iRage

Dude ! Oh dear....DUDE ! Why ? That Prado was the last proper Prado that had a balance of the 70 series ruggedness and 100 series comfort...a nice balance between analog and digital. The 120 was too wagonish and soft. The 150 carried the wagon-ness but towards the end went a bit back to its roots with gruntier engien choices but still was too digital. The new one is a big fat pig. So..yeah..sad to see her go. I don't necessarily think the used car prices are going to tank that much...especially for the larger vehicles. There are people quoting 77 (petrol...stay away) to 88 (diesel...manageable but a bit gutless on the top end) mil for a new Prado 250 (and again this is supposed to be the landed cost of the car...,nothing about the importers' margins). Compared to that, even a 10-year-old Prado for around 60% - 70% of that price seems reasonable and more affordable. Those who claimed a new Alto would be around 4 to 5 mil are now quoting 5 to 6 mil. So...I suppose flaring up season has ended and now its the actual roasting period. Despite the hoopla I don't think people will be able to afford bringing down as many cars as our people believe. But then our people are known to make really poor financial decisions. I think this is the ONLY good reasoning. ALL other reasons spell nothing but doom to the automotive landscape of SL. So let's pray that this guy had a very determined LC loving wife.

Your best way forward would be to call the import control/customs department and get information directly from them. Despite everything they are actually quite good at providing info. Things are so fluid right now no one other than the source themselves will be able to give you any reliable information.

That is the only thing they make now right ? Or at least they used to until recently...the jet influence can easily be seen in the cockpit design of their cars.

Considering the age of the vehicle...which ever is in better condition Old Automatic transmissions are slow and floggy and not very desirable so the manual will have more "demand". The manual I beleive will be better at getting the most out of the vehicle (power and economy wise). Automatic will be easier to drive but not the most optimal performer. So your..depends on what you plan to use the vehicle for and depends on which vehicle is in better condition.

Wise words but money does play a part...so think about how much money you can afford to spend as well. You don't want to end up starving yourself for the sake of fixing a car. At the end of the day it is just a car and your health and family are more important. But yes...it is better to do it properly even at a slightly higher cost. If not in the long run you end up spending more. Glad to help. You should come back and keep us updated. There are oldies here who would like to see and help a decent new restoration.

I can't help but start humming Super Trooper followed on by The winner takes it all and ending with Knowing me Knowing you every time I see one of these. What these engineers did was brilliant ! If you are going to go down you might as well go down showing the finger to the pencil pushers right? Ironically back in the US this was a popular car with architects and accountants

If you do a proper restoration and a good paint job it will cost you around 1 to 1.5mil depending on the extent of the work that needs to be done. However, it will last you anything up to 10 years. The A172 is an enthusiast car and in a few years you would easily be able to sell it off. Remember cars are not investments. Will you be able to recover the 1.5mil you spend on it...probably not. However, you will have a reliable car. Never buy a car thinking that you can and will recover or make money on it. The country is in the current state when it comes to cars because of that completely wrong ideology. Remember this is your car you know what is wrong with it and how well the car has been restored (mind you I am talking about a PROPER restore...not a maka baas paint and mechanical job). If done right and kept long enough it will be quite fun AND it would probably go a lot in value too (completely restored stock KE72 Corollas have exchanged hands for almost 2mil...so..). You buy a new car....you don't know what is hiding underneath everything. Just like your car looks good from outside the other car could look good from outside but actually have poor repair jobs and cover ups done up for a quick sale that you might have to spend a LOT of money fixing up an unknown car. You are talking about 40 year old cars. Reliability is not a factor here. Only way any of these cars will be reliable is if and only if you spend a LOT of money in restoring it. Components would have been replaced many times by now and rest assured these would have been second hand or Chinese parts. So will these need to be replaced from time to time...yes. But you will never know what will break at what time. There is no way to assess that either because you can't test the life span of an oil seal or an alternator during a simple test drive or inspection. As for making you giggle...all of those cars are actually quite fun due to their simplicity and complete and utter lack of electronic controls. If you want to make your A172 fun..there are plenty of ways to do that. If this is your determining factor for a car...then you are going to be in trouble. Your main concern is to get which ever vehicle that is in the best shape possible for the budget you have. The more stock it is the safer your buy. E.g. you do not know what workmanship has gone in to doing the lift. It could be a good modification or it could be a maka baas job (quite common in SL) that looks good at first glance but has completely mucked up the vehicle's suspension. Also, a lift might be cool but it significantly compromises a vehicle's on-road behaviour so it is not something fun to have unless you actually are going to use it. It is sad that in SL people buy a car thinking of reselling it even before buying it. You are 25...doesn't seem logical does it ? Either way you are going to spend the same amount of money in purchasing and after service repairs and maintenance...at the end of the day any car that is honest and reasonably priced gets sold. There is always someone there to buy a good car. Only time you hear cars not being able to be sold are those that are a pile of $#*! and priced more than gold. If you buy something for 2.8mil you can't have a guaranteed expectation of making it back. You do realise that a 2 door pickup has seating only for two plus a person without a lower body right ? You are 25..don't you have any friends you would like to drive around with ? Sadly you are wrong....diesel engines would require an overhaul at some point in its life. These 40 year old trucks would have probably had one or two of such overhauls...depending on the mileage (which cannot be trusted in any car in SL) and when the overhaul was done, you yourself might have to do one. If the overhaul is not done properly your engine is going to be absolute garbage...then on top of that, there are all the other components from emissions systems to cooling to oil systems that you need to make sure are in proper condition. My general advice to anyone buying an extremely old diesel is "do not buy one unless you are willing to redo the engine" (unless you come across a vehicle that you know of very well and you know has an excellent service and repair history...). Then there is the issue of things like body parts, etc...popular cars like your Lancer and Corolla wagons are running out of parts (which makes your car even more valuable if you do it up properly), I can't imagine 4th gen Hilux parts to be any more common. My dad restored a 1984 Hilux way back in 2010. Mechanical parts were okay but finding body parts was an absolute nightmare even back then (as you can see we have to improvise the rear tail lights and bumper).Even then it had to be pampered like a baby. Here is my take....I feel you are just tired of your car (all the repairs together with the lack of change in the feel) and for some reason you are convincing yourself that a different old car is going to be your solution. Sadly, that is not the case. With these 40 year old cars you will simply be exchanging one set of problems for another. You are not even trying to get a newer car! Logically and realistically, you are better off restoring your current car. You will have to put at least 2mil just to purchase your pickup truck, then you will have to spend at least another 250,000 for preemptive maintenance work as soon as you buy it (brakes, fluid changes, belt changes, etc...) for 2.25 mil you can do a pretty good job on your Lancer. If you are bored with the car, think about upgrading the suspension and brakes, and wheels and stuff. These old cars even the smallest change makes a huge difference. The A172 is a platform with a lot of potential.

I have to ask...why won't you do a proper restoration of the Lancer and keep it ? How much will you sell the Lancer for ? How much would it cost to do a proper restoration ? Would it cost around the same amount of money you will have to put in to purchase the Hilux ? Yes but I would say a good Lancer wagon would have more desire than an old Hilux. These vehicles are prone to rust and whoever would want it for daily use would want it only because it is cheap. The Lancer on the other hand also has the enthusiast market who will be willing to pay premium. Also dont forget that old diesel engines are more cumbersome to maintain than a petrol one. For a pickup truck your only other option in SL would be the Nissan pickups. Would have the same is as the issues as the Hilux. WHy won't you consider something like a Corolla van/wagon or a Nissan AD Van or something that is newer than the Lancer ? I still think you should do a proper restoration on the Lancer. I think above covers it...maintaining old diesel engines. Rust (no matter what the car). Is a 2 door pickup really practical for you?

True...my guess is they will have to keep it, but knowing our people they simply don't think logically when it comes to cars. They will not realize they cannot afford to sell the old car at a loss and buy a new one until the bills pile up. Either way....after all the hoopla over the last month or so, it seems like the prices of new cars are not as "low" as people started to believe (or were made to believe by the usual culprits).

I feel sorry for those who bought these cars at the hyper-artificiallly inflated price. Considering the class of car and the people who buy them...I don't think they can afford to lose that much on that type of car.

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

If you are going to replace the crank seals you might as well replace both (front and rear). and whilst at it might as well replace the cam seals, valve cover gasket, and things like the other small O-rings for various things like the distributor, etc... The timing belt..well they either used a crappy cheap timing belt, they didn't change it, or they changed it and rolled back the meter. Did you check the water pump ? It is easier to change that while changing the timing belt. If not, changing it later is going to be a case of spending 1 day of labor to change a cheap part.

Yes....for our 2022/2023 January Corolla wagon my dealer offered us 1.9mil yen in January 2024 Market price of the car was 2.5mil yen You wouldn't have gotten the car at 1.9mil yen...there would have been some charges, etc...but even then it would have been cheaper than the market price. Quite hard to get these because they get swiped up by other car dealers to be sold within the country (including their very own used car lot).

But what is their profit margin (or commission)? Working backwards from the stated price, the car price ends up being the average auction price + plus miscellaneous other charges. Now for someone based in Japan you will make a bit out from these miscellaneous charges but definitely not enough for both the Japan based exporter and local importer. Why will I not be surprised if these guys after some time would say they need to raise the prices because of high operational costs in SL? Also I have seen some posts from these guys showing what the increased price from the previous ones could be due to the "taxes" and "restrictions". At the day I don't think anyone can say what the prices are until the first batch of cars come along followed on by the first few direct imports. The agents should seriously consider getting down certified used cars from their Japanese/Thai counter-parts (FYI...sometimes the cheapest cars are newly traded-in cars that you find at dealers which either will go to the used car section or get sent out to auction). Seriously...when it comes to cars our masses either become stupid or become the most devious and vile humans on the planet.

It was called Karbon Klub or something. Anyway, they closed up quite a few years ago. There are plenty of interior shops that do this (water transfer printing, plastic/rfp welding, etc...) now. So finding a good place should not be a problem.

Sadly yes Which would be okay if you actually make or has the potential to make a good income. Sadly, 99.9% of the time I don't see that happening no matter how talented they are or how hard they work.

Yes..but sadly, we as a country simply do not have any common sense. So far people are shouting about the price of the car. No one seems to care about the cost of financing or ownership costs like insurance. I thought that at the current interest rate of 11% financing cost alone for a 10mil LKR car is high. Also...these importers advertise prices for cars, and the breakdowns show CIF value and taxes, but their profit margins are still not stated anywhere. Sadly, these prices simply cannot come down even after next year's budget. We will have to wait a long time until cars that were financed at hyper-inflated prices actually gradually depreciate to a point that the consumer and the lending agencies can actually handle it. The worry I have had forever is (and why I simply gave up trying to move back to Sri Lanka in 2015)...what is the plan for Sri Lanka? What are we actually doing to improve the income of the country as a whole? What are we doing to grow and modernize our industries? Our exports are not very promising, and there seems to be no proper future-readiness/plan for us. We need to grow our export portfolio. Coming up with alternatives for consumption and hoping to reduce our import costs simply is not a sustainable solution. All I seem to hear is tourist this, tea that, assemble a car here, milk a cow instead of squeeze a coconut.

A lot of people don't seem to realise that even though the LT thresholds were increased, the increase on the other taxes does not make it cheaper. Seriously. Aren't we teaching basic arithmetic at schools anymore? Also..thr whole definition of the Year of Manufacture is quite confusing. All this time what was taken into account was the Year of First registration. That is what all the documents state. Finding the actual year of manufacture (and the month) is quite hard and does not really make sense when you consider how manufacturers stock vehicles based on production volume, allocation, etc... Then with the definition of Year of Manufacture and the resolution when the Year of Manufacture is not attainable you pretty much end up with a year less than what the limit is. So for used cars it ends up being 2 years, used vans 3 years, etc... Even if the vehicle is brand new the agent will have to make sure that the vehicle is fresh off the production line and not from ex-stock (which may not work properly considering how allocation might work). Opening up imports has never been about giving people vehicles. That was just the facade to garner votes. Isn't it funny that all the 101 million car importers claiming ridiculously low prices have simply disappeared? Anyway...cars are an unattainable commodity in Sri Lanka. These prices are not going to come down for a generation at least unless you simply make people lose money and collapse the financing system.

See..bigger is not always better. This sadly is a common issue in SL. Seen quite a few cars with a similar fate. Due to lack of availability, maka baas advice, installing way too many accessories, etc...there are plenty of cars with large batteries in them. Which is fine, but sadly they are not mounted properly. So battery fluid gets out and over time starts corroding around the place.

Makes sense. Sadly not the best news for the consumer. The thing is car prices are never going to come back down (at least for a generation or so). This is the sad outcome of not focusing on building wealth but focusing more on getting something for cheap. Well not necessarily the junk section but also low auction grade cars. If you can gain access to the actual auction sheet, then for an average car like Aquas, Vitz, etc...then yes you can trust the auction sheet (there are way to cheat...see below). However, what happens most of the time is they forge the auction sheet post-shipment or depending on what was fixed pre-valuation inspection. There are services you can use to get the vehicle verified. Used to cost anything from 30 to 50 USD. I beleive even car checks recently started a service to verify car details in Japan, UK, Australia and Thailand. How to cheat the auction: This happens quite a lot with high value cars like GT-Rs, Supras and even cars like Land Cruisers and HiAces (the latter during a period when there were cars in short supply and prices were going crazy). They buy the junk car. Fix it up. Then auction it again. Car gets a new inspection. The inspection system records that the vehicle was previously auctioned but it doesn't necessarily show up on the auction sheet itself. Especially if you go from one auction company to another. So...the auction sheet would just reflect the condition of the car as they see it. It also makes it easier now because there are a lot of foreigners working at these places who are "friendly" with the exporters. Also, the volume of cars being traded is so high that it is easy to pass of cars with a false inspection. The whole talk about people hoarding up cars came about because we were talking about auction prices of unexpected models seemingly going up in price. The Hybrids yes...well out of bounds. The petrol variants with the 1.5L engine would be the expensive options. That is the thing. They were already "high" relative to what it used to be like. It has gotten higher over the last few weeks. That is why I kept saying that for the prices these car importers kept advertising all you could get were the bottom of the barrel cars. Yes it is. Some have outwardly said it. Makes sense too. Only hitch is you cannot trust these guys to not start bringing in older junk.

Depends on what the smoke was. Was it the usual exhaust condensation or was it actual oil burning smoke? Yes...have you done a compression test after the run in period ? Are there any weird noises (e.g. piston slap, valve knocks, etc...) It is normal to have excessive metal shaving soon after a rebuild. But it is supposed to reduce. Has it reduced ? So does it have lesser or more metal shavings than before ? I would have thought 8500-9000km would have been sufficient for the metal shavings to subside. Maybe it is because at cold start up the oil would have a higher viscocity? Don't question at this stage. Just do it. You need to follow there exact steps so you have a greater chance of resolving any issues that might be there under warranty. Well...what do you mean by smelling smoke ? Smoke can smell like unburnt fuel, burnt charcoal, over boiling water, burning oil...etc... Assuming you are smelling burning oil when cold...it could be a valve seal issue (valves not sealing properly), could be a clogged PCV...or it could be a small valve cover or some oil seal seeping a bit of oil and that getting burnt off of a now-heating-up engine.

A little bit. It could be signs of things like piston seals not seating properly or valve stems issues or even something simple as a faulty PCV valve. How is the engine fairing in general? Compression is okay? Did the previous oil changes show any signs of excessive metal shaving? Does the car smoke (cold and warm...sometimes you might not even see it but get very soft smell)? I don't see the point in changing from 5W-30 to 10W-30 because the cold component does not affect you in Sri Lanka; but I would do exactly what they say (if things have gone bad and you want it fixed under warranty you don't want to create a scenario where they can tell you it is because you did something without following their advice). Observe, keep testing. Make sure everything is recorded with them well in advance of the warranty running out.

Not sure if this is true but I have heard from someone known to me over here in JPN that some Sri Lankan car exporters actually started collecting stocks of the tentatively popular models (Yaris, Raize, Corolla, etc..) are are feeling a bit screwed now. Here is the hitch....because of Japan's own economic issues people are holding on to their cars longer or are simply not buying cars. So, the stock of 3 years or less cars that come up on auction are quite small compared to what it used to be. They can't even go order brand new cars from the dealerships because after covid there are long delivery times (6-7 months for a Corolla/Yaris compared to a month at most or a Premio/Aqua back in the day). So...they are stocking up.

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.