hideo

thanks for any other suggestions too

Background: 2005 Facelift Sportivo Perfect maintenance record 144,000km (yes, I drive a lot) STOCK as a ROCK Problems: Dealer has not found cause of squealing coming from the front end since my 110,000km service. Thankfully it was intermittent, and now much less regular. Just had 140,000km service and was told my brakes are fine, approx 30% left at the front and 70% left at the rear. Had an issue with pulling up a couple days ago, nearly ran into a round about and got cleaned up by a big F-350 truck. A friend offered to clean out the pads, assuming it was glazing or dust/debris problem... turns out I'm missing half of the shim kit on my drivers side and the outside pad on the passenger side is close to worn out, while the inside pad looks new... WTF!? Also, they've fitted Bendix pads, not Toyota genuine. The rears are Toyota, blue and stamped and appear to be an organic compound, while the fronts have metal filings all over the place and a DB1431 sticker on the pads. So what do I? Take the poll.

If done properly, crimping is electrically a MUCH better connection. It's also mechanically superior with most styles of crimp connector. But crimping is expensive, so soldering is much more common. On an RCA connector the solder on the tip gives most of the mechanical strength, but it's more convenient. In the end, as long as you don't have a cold solder joint, then you're unlikely to notice much difference at anything but radio frequency ranges, much higher than audio frequencies. So dont stress it. Just make sure you use good connectors and a hot iron.

I'm a dumb ***** who changed a headlight last week (the 7th in a 2yr old car! but that's a different story!) and left the box, spent globe and rear cap of the light cluster sitting on top of the suspension tower... then drove thru a carwash... then drove 30km, almost home before i realised. I had bad mist in mine, but luckily no pooling water. I'm certain I don't have any cracks in mine and I suppose you probably haven't either so you should be fine just parking it in the sun, take the back cover off and leave it there. It's taken me 3 days to get rid of 90% of it, and I'm not overly concerned about it cos I'm sure it'll be fine. I didn't do it on the cooler days, and I've been fortunate not to have much rain so it's pretty much cleared up in 3 sessions within a week of it happening. I spoke to the service dept at the local toyota dealer and he said Toyota recently released a notice that "most new headlights are made from polycarbonate and prone to water ingress"... basically getting themselves off the hook for similar situations. I was told not to worry cos there's little chance of damage, only cosmetics. Good luck

shiz0r april '05 stivo - comin up to 23,000km it's a car... so i drive it.

Coolant and some other fluids get changed at 24months, i suspect this is the extra $180-200 you're seeing. My '05 sportivo went in for the 50,000km last week and cost $230, just like all the other services... i think. There may have been a $340 one in there, or that might have been for my sister's '01 celica (with less kms on it than mine already has!)

may '05 stivo - 51,000Km

I'm 100% sure it needs the roof lining removed so you can get access to the nut, it was in my repair quote. I hope you can fix it, I had a rollerdoor lowered on my roof and this piece is $270 from memory. I'd prefer buy a rear lip with that money. Eitherway, try to protect the circuit board asap. It's there as an amplifier/filter for the radio and it's clearly the reason the part's so expensive. While you're fixing it I'd love some hi-res scan/photos of it. I've got my amateur radio licence and what exactly they've put inside makes me curious every now and then. As for fixing it, you may wanna check out the "Clear USB Drive" repair/hack at http://www.tcnj.edu/~jones37/usb.html This guy goes thru a quick how-to, using a 'clear casting resin'. You could take a mould and get a coloured resin, either repair what you've got or remake it and change its shape (add a fin-edge at the front or something), add some glitter :D or spray it. Otherwise, you can get one of those TV antennas you stick under the edge of your rooflining. The TV ones cover FM radio fine. Last one I saw was $27, but it's nothing more than a correctly measured piece of wire (see antenna link below) encased in a rigid plastic. This system uses 2 antennas for 'diversity' (auto chooses better signal, more $$$) http://www.qualitymobilevideo.com/bottomfo...rtvantenna.html GHETTO option: Antenna $3.30: http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=LT3002 Balun $3.65: http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=LT3022 Balun makes antenna characteristics closer to what the radio expects.

work i heard from one of the engineers at toyota is the V6 WILL be seen in the Sportivo by next March and "it's really beautiful". He also called it 'exquisite' and 'sophisticated'. Don't know if something called a 'Sportivo' should be described like that, but the V6 is supposed to be a monster, performance-wise.

MINIMUM 620km from about 48 litres... please don't hurt me. 7.7lt/100km. I always look for Optimax, and find the first fill of Optimax after a BP Ultimate tank always feels better than the BP fuel. I'm in the outer eastern suburbs of Victoria, so it's a 25km drive to get to traffic lights; 90-100km/h limits, but hilly. I do a LOT of recreational driving, with beach-side runs, Geelong, Phillip Island, Portsea frequently and have gone away to Apollo Bay and Torquay recently and pulled 570km with 1/4 tank left! Had my '05 Stivo since May and have 20,000km on the clock (less than 6mths), so u can see economy is important to me.

SA build quality is VERY POOR! The two left doors in my car rattle while listening to talkback radio (ie. not loud or 'bassy' music). A customer at my family's business is a Toyota testing engineer in Altona and comes home with great toys (eg: JDM 'Crown Royale' with a pre-production direct injection 230+kW v6). He asked with a smile on his face what I thought about the fit and finish of my Stivo. When I shared my disappointment he said it's a known problem and they "sent a QA guy over there", but there was so much work for him to get the quality levels up they had to send another representative from Australia to help with the workload. I honestly trust that all car manufacturers know what they're doing and they're giving us the best products they can (or close to it) cos if they weren't their competitors would be and they wouldn't be competitive. That said, I'm sure Toyota know the profile of the average Stivo owner and I think they recognise that 141kW coupled to a 6-speed is more important to most of us than having artisans sculpt our dash to award winning levels of refinement. When they stop the Stivo there'll be a hole in the market between the 'too small' Clio and the 'too expensive' Integra S for those of us who'll be looking for a practical "6speed screeeeaamer". I'm loathe to buy a 10year old turbo or anything that has a japanese manual, or the word 'grey market' associated with it. I guess I like warranty (a real one), low emissions, economy and the new car smell too much. ABS brakes are nice too (and saved my bacon last week).

I had the pre-update 2.0Lt '03 Rav4. This is what I would have loved to have done: http://rav4world.com/gallery/gallery2text/f244.html The '04 has the 2.4Lt and there's a Toyota/TRD supercharger for that engine. The bodykit show at the link above was a Japanese domestic market offering but it won't fit because of changes behind the front bar, but the handling/suspension ideas are the same.

I can certainly attest to this... my '05 'Stivo has a warped rotor after just the first 2000km! Less that one month DAMMIT! Anyway, what's worse is I'm very frugal with braking, I'll look back at my old service manual if anyone's interested, but the pads on my Lancer lasted almost twice the expected mileage. (Lots of long trips, no peak-hours and heaps of engine braking)

i got a silver sportivo and would love a set of buddyclub's. im wondering what size and how much you've been quoted

Anyone else?? Any others??