Toyota Land Cruiser Problems

Coolant leaks can be very tricky things, often starting at one point and then running down a hose, bracket or wire to drop on the ground where you’re not looking for them. If you definitely can’t find a leak, however, you need to start looking for another problem which could even be a leaking head gasket which is allowing the coolant to enter the engine’s cylinders.

The first thing I’d do, however, is change the radiator hoses., If they’re flattening out when the engine is running, that suggests they’ve collapsed internally and are unable to cope with the suction created by the engine’s water pump (which circulates the coolant around the engine). Even if the hoses look fine, they can be damaged inside and, left this way, can cause a blockage in the cooling system which can lead to the engine overheating. Perhaps this is already happening, and allowing the boiling coolant to escape the system via the pressurised radiator cap or the overflow system.

I'd start with my local Toyota dealer. Chances are it will have a copy of the relevant DVD in its archives, just as it would have copies of technical manuals for vehicles going way back into Toyota's past. Whether or not you'll be able to make yourself a copy of the DVD is another matter, but it can't hurt to ask.

Failing that, check out your local Toyota or four-wheel-drive club whose members might have the DVD and will be happy for you to copy it. Whether that's a copyright breach, though, might be worth looking into.

If none of those options are available, I've seen the DVD in question advertised online. It isn't cheap, though, at $200 or $300. Perhaps there are websites out there that can download a copy of the files which you can burn to a DVD for a fee.

I'll assume you mean the forthcoming Kia EV9 electric SUV. In which case, yes, you will struggle to fit it into a garage that only just contains a 200-Series LandCruiser, as the EV9 is, indeed, 75mm wider. Perhaps. See, at this stage, the images and specifications we've been dished up have involved the vehicle in its concept stage, and as car companies know only too well, not every aspect of a concept makes it to production (which would be sometime next year in the EV9's case).

Whether or not the electric off-roader from Kia will have a mirror-retractor function is anybody's guess right now, but the images we've seen of the concept suggest that instead of conventional mirrors, the EV9 would use small cameras mounted in the mirrors' place, transferring the image to the info-screen inside the car. If that's the case, these tiny cameras would not need to be retractable, suggesting that the width of 2055mm quoted for the Kia is possibly a concept-only dimension.

If the vehicle really reaches production as wide as that, it would have difficulty fitting down some Australian bush tracks; tracks that have been cut by generations of LandCruisers and Nissan Patrols. Then again, the EV9 has been designed for a global market, not just us. And let's not forget the width of a Hummer...

The bottom line is you'll have to wait and see precisely how wide the Kia is when it finally goes on sale. but if your current LandCruiser is a tight fit, don't expect the Kia to be any easier to fit in your garage.

The cruise control issue could be a fault with the body computer whose job it is to talk to the computer that controls the car’s engine and transmission and turn the driver’s instructions into actions. If there was a problem with the physical actuation of the cruise-control, it would potentially not work at all. But a problem that resets when you turn the ignition off and on again is always cause to suspect a computer glitch.

The transmission issue is one that has been ongoing sine the 200 Series was launched. Top gear (sixth) is so tall for fuel-economy purposes that the vehicle in its original form would not select that gear below about 110km/h. That’s fine for the USA and Middle East where cruising speeds are higher, but in Australia, it meant that some owners were never seeing sixth gear.

The solution was to tale the vehicle back to Toyota for a reflash of the on-board computer which would then instruct the transmission to select top gear at 95 or 100km/h. If this reflash hasn’t been performed, you might find that the vehicle has never actually selected top gear in its life. Definitely look into this possibility before spending money on transmission services or anything mechanical.

For a start, you can rule out the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) as the culprit as these weren’t fitted to the LandCruiser until many years after 2006. Nevertheless, if there’s a smell of anything when the vehicle is idling, there’s either something wrong with the mixture the engine is burning or there’s a leak in the exhaust system somewhere.

Since the problem has suddenly occurred, it’s probably the latter and you need to check all the joints in the exhaust system, the system itself for rust holes or damage, and even the turbocharger plumbing which can become loose and allow a leak.

So why do you only smell it at idle? Simply that when the vehicle is moving, the movement of air around the vehicle is whisking the fumes away. When you stop, the fumes `catch up’ with the vehicle, and you can smell them. This needs to be checked out as exhaust fumes can be very dangerous to humans, up to and including carcinogenic.

I agree that the requirement to change hoses with just 30,000km on the odometer sounds like overkill. But bear in mind that those 30,000km probably involved 1000 heat-cycles (where the engine is heated when started and cooled when you stop). And that’s the sort of thing – along with time – that will make components like hoses deteriorate. And that’s the key to this: Time also plays a part in the way materials like rubber degrade in a car’s engine bay.

So, it’s not as simple as Toyota’s engineers having worked out that a car’s hoses need replacing at 75,000km. They’ve also taken into account those effects of time passing. And that’s why the hose-change interval might be 75,000km or three years, whichever comes first.

If your car was still covered by factory warranty, I’d say you’d be mad to skip the hose change and risk voiding the warranty if anything went wrong related to those hoses. But since your car came with a three-year warranty when it was new, that has now expired.

And with that in mind, maybe it’s time to seek out a specialist workshop that isn’t a Toyota dealership and see what it says about the condition of the hoses and whether they need replacing or not.

I’m not saying you’re being unnecessarily upsold or gouged on this service, but it’s worth asking to see the factory service schedule that dictates the hose change you’ve been quoted on. If the workshop can’t produce it, then I’d be going elsewhere.

Any time there’s rust on a Toyota LandCruiser from Western Australia, the alarm bells start ringing. And that’s because these vehicles are frequently used by the mining industry and lead very hard – and often very short – working lives. Salt water and acidic conditions in many mines means vehicles can have a very short life expectancy. Toyota works hard to rust-proof its vehicles, but mine work will still often overcome those efforts.

The problem, as you’ve already identified, is that the person you eventually try to sell the vehicle to will be hearing the same alarm bells, and the vehicle may be difficult to on-sell even if the rust is merely superficial. That said, rust around the windows and underneath the car suggests that at the very least, the vehicle needs a close inspection by a specialist, and taking a punt on it doesn’t seem like a great idea to us. Perhaps an independent inspection by the RACWA would be a wise investment. I’d be finding out who the vehicle was previously registered to as a double-check.

Buying from a Toyota dealer should perhaps infer some kind of protection, but bear in mind that in WA, unlike a passenger car less than 10 years old, a commercial vehicle (such as a LandCruiser ute) does not come with any statutory warranty. Ex-mine vehicles are often sold relatively cheaply. Your current experience is why.

The two vehicles you’ve mentioned are, in fact, fundamentally the same vehicle. The only difference in the rear bumpers of each was that the base-model Prado’s bumper was finished in grey plastic, while the upmarket Grande’s was body-coloured for a more integrated look. So, yes, the two bumpers should be physically interchangeable.

The only difference in any of the Prado’s side mouldings was that the entry-level model, the RV, with its skinnier wheels and tyres, didn’t have the wheel-arch flares, so the moulding that joins the rear bumper to the rear part of the wheel arch would be different on the RV compared with the other Prado trim levels.

The chilled box between the front seats of the current LandCruiser is on just about every four-wheel-driver’s wish-list. It’s a great idea and it’s a wonder more car-makers don’t offer this even as an extra-cost option, even beyond the off-road market. So, the smart money would say that the new 300-Series LandCruiser will continue with this feature.

The catch – as it is now – is that you’ll probably have to pony up for the most expensive version of the LandCruiser to get the drinks chiller. In the current 200-Series Cruiser, you need to buy the range-topping Sahara to get the chilled centre console which also gets you heated and cooled leather front seats just to complete the decadence. Perhaps Toyota will make the chilled centre-console available on lesser versions of the new 300-Series, and perhaps as an extra-cost option for, say the volume-selling GXL model. That’s a distinct possibility as, historically, Toyota has moved the LandCruiser range further upmarket with every new model. It’s an option that would probably experience a pretty high take-up rate, we reckon.