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Oy ! Enough of this &()#*## ! Ko pinthura ? We are very visual creatures. Give us pics or the only way we can cope with all this is convincing ourselves that this car of yours is nothing more than a figment of your imagination

When you have explained the fuel tank story, I can imagine the tough conversation you may have faced for haggling the price. 😂 Hope the owner's wife made the final decision price 😄 I remember once we had to wait for the owner's wife to come back from work so she make the final decision she came home and lifted the price by 10K, reminding the owner of the service they had done millions of years ago 😁 Please check the fuel light, it may have blown by the high usage 😉 Good luck with the car, I would say "restoration" If the car could speak, it would say "Thank you for saving me!" Regards, JC

If the oil had not been changed for a long time (was black and thick coming out)....it probably would be prudent to put an engine flush and do another oil change sooner than the 5000km/6month plan. There might be a bit of sludge deposited here and there. Also, it would be a good test to see how the seals are. If there was any sludge blocking any worn out seals they will get unclogged and you will have to replace them (in SL garages discourage you from using flushes because they don't want to replace oil seals...they would much rather have you drive around with a sludgey engine).

Well...I am sure Toyota saved 1 yen per car by doing that. The weight savings from 3 nuts/bolts or screws would have added atleast 0.001hp more. Weight savings FTW !

I don't agree with some points. First of all find a good condition vehicle and then drive it. User reviews are based on the condition of the vehicle. This Axio is way faster than any 1.5L Premio/Allion if it's equipped with good HV battery. Mine 2014 Axio is doing 0-100Km/h just within 9.4 secs with the assist of electric motor. The older 141 Axio took 13 sec to hit 0-100Km/h. You can feel the older model faster feeling bcz it's engine is moaning too much when you planted your foot on gas pedal (Driving pleasure in your words 😅) but it's 3.6 secs slower in reality. My friend owns a 2017 Grace and he's doing 0-100 km/h within 10 secs. We've did several drag races with different drivers for fun. There is no magic i-DCD Hybrid System like most people are shouting. i-DCD gives headaches when the issues are rising. Also Grace is a semi hybrid vehicle. So, What's the point of lying or roasting? Toyota hybrids are much more reliable for longer term in use if you properly maintain the HV battery. The same NKE-165 model comes with new facelift after 2015. WxB is just only a facelift with the same NKE-165 chassis and power train. Also, I didn't feel anything wrong with it's steering. It's way smoother and easy to steer. Maybe you can't drive it without hitting anything. lol I also used several cars 240 Allion, 2013 Premio, GP5, G11, 141, 165, EK3. This is a good economical and comfortable family car to use A-B and not suits for primary grade a-1 maniacs.

Just to be clear...we are not asking to see you ! We want to see the car

I am not exactly sure what they did. I think they drained the fluid and took the bottom (sump?) off as well as something else. The fluid was dark, felt great to replace it with fresh fluid.

Thank you JC. Yes, restoration is the word - my heart goes out for the car if that makes sense. Such a fine vehicle and so sad to see it abused. I'm slowly working on it.

Yes an ATF swap would also be prudent. Exchangers work well in pushing out the fluid but not necessarily heavy residue and sludge. So you will have to use some kind of substance to break down the residue.

Would a full ATF flush with an exchanger machine be a good idea? Dropping the pan wouldn't drain all the old fluid right? Then again if the car has a transmission filter it'd be a good idea to drop the pan, clean the magnets and replace the filter but in that case the fluid change wouldn't be as complete as if it's done with an exchanger hmm.

This is very true. Few years back I managed to source an EP71 in a very remote farm. Inspected the car with the owner - his asking price was also low even considering the car needed a paint job- and yet I offered him a lower amount to which the guy agreed. Dude went inside the house to fetch some papers, and returned saying ' Denne na mahattaya, gedara kattiya kamathi na wahane denawata' I wanted to respond 'ehenam #$@$@$ da @$@$@ Ad ekak damme' but I had already wasted enough time so I headed back.

Looks pretty neat and tidy.

Nice to see some interesting content on AL after a long time. About shops not wanting to remove the front speakers...I believe it is because it is more fidgety and there are more things to break in the front doors. There are more wires and connectors inside (power mirrors, a central switching unit, etc...), and sometimes the front door paneling is more complex for aesthetic reasons. Also, because the front doors are larger it takes some space and effort to move around the paneling and even open the door wide enough to start working on it. As for front vs. rear speakers. Yes...the fronts usually (especially in normal A to B type of cars) have different specs than the erar ones. I am not a sound engineer so no idea how to describe it but the front speakers are generally set as the main speakers that set the "sound arena" (?) so it handles things like vocals and certain frequncies better than the rear speakers. The rear speakers are usually set as ambiance speakers to provide the immersive-ness of the sound. Needless to say it all depends on the sound system...but generally this does tend to be the case. In the past (like in the 80s) it used to be the other way around where the actual stereo system had speakers mounted on the rear deck and the front was just a single speaker for mono sound. But now, the default setup is 2 speakers in the front in almost every car.

Thanks @iRage, removing door panel was straightforward. Pried off the centre console and disconnected the wire harness (this was a bit tricky for me which I'm going to explain in upcoming entries) and just 3 Philips screws to take out. At the moment of writing this, I'm done installing driver side door speaker. I couldn't complete both doors in one day due to my lack of experience. (I was nervous of course) 😆tell me about it, actually it's not the speaker riveted to tray but mounting tray and speaker is one unit and that unit is riveted to the door itself. Had to drill out everything out with so much care not to damage the door metal. I will be explaining in detail in next entries. This is how it came out from factory. Toyota Wisdom causing more trouble for these simple upgrades.