what problems have you encountered?

[Jeffers_21]

Hi guy's. ive had my car for about a year and a half and in that time ive had many diffrent problems with it. all of which have made me buy bigger and better part's (mainly coz its cheaper than replacing with oe). i have found that if you uprate one thing it really show's up a problem somwhere else then you fix problem and it leads on to annother etc.

so i was wondering what problems have people come across and what would you diffrent if you had the time?

ill start with one of mine. about 7 months ago i thought my valve stem oil seals hand gone. loads of oil etc, didnt think it was the turbo as i only just changed that (with a kitaro one, big mistake) so had it in the garage to do the valve stems and do the piston rings at the same time. it turned out that one of my pistons had cracked, so replaced with forged pistons rod's and did the headgasket with a std one. got her back engine was running well but was still blowing smoke, turned out to be the turbo (which was on there for about a month before hand) i kept it running untill the turbo actully cracked on the oil line and started pissing oil out. so i replaced with a k26 kit (was the only decent kit i could get for a very quick fix) love the k26 it's just mental. but in my hurry to get it all up and running i left the headgasket as std. another mistake. the h/g went pretty quickly but took out my head at the same time. the headgasket went between number 3 and 4 pistons. which at 1st didnt give any sign's that it went untill it burnt though the head and left a nice 6mm deep burn between the pistons.

so i whish i never got the kitaro turbo (and the silk road mani which cracked pretty much the same time as the turbo went bye bye) and i wish i got an uprated headgasket when i did the pistons and rod's.

who else has got a story of miss forturne they would like to share

 

[squeekyduck]

you have had a lot of bad luck mate. my only problem was a thermostat. and the reason it went was because the car was sitting idle for a while.

 

[Jeffers_21]

lol yeh my thermostat was going when i very 1st brought the car. ive had a ton of other problems with it as well. thats just the most recent.

 

[squeekyduck]

nothing worse than having a car with troubles, it takes the enjoyment factor out of it. my mate had a car for 3 months that underwent 2 engine rebuilds in that time!!! but it was his fault on bith occasions, and he payed dearly for his mistakes. he used second hand parts in the first rebuild and that led to the second.

 

[Mikey Jay]

I've had my share of bad luck in the 2 months have had my car, although not quite as bad.

Woke up a few weekends ago to find one of the front tyres had deflated itself, and all the other tyres had cracks in the sidewalls, so changed all four tyres.

Then earlier this week developed an bad air leak (but easily fixed) and this morning a core plug went, leading to the car dumping most of the coolant system. So currently waiting to get the car back from the garage with no doubt an expensive bill

Plus, pretty sure my shocks are dead, so need to replace the shocks/springs in the near future too

 

[pageybaby]

well after purchasing my gt some idiot pulled out in front off me causin me to skid causing flat spots in my tyres so i had to change them the my exhaust mounts broke then i had a oil leak, then the downpipe snapped, and the mounts again and now its pissing coolant!! ive only had it 3 months

i supose thats wat you get when buying highly modified imports

 

[stuart]

Where do I start?

3 Pistons destroyed earliar this year, rebuilt it all with new pistons, rods etc - 10-15 miles down the road it shat its bottom end out, so rebuilt it again!

Currently....The engine I replaced it with was from an auto, so the housing was different, changed the themo housing over last night but i think its stuck open, will have to change it completly this weekend and see if I can keep some bloody heat in the car

 

[Jeffers_21]

3 pistons is pretty bad luck. most of my problems started after i met with a lake in the middle of the road last winter. i aqua planned and smashed in to a curb, bent the strut smashed an alloy in to bit's cracked a disc all the way down the middle, bent in half the whishbone, some how ripped the exhaust off and a few extra bit's. so that all caused me to replace the exhaust the suspension well ya get the idea.

but if i didnt have the acident i wouldnt have modded the car to the state it is in now. and its been well worth it. i can truly say it's my car no one else has done the work on it and its now the way i want it to be. soo good things do come of bad situations. well some crap like that anyway

 

[mike g]

iv had mine 7months and today the electric mirrors stopped working!! lol

 

[GT-TD04]

iv had mine 7months and today the electric mirrors stopped working!! lol

LOL..my old glanza S...rad blew itself to shit on the way home frome work one day,dont have a clue why, driving handy and full of water

Nothing major in the GT, passo's window never worked right and a small boost leak, thats it

 

[supernova]

Not many problems for me, just mainly faulty thermostat and slipping clutch. I always think, if it breaks upgrade it! Have a TRD thermostat and an Ogura clutch replacements

 

[jimmer]

well i have had my car for just about two years now and i had basically no problems till i started tuning it.
Bought the car an got wheels for it, two months later the temp guage was reading a constant high for a couple of days, turned out to be the thermostat, replaced an was fine after.
Did a few tuning mods, (downpipe, exhaust, fcd, fpr, front mount) then the turbo started dying, so my tuner expressed it would be better to replace with a one off hybrid he would design, and at the same time i would have had to fit a boost controller, bigger fuel pump and weld my current wepr manifold. Got it back, an i'll be honest, i bloody loved it, couldnt give a toss how much it cost seein evo/supra driver's faces, but then just over 10,000 miles later reality slapped me in the face with what turned out to be 3 cracked pistons. On the ringlands just. This was partly due to my tuner testin how much it would take but mainly my "up for it" attitude, i am now rebuildin the engine and replaced not only the pistons but the clutch(which was shot too) and ALL the seals an gaskets.
now the car had over 100,000 miles on it when it blew an i had driven it hard enough, which i suppose isn't too bad for how much faster it was, which again is my fault, but it goes to show, unless you keep a pretty much standard GT/Glanza an look after it, you will come across problems. I wasn't gonna buy a boost controller, etc, but to run with the mods i was puttin on it, i had to to make it run properly an get the most out of it.
The next car i get after the GT i will deffo not be tuning as much to have a nice fast reliable car.
Dunno how long i will keep it for once it is goin again, but it will either be sold in a few weeks or will be kept for a long time lol.
Have to admit though, on the tuning front, they are amazing cars for value for money, if i was to do the same work to a scooby, it will easily cost me 2-3 times as much!

 

[jimmer]

apologies for the stupidly long reply but thought i would add my problems for extra info, even though the main ones were pretty much my fault lol.

 

[riko666]

Bought the car in December 2005, and it lasted me 4 months till the problems began...and kept flowing...:

- April 2006 -
Following a trackday session at Lydden Hill, which caused me to burn a bit of oil, I had neglected to check the oil level when I went to Manchester & Back from Oxford...50mi outside of Manchester I got the oil warning light coming on, on the return journey it was constant.

- June 2006 -
Car was using about 1L of oil per 20mi at this point...and why? My above journey succeeded in Reaming a Main bearing, seizing the oil control rings on all pistons, and some minor scoring to the cylinders. Rebuild commenced

- November 2006 -
Retrieved the car only to find out that the Knock Sensor was displaying an error, despite there being no knock present - car remained in state of retarded timing for a while. The wheelbearings also started to deteriorate quite impressively on the front wheels

- December 2006 -
Attempting to get to the bottom of the issue, I snap the Knock Sensor, and when turning on the car, it bled out it's vital liquid - sent out for a fix

- January 2007 -
Got the car back, with the knock sensor issue fixed (turned out the first garage knicked the wire by routing it the wrong way) and items added on like an Oil Cooler & TRD Thinner headgasket...3 Days later, I get an oil warning light.

2 weeks later - the engine seized itself shut. Turns out, I was getting no oil pressure, and main bearing number 4 welded itself to the crankshaft. Car sent to mechanic

- May 2007 -
Retrieved the car, having finally decided to rid of the eternal damnation that was the 5efhe and had a 4efte transplanted. All is well - apart from the fact that when I got the car back the brake lights & reverse lights didn't work, the speedo failed, the dash & brake lights cut out (blown fuse) whenever using the front foglights...

- June 2007 -
Actually quite peachy, despite going to Le Mans and back, apart from the fact that my car developed quite a few suspension rattles and strange noises...which still exist. Replaced my KYB SS Shocks & RS*R Springs with what I thought were Decent JIC Coilovers...

- September 2007 -
Having left the handbrake on for about 2 months over the summer, I come back to find my rear driver's side caliper quite sticky...eventually it'd actually get completely seized. I also forgot to reconnect the MAP Sensor wiring when removing my JAM FCD which created for some silly realisation of the erratic idle/fuelling. Later on in September, I had an irritating issue where my wheel nuts would self loosen and the wheels would almost fall off - most amusingly on the A40 at 70mph, followed by my parents. Turns out the Powdercoating had found it funny to turn itself into lube and not give the Wheel Nuts a suitable surface to torque onto. Also, it soon became apparent that the JIC Coilovers were not as ideal as I thought...infact...they were worthless piles of manure. The Rear's had lost oil to the point of Seizing completely, the Front's were still in the process of leaking and losing damping power...

- October 2007 -
Revelling in the fact that I could withstand the appalling coilovers, I soon became amused when my Exhaust Mount decided to snap on me. Repeatedly...At this point, I had done over 500mi with the seized brake caliper, which couldn't actually be wound in anymore...at all...

- November 2007 -
Brake Caliper & Coilovers replaced, yay! After more than 1000mi on the seized brake caliper, I thought a change was due!

- December 2007 -
On the way to the Bluewater Meet, at Jct. 13 of the M25 I hear a sudden grinding noise, which perplexed me as I couldn't physically find anything rubbing...till Chris (montanajr) points out that my splash guard is loose - serves me for thinking "I'll need to get the bumper off again soon anyway, I'll just use 4 bolts to hold it up" (by the way, still held on with just 4 bolts). Now also have a mysterious mechanical drag which could be the LSD on it's way out, the Clutch is on it's last legs, there's rattles in the back which aren't - as I previously thought - the Panhard rod...and sound suspiciously like worn dampers (I will cry if my Silkroads are worn)...

Bring on 2008!

 

[jimmer]

man i'm starting to feel silly cause my problems are triviel and my fault, feel bad for the proper unlucky ones!

 

[riko666]

serves me right for having "666" in my username

 

[thetruth]

I had many issues with the cars ignition. I had a bad coil.

 

[Monkfish]

I've had 'The Bitch' about 10 months now and I've had nothing but problems .

It all started back when I had my Mini 30, Ruby. She was a great little car, but I decided to sell her thinking that being a Mini she is going to cost a lot in mainenance and need a restore at some point, so I sold her and bought the Starlet off a mate.

From the off I spent £650+ on her buying a Cat1 alarm (Insurance wanted at least Cat2) and a new exhaust as I didn't like the boxless (Buddyclub I think) item. I wasn't too fussed at that, but it did mean that the £1000 I had spare from my loan to pay my parents off ended up getting spent on the car. Meh.

About a month later, it was fast approaching MOT time and I knew the shocks were fucked. There was a knocking coming from the rear of the car which I suspected to be fucked shock bottom bushes. They were covered in oil too, so I figured they were knackered and fail the MOT. I priced new shocks and springs up and ended up buying D2 Coilovers because they were better value/product for the money. So, that was another £600.

She failed the MOT for emissions (I didn't have the cat fitted thinking I wouldn't need it), split CV boot and missing split pin, plus had advisories for the handbrake. More meh.

Around the same time, my local car club (www.SW-CC.com) had a rolling road day, which I photographed and then had a run at the end of the day. Expecting a healthy 170-180bhp I was somewhat perplexed to only have 143. A large topic (10 pages) ensued to find the cause, which was eventually traced to a fucked exhaust manifold, which was replaced. So, another £200.

Not too long after that, I had a trackday. Suspecting my turbo oil seals were borked (Oil in FMIC piping) I sourced a CT9b for £125 and fitted it. I had also bought a Whiteline adjustable panhard rod, Whiteline anti-lift kit, 3G 10 groove brakes, Mintex 1144 pads and braided lines. About £550 worth of bits in total. I got most of it fitted and went on track. After about 4 laps of hooning about, I spotted the temps soaring through the roof. I came back in to find water pissing out of the expansion bottle. Bollocks.

Some time passed and I had another trackday, but the CT9b shat itself the night before, so I had to get up at 6am to put the stock 'a' back on. I did that and went to the track. I thought I had sorted the cooling out having previously flushed the system and made sure I had plenty of coolant. I went out and she was behaving herself. For 5 laps (of a short track). I came back in and was NOT impressed. I later had a custom all copper 3 core rad made up, costing £150.

So, the total spent is now at £2275 not including the other bits and bobs I've bought (Seats, gauges etc etc) which would take it up to around £2.5k. I've still got a fucked headgasket to fix (Which I suspect to be the crux of the overheating problem), the timing belt is way overdue a change, the CV joint that had the boot split at the beginning of the year is completely fucked, I had a random misfire and need to sort out some eratic idling and driving issues, plus the gearbox is starting to whine.

In short, I'm getting pissed off with her. In hindsight, I'd have kept Ruby and spent £2000 on her, getting her back to as-new condition and fitting a charged 1275. If anyone asks me what I think of Starlets, my response is "They're fantastic cars, you won't find anything faster for the engine size/cost of running, but by fuck are they fickle!"

 

[Jeffers_21]

im glad im not the only one that as problems lol

 

[Jay]

I've had so many challenges it's hard to remember them all. Were they worth it?

You can bet your bottom dollar they were.