/footbrake was not biting enough, I had it reported for the first 1000km service but they said it was alright. ( I suspect they probably didnt even look at it, but I never had the opportunity to check it ) Anyway the other day I was parking on a steepish driveway and no way was the handbrake up to the task, not even close. The car kept moving and I had to rely on the lynch pin to stop her. Im not a big fan of the foot brake thats for sure. Definitely will get them to have a proper look at 10k which is still a long 3k away and have them provide a proper report. Anyone elses footbrake not working as well as you thought it should?

Now I dont think country readers will deliberately try and oversteer their cars doing 100kmh on a dirt bend to try and invoke a slide, this is an absolutely stupid comment he made trying to justify this claim. He was not driving in a normal fashion around that bend just as he stated "they were trying to invoke DSC/VSC/ESP" And then to say that test commodores do the same bend at 160kmh is another irrelevant comment as the drivers there are professional test drivers that know every ripple in the road like the back of their hand and are also trying to drive as fast as possible and not trying to oversteer to invoke a slide. Really he must think people reading his comments are stupid and cant analyse and think for themselves..... But then his comments would also appeal to the whole lot of the anti-toyota crowd who jump on any misguided reasons to try and downcast the brand...

Good luck tomorrow, just dont go 100kmh around a dirt bend pushing the car hoping to make it go sideways thinking your a rally driver.... be warned off the klugers main competitor ( Terri) especilly in terms of rust and the quality of the plastic that is used in crucial components like door locks and windows and other places where some sort of strength is required. I think they have an inherent problem with deteriorating structure in the plastics that they use, they eventually crack and break. Also there seems to be more and more of them appearing with rust problems, some stories have been appearing in newspapers as well as other forums.

The reason why it rolled was like Taka said the wheels dug in and caused it to flip. Most cars would have rolled in the same situation. The writer should have been commending the kluger on its safety to come out without a scratch from an almost 100kmh roll. The car didnt look too bad, I wonder if it actually rolled or just flipped on its side and slid??. But looking at the picture if the skid marks in the foreground are the klugers and the side thats resting on the road it must have done atleast one roll.

Its good to see the vehicle is so strong and stood up to the roll well, but wheels can think and say what they like especially when trying to justify the battered ego of one of their writers. VSC calibration and testing is performed to an internationally specified test procedure, which I am sure has been well thought of and also is designed to properly test the VSC of a vehicle. What the wheels people seem to be doing is applying continuous extremes rather than sudden extremes that would be more consistent with emergency situations. The continuous extremes would more replicate a racing environment which would require different software settings for the VSC program. I would not call the wheels test quantifiable at all as it did not replicate a real world situation for sudden emergencies which is what the VSC is programmed to try and correct. Perhaps wheels should conduct the proper test and then put the all the other cars back through the same test and see how the results change. I think this is basically what Toyota are saying in their letter.

Driving Impression : 2400km round trip Sydney - Gold Coast - Sydney over 13 days. Vehicle: Kluger Grande AWD 4100km at start of trip. Laden: 4 persons (2 Big + 2 Small), 3 Huge Suite cases (what for Ill never know), cooking equipment, food and almost everything else resulting in the back being filled to capacity. Must have been a couple of hundred kilos in the back Normally we take the Flying Kangaroo for most of our vacations but this time round with the new machine we decided to drive. We set off on Sunday 6th Jan knowing that our progress may be hindered by possible flooding due to heavy rains in northern NSW, we did see quite a lot of flooding in areas around the Pacific Highway in Northern NSW but we did not encounter any problems so our trip was hassle free to and from the Gold Coast. The car enjoyed the trip very much, and you can really appreciate the benefits of having such a grand touring machine at your disposal. The Kluger didn’t miss a beat, and would keep plodding along at whatever speed you required, just set the cruise control and let it do its thing. Uphill down hill, left or right the car felt firmly planted and responded well to any requests. For my requirements the dynamics instilled confidence and pleasure. I was just amazed at how quiet and smooth this machine is, at 110kmh it was so quite and smooth it felt like 70kmh. With 201Kw when coming up to slower cars or vans overtaking was effortless so it meant you could get the job done quicker and safer. There were no complaints of discomfort from anyone which was quite amazing, so the seating positions must be okay. Up in Queensland we were laden up with 4 adults and 3 kids, and everyone was very comfortable or so they said. When all seats were used there was just enough room in the boot area to carry a few small bags and backpacks which was enough for what we required. When we did require extra room there was a massive amount of space between the front and second row seats to carry any extra bags with still comfort and room to spare. The DVD kept the rear occupants entertained while the Sat-Nav told the dummies in front where to go. Fuel consumption was pretty good overall it looks like we averaged around 10l / 100km. Fuel used is Caltex Vortex 98. The best result we obtained was 9.4l/100km which was almost all highway. I should imagine the fuel economy might get a little better as the engine wears in a little more. However I don’t have any complaints, to travel around in comfort and lug around 2000kgs + , Id say the fuel economy was excellent. In conclusion all I can say is the car drove beautifully, so much so that we hope to do it again in the near future. The drive was a pleasant effortless journey for the Kluger and its occupants and I must congratulate the boys at Toyota for coming up with such great all round machine.

One of the displays on the function on the small screen in a grande is estimated distance till empty, not sure of the exact wording but it certainly does show km left on current fuel. Seems to be fairly accurate too from what I guaged on our last trip.

Baby Oil

Works like a beauty in the Grande, in the pitch dark the reverse, and even the brake lights make everything easily visible even as far back as 10m or more at my place. I even use it to make sure we havnt left anything behind at night before pulling out from a dark parking spot.

Hi, just wondering if anyone knows whether the new Klugers have any pre-existing wiring available for connecting up extra driving lights. Just purchased a set of Rallye 1000 driving lights and looking at installing them the easiest way possible. Thanks.

No comments on the type of radio but where do people without bullbars mount the antennas. Where would the least intrusive spot to mount the antenna be. Roof rack area is a thought but what about low clearance areas.?

Congratulations and welcome to the forum, hope the wait passes quickly. Im amazed how long delivery is taking now, at first it was about 4-6 weeks only in Sept, now its months but the wait will be worth it. At least youll get an 08 model..

Very Interesting. ( RHD ) Looks like they are using US ads or something, even the badge on the side of the door said Sport.

A timer is never an overkill. You know people have stat up that we will spend 3 years of our life times waiting for our dates/partner to get ready. Hang on it actually says womens spend 3 years of their life time to get ready to go out. That why we die 3 years before women, the waiting kills us....lol But yeah I would have expected something to turn it off after a while if the car has been locked. I cant think of any good reason why its the way it is. My thinking is.....its gonna be a hot day, you go to the beach, you put up your windscreen sun shield to stop the sun from getting in, you flick down your visors to hold it in place better....but forget to check to the sliding cover...and when you get back from a long day out you find the battery is too flat to start the car..... It may be unlikely but it can happen, its just another thing to think of..... oh well.

I went out to the car last night to see a light coming from inside the cabin. When I opened it I noticed that the vanity light( if thats what you call it ) behind the passengers sun visor was on. It must have been on for hours. Has this been overlooked by Toyota or is mine the only one that does it. I wouldnt expect it to stay on indefinitely in this day and age of auto off functions etc etc, especially after locking the car. The visor was down and mirror was open. Seems to turn off okay when you close the mirror or flick up the visor.......strange......