iRage

No..I said Hich-oku or Premium fuel in Japan ranges between 95-98. Regular can be anything from 92-95. What does it say on the fuel lid ? Premium or Regular ?

Hey ! What does a Japanese person calls a Tyrannosaurus Rex ??!!! T-LEX !!! Congrats on the new purchase

Well...to be fair....it is a 10 year model and is on its last leg Its expensive in SL because of our stupid tax system.

A for effort it is funny the guy says Allion is marketed as a sporty saloon. Its actually marketed as the "youthful" version of the platform as the name suggests "All-in-one" Not to mention Toyota has not been marketing it for quite sometime now. Also it is still the 260 platform isn't it ?

To expand on my blatant statement earlier. Axia (or Picanto or something) is the safer choice (as you can see). You get a brand new car with an agent's warranty. You won't be getting caught to all the lying, cheating, unknowns about used cars and won't be subjecting yourself to below par quality of some of the Indian vehicles.

If it looks the same and the same model period (i.e. E140 series 2006-2012)..then its the same car.

Navi = Navigation..... So it is a feature that comes with your navigation system.

Just buy the Axia....safest option...

First and foremost...the best option is the car that is the best condition ! these are old cars so irrespective of the grade/trim-level, you need to give more focus on the condition of the car. The higher grade is the CJ-II the lower is CJ-I. But they may or may not have the same features/accessories depending on what the person in Japan ordered the car with.

The thing is..yes...the manufacturers do want to make money...they are not doing this for "pinata" Yes..in almost all other countries they take care of their customer in order to lock them in. Hell I have even gotten baby sitting service whilst going on test drives. So its not like they charge you for everything and make it doom and gloom for their customers. To be honest, in SL, I can believe agents giving huge to-do-lists to the owners when they bring in their cars because I have seen quite a few cars where just by looking at it its obvious that substandard repairs had been done that will have serious issues in the future. So you also have to realize that by doing what you specifically mentioned also looses them money and eventually effects their market share and bottom line. As for being skeptical...we live in a world where if a surgeon fixes something in side your body that he/she discovers whilst doing some other procedure, the surgeon gets accused of trying to make more money. I suppose that is the

a little bit counter intuitive (and conspiracy theory-ish) don't you think ? During warranty period the cost of oils, etc...are to be paid by the owner anyway (in 99% of the time). If extended oil usage times causes issues to the car, don't you think the manufacturers would want to indicate lower service intervals ? That way the likely hood of them having to fix any "oil" related issues would be minimized, thus, saving them money on warranty replacement. Plus, if it such a conspiracy, by doing more oil changes during the warranty period they also make a lot of extra cash on oil and oil filters. Service intervals are set based on minimum standards required to provide functionality of the component in question. In Japan I have hardly heard any potential car buyer looking in to "servicing" cost and repair cost when buying a car. And of the multitude of times, the sales people have not even bothered to tell me these costs because no matter where you go the oil change intervals are more or less the same and the parts costs are not even considered (including hybrid battery cost). The main selling points are operational costs such as fuel and taxes. In fact when I asked for certain configurations of cars they have advised me to go to different models (because it is cheaper) or to do a comparison with a competing brand. Please do not judge all manufacturer's dealers based on your experience in Sri Lanka (and the tales pundit car sellers yarn) . I have used manufacturer dealers in quite a few countries...in all of them they have never created or identified a whole host of problems and tried to palm off things I do not want. In fact they have turned me down on things that I wanted done. Last week in Japan I wanted the gearbox oil changed in my Corolla (out of warranty as it is 20 years old). They said it is not necessary due to the mileage and insisted I wait and managed to get a sample of oil to check for impurities etc...they showed it to me and said the oil change was not necessary. Then they lubed up the linkage, etc...and gave the car to me. No charge (in fact the time spent doing all that would have been more or less the same as doing what I asked them to do in the first place). Then a few months ago in Vietnam my Fortuner started giving electrical problems. Took it to the dealership....they spent an entire morning trying to figure out what was wrong...finally they found a relay with rusty terminals. They cleaned and put the old one back and i asked for a new one. They said no....they didn't even charge for labor ! Similar experiences with Nissan, Honda and Suzuki dealers. Also, to be honest, apart from a "hi-fi" mentality/attitude of some agents in SL, they don't try to always stick you with additional charged and repairs. Sure they might do a scan/inspection and tell you what needs to be fixed, so wy can't you view this as them actually trying to take care of your car and their brand. Because you are not willing to spend on it doesn't mean that the issues pointed are not there in the car.. What most people don't realize is for certain services and repairs, the manufacturer recommends a strict way of doing it. So as the agent they have to abide by these set ways of doing things (no short cuts, no patch up jobs as in "non-agent" shops).

Nope...the CJ-II and CJ-I grades/trim-levels were present from the very beginning. So you get facelifted CJ-I and pre-facelift CJ-IIs. They are different trim levels so the base accessories/features and which of those were standard and options would have been different. 1996 (thus pre-facelift) CJ-II 1999 (thus facelift) CJ-I

Bottom line is incompatible or compatible, most of the conversions in SL are done on the cheap....as a result not much work in areas of using the proper mounts, suspension upgrades, etc...is done. These guys just drop the engine and play all kinds of tricks to get it running and out the garage door. A proper and complete conversion is not cheap when compared to most of the conversions out there. As for the body....well...depending on the car...diesels would have extra weld points and other braces for body rigidity that petrol vehicles do not have, to make sure the extra vibrations and torque bursts do not hurt the structure of the car over time. At the end of the day, as long as the conversion has been done LEGALLY, there is nothing wrong with it; PROVIDED that it has been done PROPERLY. So ask for a detailed portfolio of work that was done, including where they got the parts from (some donor engines are just nightmares because they are rebuilt junk units). If things are missing or has not been done properly, then negotiate on the price so that you can do the missing work yourself or just walk away.

Yes...ETC is Electronic Toll Collector/Card. You have a smart card linked to your bank account and other driving information. Highway toll collection is done via ETC (manual toll booths are there with humans as well..but more and more highway entrances are becoming ETC only). Also, using ETC is a bit cheaper (10% or so) than the manual toll. (eg. normal toll for 165km on Nagasaki-Kyushu highway costs 2700++yen but the ETC only costs 2400++ yen....considering 300yen could pay for a meal that can add up to a lot) Considering the cost of Japanese lessons these days, finding a Japanese girlfriend/wife might be cheaper <in the short term at least > It probably says ETC cardo wa haittimasen" ETC card is not inside. It is an alarm from the ETC reader/unit. Depending on the ETC reader/unit type it can come from the device itself or the stereo or the speaker where all the dings and the dongs would emit from (depending on the car). As for the sun goes down...most systems (especially cars like a Vitz) it is something that is linked with the NAVI/Audio system of the car. It doesn't actually detect day/night time from the light sensor of the auto headlight system or anything. Just goes by the time on the NAVI/Audio system. with NAVI based systems the time and ambient conditions are received so the announcements are made based n that (also, systems like T-Connect can so things like this). On some audio systems there calendar and/or time settings which the announcement uses. So that might explain why you get notices to turn on and off your headlights at strange times (I am guess your's is a Navi based feature ?). Its interesting that those announcements are in English.

You need to do a bit more calculation than that...how long does it take for you to do 3000 or 5000km ? You need to factor in the time factor as well because the oil itself has a life span.

1. Yes. Toyota DOES NOT make oil. Toyota is not a petroleum or oil manufacturing company. Somehow Sri Lankans do now want to believe that. In Sri lanka apparently the Toyota brande oil is from Mobil. In Japan it is from Castle....so it depends on the region 2. Yes. Toyota DOES NOT make Oil filters either ! In most countries you do not get oi filters in Toyota boxes. In Japan, the oil filter, depending on the engine comes from different manufacturers and is sold in the manufacturers own box (Toyota just sticks a label on it with the Toyota product code). Toyota gets other manufacturers to make it and put it in Toyota labelled boxes in some countries. 3. Depends. Depending on the filter it might come from a different manufacturing plant than in Japan. Toyota (and other car manufacturer certified/branded) filters and parts are those that meet minimum technical specifications for the car to operate the way the manufacturer has claimed it would. So just because it has the car manufacturer's name on it does not mean it is THE best part. There are plenty of third party brands that are actually better than what the manufacturer sells as itself. 4. Why do YOU think you want to change to semi/fully synthetic oil ? What do you think you wold gain from it ?

See that is the thing....it can't just fall off because those bushes are bolted on. So if the bolt falls of..then you should feel something off...not to mention parts of the bolt/mounting rod/screw.

By cracking nose are you talking about thuds, thumping and grinding noises ? If so it could be the ABS. In some PCS the system does not entirely turn off. The turn-off is mostly intended for driving in heavy bumper to bumper traffic if needed because the system would be sending the driver bonkers (although it still would be needed). So although you turned it off the system does run in a passive mode. My guess is that your speed and the proximity of the crossing vehicle triggered the system to react (as it crossed safety parameters). The system would have applied the brakes hard which also would have triggered the ABS...so that could explain thumping, grinding noises (and even a weird pulse, vibration fro the brake pedal).

AERO makes all kinds of bushes so it can be anything from a suspension components to a spacer. But those bushes are attached through a nut and bolt aren't they (aren't those markings off of a washer in the first pic?) ? How can it just fall off unless the nut and bolt were removed and passed out of the bushing itself ? Anything else you found in the vicinity ?

Congrats ! Now like they say...pics or it never happened

What would you want it for ?

Yes...thus the reason why those who bought the RAV4 went for a JDM variant (although it was the 3rd gen instead of the 4th gen by the agents) But the Hybrid system that comes in the Camry, Crown etc is actually pretty damn decent (especially the new ones that is even on the CHR and Prius). So the new 2L Hybrid on this would probably be just as decent.

So can we come to a close on this ? This thread is going to go on in circles as the last one did. So to answer the OP's question. The logical, comfortable and easy choice would be the Premio considering the SL market. However, the whole cheap to run, rock solid market value, etc..are myths. The Audi would be the funner car and the more premium feeling ride. The two are not in the same category but equally priced because of the tax structure.

what you are missing is you singled out the Euros saying that they have lifetime service cycles (and now that it is expensive). However, the Japanese boxes also have a lifetime service cycle. That is what you need to comprehend.

any idea who manufactures the Toyota branded oil in this region ? For a reason, most of the time they are not doing a fair comparison. You do not compare an A3 with a Premio; or a Q3 with an Allion just because the price is the same thanks to our ridiculous tax system. Different categories of cars intended for different market segments and for different purposes. This is as ridiculous as buying a dog thinking it is a cat because it is the same size and weight and price. At least this OP had the sense (at least later on) to actually ask to see if it was sensible to go for one category of car over another rather than do a direct comparison. All the cars I have owned have been (select) Toyotas. . My secondary cars, long time work/office cars have been pretty much anything and everything. Anyone and everyone who knows me knows I am a die hard Toyota fan. Even if so...I still would not recommend certain cars just because they are Toyotas as there might be plenty of better alternatives in the segment that meets the whoever is asking's requirements. Just because one is a fan of a brand it doesn't mean that one should turn a blind eye towards its miss-steps. No brand is perfect. aha...