greg4f_2

p.s damn i have been lucky with this car. each time something has failed i have been able to either get home or get it towed home. although i did buy a box of beers for my brother over the latter. it only stopped me getting to work once. for one day. when the starter motor fried itself and smoke came flooding out of the bonnet, lol. and that happened on a friday. luckily i found a replacement start motor near where i work, and was able to borrow one of my parents cars for monday to pick it up, and get to work. then replaced the starter motor that night and had my car again by tuesday. when the ignition coils failed it was always on the way home from work, also usually a friday (lucky?..) so you just drive home carefully on 5 cylinders, check spark to confirm its an ignition issue, change coils to check its the coil, if that cylinder now has spark you have confirmed it was the coil, pick up a new one and replace it. easy. i just found a shop that sells 1gfe ignition coils really cheap. i might pick one up to keep in my glovebox for just in case.. 🙂

yeah, i bought my tezza for i think $3000 6 years ago at 224,000kms. i just looked on trademe and they sell, even the autos, even the 1gfe engine, even with high mileage, for like $7k now. i suppose they are almost a classic car now. plus they have that beautiful 90's JDM style. i hate modern cars. GREAT CAR. if i didnt have a daily hourly commute i would have the manual version, preferably the 3sge. but since i am stuck in traffic half my life i wouldnt trade this car for anything.

i have a 1999 toyota altezza. (lexus is200) it has just gone 330,000kms tbh i have not even changed the engine oil or filter for the last 5 years or apporx 100,000kms... it had an oil leak from the rocker cover seal but mostly the spark plug seals. so i was just topping it up occasionally and never drained it or changed the filter. until now. i finally removed th rocker cover and cleaned everything up. such an oily mess. replaced all the seals and now no more oil leak. yay. also new engine oil, oil filter, atf, and air filter. so, in the last 6 years of owning this car (i bought i at 224,000kms) i have replaced: 3 ignition coils 6 spark plugs 2 oil filters plenty of engine oil... atf twice front brake pads once rear brake pads twice plenty of tyres.. coolant (flushed the heater cores to get heater working again, it was a bit clogged) thermostat (*must have been slightly stuck open) repaired gear under dash that changed between fan modes fuel pump in petrol tank (had me stranded at the liquor store on a friday night, lol. got my brother to tow me home saturday morning). positive battery terminal (for some reason it was corroding alot while the starter motor was on its last legs starter motor (that was a bitch to do, working down on the road, in a pool of my own oil leak,lol. had to drop the tranny a bit to get at the top bolt with about 5 extensions on the bolt. replaced the battery once back when i bought it. replaced the rear suspensions spherical bearings once. (had to press hem out and then new ones in. replaced the windscreen myself because some jackass failed it on a chip i had had for years that i couldnt repair by injecting glue. (its hard to repair chips that are that old. hey block from debris stopping the resin penetrating all the way. air filter i think thats it. (apart from puting my stereo from my past 2 cars into this car. sub + amp + head unit. i didnt bother with the aftermarket speakers as the stock ones in this car seemed better to me tbh.) i bought a new timing belt, but after removing all the accessory belts and radiator etc to get at the crank bolt, i couldnt get the damn bolt undone without the force of leverage flipping the damn car upside down, lol. so i had to give up as i needed the car to get to work. the belt on it looked fine. i will attempt it again on my christmas leave since i already have the new belt anywya. i had to readjust the damn headlight beams to pass a wof. replaced a few headlight and brakelight bulbs etc yeah, im pretty sure that is all the work it has required. overall i am super happy with this reliable beast. it should go another 100,000k's no sweat. especially now half the problem parts have been replaced with new ones. i expect the alternator will need replacing eventually... its always the electrics that die first. part of the reason i will always own a petrol car rather than an electric one. im not sure why i listed everything like that, but maybe it helps someone to know the common things that might need replacing on these cars..? also if im honest, an outlet to brag of my novice mechanical experience, lol.

you can fit a towbare to just about any car in my country. i had one fitted to my honda accord years ago. now i need one for my toyota altezza (lexus is200). i will probably rarely tow a trailer, but i have a setup to mount my dirtbike right ontop of the towbar, thus fishtailing is a non issue. on my honda i had to tie the bike to the car as well as the towbar otherwise it swayed back and forth under braking/ acceleratiion. im pretty sure if i didnt tie it to the car it would have snapped the towbar off, or bent it, lol. still perfectly legal in my country luckily. for now. i still have the towbar from my accord and was thinking about reinforcing it and adapting it to the altezza, either that or get a shop to fit one and then weld on reinforcements myself. i dont trust it without reincorcements for holding a 90-100kg bike directly on top of it. most cheap/ average towbars are not rated for quite that much downward weight, even if they are rated to tow 1.5 tons. anyway, the reason i am here is because i was curious about the stock tow bar mount/ bolt points on the chassis.

**** the law... lol. but its good to know it even if you are just going to ignore it 🙂

my car is at about 330,000kms, i would love to make it to 482,000 kms (300,000 miles). so far i have replaced: thermostat, coolant, flushed heater core, replaced 3 ignition coils, replaced all 6 spark plugs, replaced engine oil regularly, oil filter only once...., atf once, bought a timing belt, but couldnt get crank pulley bolt off, and the current one looked okay, so left it on. replaced front brake pads once, rear pads twice, replaced internal motor in the fuel pump, replaced battery, replaced rear suspension spherical bushings, replaced wihdscreen, now i have a dead starter motor to replace. also someone visiting the neighbours reversed into it so it has a new door, then at work a truck rolled into it, so the boot and bumper has been repaired and a new tail light pretty sure once the starter motor is new the car will continue to go on for ages. only thing wrong with it is a slight oil leak from the cam cover, which i need to get around to fixing. and i have owned it for about 6 years, it had 224,000kms when i bought it. so it has done 106,000 kms during my ownership.

ah, ok. fair enough.

here is a nice organized manual: (organized by me, thank me later. or dont. when i found it online it was over 1,700 individual pdf files, lol) https://mega.nz/file/RTcQXY6J#M9m55uS3-OUMNOKhzMdWdAXhZsbYK28tBJjGZdvm1tA okay.. for some reason google keeps blocking this link with some weird transparency report. it does it in microsoft edge too, in the transaprancy report website. right click the link in the search bar and choose go to 'link name'. i just uploaded it directly here too:

here is a better manual: (okay, the same manual... but i recompiled all the pages into one file with chapters. (originally there were 1,934 files... ) https://mega.nz/file/RTcQXY6J#M9m55uS3-OUMNOKhzMdWdAXhZsbYK28tBJjGZdvm1tA

i used to own a 1994 honda accord SiR myself. with the 2.2l h22a dohc vtec. damn nice car. the engine was still going strong at 250,000 kms when i sold it. had lots of semi minor issues with that car though: radiator leak. - bought second hand replacement alternator fail - bought second hand replacement both window regulators failed - bought second hand replacement (initially used fishing wire wrapped around arm rest to lift and lower windows until i finally bought replacement regulators, lol) heater control panel failed - bought second hand replacement high pressure power steering hose burst - paid company to replace it. failed again shortly after. so i just brazed it up myself. (failed at the crimped banjo bolt) - wish i had just fixed it myself the first time, lol. pretty affordable fixes since i went second hand and did the work myself. but only owned the car for 2 years and did very little k's on it as my job was like 5 minutes away at the time. (as opposed to the 50 minutes to 2 hours away it is now. average about 1 hour.)

youre nuts man. even the head of bridgestone once said 1.5mm was more than enough. run those puppies down as low as you can. care for the environement. and when they are toast, go do some burnouts to make sure they are done for. my tyres last at least 50km, but those were dodgy cheap tyres. i had a few get punctures that i repaird with a 4x4 tyre repair kit, kept them going for a while, one i had to replace though as it had damage to the sidewall from going flat and started developing bulges. i still have one of those tyres on though which was new about 5 years ago, 90,000 kms ago. still has over 2mm of tread and passes wof's. i agree on replacing the front lower ball joints though. (which is ironic as i have not done so on mine yet..)

ok. im not sure i believe that. in the last 90,000 kilometers i have changed several bulbs, i have changed the rear brake pads twice (they are tiny so wear out quick) and the front ones are due a change now. the front lower ball joints are famous for going bad, so im surprised you didnt have to change yours. im also surprised mine have never failed a wof, they may be responsibly for my heavy steering and weaving in a straight line, along with a bit of bump steer and loud squeaking over speed bumps. and im not sure i consider changing brake discs normal maintenance. i mean, its not that hard or expensive and i suppose they wear out. but they shouldnt really. and if you have changed the front discs once but only changed pads twice that sounds odd to me. fair enough on having to change the front discs though, mind shake the steering under braking so pretty sure they are warped. doesnt bother me much though so i have never really gotten around to doing it. good job though, making a great car last that long. i consider that an achievement. waste not want not etc. too much waste in this world. some cars get thrown away over very minor issues.

wow, 300,00 miles!? that is 480,000 kilometers! mine is currently at 310,000 kilometers and going strong. great car.

mine is at 310,000 kilometers right now. damn nice and reliable car. a bit slow and high fuel usage though. if it was more powerful i would try to keep it forever.

mine is currently at 310k kilimeters, i have owned almost 5 years. bought it at 224k, it has had two ignition coils fail (easy fix, and just drove home on 5 cylinders - also that was likely caused by slight oil leak from cam cover filling spark plug holes/ ignition coils with oil. still have not gotten around to fixing that). and 1 fuel pump fail. luckily that was on the weekend. just left it at shops and got siblings to help me tow it home next day. bought new fuel pump and installed following day and it was back on the road. has been a very reliable car. less issues than any other car i've owned despite higher k's. note: mine is a 1999 toyota altezza as200 (same as lexus is200 minus some features). it has the 1gfe engine and basic 4 speed auto gear box. still shifts perfectly smooth. just changed atf recently for the first time. i top up oil once a month, goes through maybe 8 litres a year (slight oil leak). have only done a proper oil change on it once, also changed the oil filter at that time. was going to change the timing belt on it, but for the life of me i couldnt get the crank bolt undone and the belt looked perfect so i gave up. still have the new belt in the wardrobe... 1 other minor issue was the heater was weak, reverse flushed the heater core and changed the thermostat and now its good as gold.