DJKOR

5W-30 is a suitable oil for this engine, and it even specifies it's use being suitable in the manual. The fact that they lied to you in telling you that is the cause would make me question them further because if they are lying about something like that, it shows that they can't be trusted in their diagnosis. I would either escalate it further or find another dealer to diagnose the real cause. Unfortunately though, you may run into another problem. Toyota has made a page in the owners manual of the car and there it states that the maximum oil consumption that one can experience is 1 litre every 1000km. I suspect they wrote this to cover their behind. If your engine is using oil up at that rate or slower, there is a good chance they can turn around and say it is normal.

Well last night, my tires were finally being a bit more compliant. They were gripping much better than before. That said, I could not stall it up much. Only enough to prevent the inital lag if you don't. Anything more than 1500RPM and it just loses traction. In my last 2 runs, I did notice it make a quick chirp but it was only for a very short moment. Didn't seem to cause any issues though like previous attempts. Just the sub removed. I have experimented in the past with removing the spare wheel but strangely enough, I have found that the difference can sometimes be nil... and in other cases, make the time worse. I'm no engineer so I don't know how that works. I would imagine it has to do with the initial weight shift reducing the traction up front. All I know is that a car like this has a limit to how light you can go before things start going the opposite way. I do run on a 'low' amount of fuel however and I weight just that fraction lighter (8kg) then when I did a run before. On top of that, another thing I have found that helps is to have the passenger seat all the way forward considering it is quite heavy as it is being electric and all. Edit: YEW!!!! Photo of my last run.

Yup. Boost loves the cold. That said, the temperature difference between my first and last run was only about 2 degrees. When I last ran when I had my stock airbox, I got the 13.748s @ 101.91mph and the temperature then was about 17 degrees. So 4 degrees cooler and 0.376 seconds quicker. My Sportivo didn't have much variation in the same conditions. My fastest run in the Sportivo was 14.131s and that was at 15 degrees. I still couldn't get it any quicker, even in temperatures down to 10 degrees. Jealous?

Took her to the drags again. Despite what I have said in the past about not going anymore, I just couldn't resist. Was a good choice as well. Got myself a new time: http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=26861&view=findpost&p=405775 13.372s @ 104.46mph

Well... I couldn't resist the urge and headed back out to Willowbank just earlier. All I can say is that for once, I have left the dragway satisfied. First run of the night got me the following: 13.613s @ 102.82mph I was quite shocked when I picked up the time slip. I had to look at my car again to make sure I picked up the right number. Sure enough, 495 was my number. It was pretty quiet so I thought I would loop around again and give it another shot immediately after. This got me the following: 13.707s @ 101.69mph Now from all the runs I have done, I have learnt that when it comes to a car like this where every little bit is only minor, heat soak from doing run after run really messes with your times. So I decided to sit back for 30 minutes with the hood up to let the heat soak dissipate. On returning, I got the following: 13.412s @ 104.10mph That result put a pretty big smile on my face. That said, I repeated the above and sat for another 30 minutes before racing again. My final run of the night got me the following: 13.372s @ 104.46mph And that was enough to make me really happy considering that engine wise, everything is stock except for my homebrew intake. So at that point, I decided to call it a day. I guess my homebrew intake hasn't make things worse at the least.

I'll be there of course.

Despite being a hybrid, that car holds up quite well when driven in a spirited fashion. And they aren't kidding when they say that it is fuel efficient even when driven as such.

Welcome mate. Should definitely turn up to our meets: Brisbane Meetup (Every Thursday 8pm) I'm sure this will make Phil (whitestivo) happy... even though he's too soft for our meets now :P

Chained much better this time?

There there Will. Us QLD'ers know what supercharged Toyotas sound like. Andrew, Anthony, Evan, Harry, myself to an extent...

Have you tried looking in the Aurion section. Like the FAQ's? The TOCAU Aurion FAQ

I have to bail on tonight. F***ers at Hyatt Sanctuary Cove need onsite assistance. Edit: And I even went to the effort to shine my car up earlier. FML!

Just like you school Northy eh

I'll be there for sure.

Hi guys (and the occasional girl). Following a suggestion from Jeff (Hidden Taco), to make it easier to direct outsiders to our forums and/or to make it easier for yourself to get here, I have registed the following domain and forwared it to the main forum page. Feel free to spread the word. It's nothing huge, but it's just something to make life a little easier. TOCAU.ORG

I get people calling it a Camry all the time. Personally I just don't give a damn when they do, I just usually say something like "it's an Aurion but it's pretty much a Camry". Even I think of it as a Camry at times and when people don't know about the car, I just say how it's like an upgraded Camry. At the end of the day, it pretty much is when you consider that Toyota market it as a Camry in the Middle East and Asia. And when you manage to put Fords and Holdens in their place, it sounds funnier when you can tell them that a Camry beat them.

I wish I did that when I took my head unit out to piggy-back onto the USB connector. Now it's all back together, I really can't be bothered disassembling it all again. Ooh, a mystery. Do tell...! I can't wait to see it.

Well my own personal thoughts (I say this because it's a very subjective matter and people have their own thoughts) would be to stick with a sealed enclosure and if you aren't after a large amount of bass, then a well tuned 10 incher would work nicely, but for the size of the Aurion, I'd probably stick with a 12 inch. I personally wouldn't go 8 inch, I was just stating that to show differences. Sealed enclosures are great for getting some quality bass but the only issue is that when you want to get some heavy bass, you typically need more power than ported enclosures. Since high SPL isn't your target, then a sealed enclosure would be perfect. As for the size, 10 inches will give you some great response due to the smaller size but with the overall size of the Aurion, you may need that extra bit of push that a 12 inch sub will provide. As long as you have your box set up to the right volume, the difference in response between the 10 and the 12 shouldn't really be noticeable. Brand wise, I would love to have a JL Audio, Rockford Fosgate, or Boston Acoustics sub and amp combo, but these would push your budget. At the moment, I use MTX, and am quite satisfied with the quality, power output and price. But that said, I'm more after heavy bass than clarity. That's enough to keep me happy.

You can pretty much put any sub you want in your Aurion. It all depends on yourself. You need to be a little more specific. What are your goals? What type of music do you listen to? Is there a particular size sub you prefer (like 8 or 12 inch)? What do you define as 'low power'? Do you want it low power in terms of greater efficiency (more bass for less power) or because you mean you just want a sub to fill in what the normal speakers can't manage and don't want lots of bass? And more importantly... what's your budget? There are many types of subs out there depending on what you ultimately want out of it.

Tire choice is a very subjective matter and can vary depending on the individual. Before we go on and start yet another discussion on this, have a look though some of the following threads (which I brought up using the search function of this site) and see if anything there sounds interesting to you. Don't worry too much if you are comparing the 16's to 17's or to 18's when going through those threads as you shouldn't have much difference between them if you are in-between with the 17's. Need New Tyres Pirelli P7, Potenza Adrenlin or others? Has anybody here replaced they tyres recently? Yet another tyre thread New Tyres Bob jane Xenon Z7 Road/tyre noise on the Aurion Kumho KU31 or Falken FK452 New Tyres or Rims?

Mostly correct. In most situations, the only thing that is more prone to wear is the tensioner. The chain can go bad as well, but if you keep your oil changes in order, the chain will more than likely last the life of the engine. That said, not everything is perfect and it can just go bad for no obvious reason. But either way, most cases you won't come across this. Anyways, the primary timing chain tensioner can be inspected without having to remove the timing chain cover. On the accessory side of the engine on the rear bank, there is a small panel held on with 4 bolts. You remove these 4 bolts and remove the panel to be able to visually inspect (and quite possibly even change) the primary timing belt tensioner. You can see this panel in the bottom centre of the attached photo. For reference, the primary timing belt tensioner is of a ratchet type with a non-return mechanism and utilises both spring and oil pressure to maintain tension on the chain at all times. On visual inspection, you should easily be able to see whether this is failing. So you can feel free to inspect this at any service you want to depending on how picky you are. That said, good luck doing it with the engine in the car.

I don't watch too much TV these days so I only watched this then. Had me laughing quite a bit. http://www.streetfire.net/video/top-gear-reliant-robin_2032682.htm

That one really p***es me off as well. Even if I drive carefully for the entire time they are following me, it nearly always ends up in them pulling me over and just doing a license check etc. So it's basically just driving carefully waiting for the moment that they pull you over.

Did he have shoes on? Dunno. Didn't pay attention. All I saw was him flipping me off Home Simpson style (like in the Simpson movie).

I had my suspicion that it was caused by the VVT-i controller. I just thought it was something to do with not having much oil in there during a cold start and the internal mechanism knocking around because of no oil pressure to keep things 'floating'. My old Aurion used to do this but only when it was getting very close to 15,000km without an oil change. Once the oil was changed, the knocking never came back until it reached close to 15,000km again. I just figured it was nothing bad and explainable since it was quite a length of time without a change in oil. My TRD is now starting to do the same thing. Started happening as the weather got really cold. It has been 10,000km since the last oil change. I think this is indicating to me that it's oil change time. Funnily enough, this is about the same point where Dave also got the occurance: So are you able to explain what exactly fails more specifically? Edit: Is it the lock pin that fails? I'm just wondering if I was thinking along the right lines when I made the following post last year? That's what I'm thinking. It seems to be coming from the upper part of the block. It's similar to the sound of that intake control valve closing, but more metallic. It just has me stumped. Maybe it really is the VVT-i mechanism. When you see a video animation of it working, you can kind of picture how it can generate a knock/rattle sound if it doesn't have appropriate oil pressure in it. The mechanism is like this for those that don't know: Having a quick look at the service manual, maybe it ties in with the so called 'lock pin':