Would like a Surf, But now I'm not so sure

[ian2144]

I think I 've been reading to many negative threads :- Head Problems, A/C faults, Parts availabillity, or can't afford to repair Surf!!!

Where has That Toyota reliability gone???? My Fourtrak has been rock sollid for the past 2 years, but now due for a change in the new year, and would like some thing with 5 doors. My choice of imports are down to 2 a Mitsubishi Chalanger 2.8 or a Gen 3 !!
As the wife has a Rav4 I'm still leaning towards Toyota......... If I'm spending 6 or 7K on a car, it has to be turn key reliable.

[Slugsie]

Head problems are normally on the older 2.4 engine. They do happen on the later 3ltrs, but it's rarer. No particular known problem with the air-con as far as I know. Parts availability isn't a huge problem. Couple of specialist websites (Roughtrax and Milners) and Toyota can also get the parts if nothing else.

At the end of the day, you're buying a nearly 10 year old car (with that budget), so they'll virtually never be perfect. But they are reliable, and easy to live with. Stop hesitating and go for it.

[Bouf_2001]

iv had mine turn key reliable for the last nearly 2 years. just recently had a prob with ac which is expected from time to time. you will read a lot about peoples problems but i think the majority dont have any problems at all. parts are easy to source. give these a try.

www.toyotahilux.com
www.milneroffroad.com

chris

[DitchCrawler]

My 3.0 is turn key reliable, so much so in fact that I couldn't take the key out again last week .

For the money, my trucks been brilliant, very very few problems, took us down to the Sahara and back, it was the only truck of the group to suffer no problems at all, despite carrying everthing including the kitchen sink, fuel consumption was better than the others as well.

Top Truck

Shep

[RodLeach]

I think I 've been reading to many negative threads :- Head Problems, A/C faults, Parts availabillity, or can't afford to repair Surf!!!

Where has That Toyota reliability gone???? My Fourtrak has been rock sollid for the past 2 years, but now due for a change in the new year, and would like some thing with 5 doors. My choice of imports are down to 2 a Mitsubishi Chalanger 2.8 or a Gen 3 !!
As the wife has a Rav4 I'm still leaning towards Toyota......... If I'm spending 6 or 7K on a car, it has to be turn key reliable.

Well, Im not sure where youve been reading about parts availability - with companies like Roughtrax an milner stocking parts for surfs its hard to believe that parts are hard to find.

A/C Faults - not overly sure about that, Ive not read that much on there being problems with the AC. it Runs out but thats standard on any car with AC.

Head problems - the V6 suffers with gaskets an the older 2.4 models suffer from gaskets an cracked heads - on a 3rd gen i would doubt theres any kind of increased chance of this failure other then just ' pot luck '

Also - If your going to spend 6-7k on one, i doubt you'll fall into the 'cant afford repair costs' part.

These trucks are fairly easy to get at most of the bits - an there is a load of useful information here to help you along.

If you looked at a 96-97 3rd gen they are cheaper then your budget which would leave a nice fund behind to iron out any creases.

[sv1000spilot]

I think that this site shows a biased level of faults.

One of the reasons people find this site is they are looking for spares / help. If you have a surf that's just used for daily commuter use and is working fine the chances are you won't be on here, or will have less to say.

Also the majority of the people on here that have problems have been off-road in some way or another which puts greater strain on the truck, showing up any problems which might otherwise have gone un-discovered.

Mine has cost me a fair bit, but there's no way I'd sell it now. And when I do finally kill it, I WILL get another one.

[BUSHWHACKER]

I think that this site shows a biased level of faults.

One of the reasons people find this site is they are looking for spares / help. If you have a surf that's just used for daily commuter use and is working fine the chances are you won't be on here, or will have less to say.

Also the majority of the people on here that have problems have been off-road in some way or another which puts greater strain on the truck, showing up any problems which might otherwise have gone un-discovered.

Mine has cost me a fair bit, but there's no way I'd sell it now. And when I do finally kill it, I WILL get another one.

Exactly!

Mine will still be good enough to hand to my son when he's 17.




























which will be in 17 years.

[Hilux]

Buy One

Hi come on join the club and buy one every make of vehicle have there problems, go for a 3rd gen SURF bought my wifes nearly 5 years ago no probs what so ever.

[TonyN]

Exactly!

Mine will still be good enough to hand to my son when he's 17.

which will be in 17 years.

You have to drive it wear it out!!!!

[BUSHWHACKER]

You have to drive it wear it out!!!!

Yeah, but........................... .............................. ..............

[TonyN]

..........
Where has That Toyota reliability gone???? .............

Have to answer this....

we have 1984 4Runner, 2l petrol, 250,000miles odd, still happy despite worn carb and rust, owned 3years. 1993 Hilux Surf 3.0TD, 130,000miles (60k when brought), heavily abused tow vehicle (other Surfs on trailers!!) running great on veg for last 3 years. Owned 5-6 years.

Both EXTENSIVILY beaten offroad, heavily modified on big ol' tyres and used daily.

[papacroft]

I think I 've been reading to many negative threads :- Head Problems, A/C faults, Parts availabillity, or can't afford to repair Surf!!!

Where has That Toyota reliability gone???? My Fourtrak has been rock sollid for the past 2 years, but now due for a change in the new year, and would like some thing with 5 doors. My choice of imports are down to 2 a Mitsubishi Chalanger 2.8 or a Gen 3 !!
As the wife has a Rav4 I'm still leaning towards Toyota......... If I'm spending 6 or 7K on a car, it has to be turn key reliable.

Agree all other respondents. This type of site collects together common problems and provides solutions. Looking through this site you should identify your budget and then look for the common faults and check that these have been rectified before making a purchase etc. It must be better to buy a car armed with this information than to buy blindly and rely on repair shops to fault find and repair.
Regarding air-con, I think they are pretty unreliable systems. I have a friend who recently paid £500 for an aircon repair on a 4 year old Ford. My Peugeot is 7 years old and the air con hasn't worked on that for the last 2 years. So if aircon is an issue, I think your safer bet would be to buy a new car.
I have owned a 2nd Gen for 4 years, my friend a 3rd Gen for 3 years and my brother a 3rd Gen for 12months. If I compare these vehicles with 10-13 year old vehicles of my friends and colleagues then the Surfs are exceptional, because no one I know outside of the Surf owners has a 13 year old vehicle! Comparing the cars with what friends and colleagues have got, then the Surfs are as reliable and certainly no more difficult to source parts and repair. The costs are also similar.
Hope this helps...

[nero279]

Go for it, mine's a 16 year old heap o junk, that i paid 1650 quid for just under 2 years ago, i've since spent around 1.5k on mods (including 2 full sets of wheels & tyres. Had 2 rear wheel bearings done, serviced myself 3 times, had a new caliper on the front, new steering idler, ball joints general maintenance basically, some of it i've done myself some of it i've paid garages to do, it's probably cost me 2k in mechanical repairs.

Do i regret it? NO

It's the oldest of the 3 cars i've owned. My escort i don't remember ever breaking down in, my volvo broke down once when a brake cylinder 'exploded'.

The surf has broke down once with a gear linkage problem, and twice following offroad sessions both of which were incredibly wet. The first time it cleared itself and drove fine again an hour afterwards when the RAC told me they were a hundred miles away coz they'd gone the wrong place. Never did find out wha was wrong. The 2nd i still haven't identified the cause for certain but she's still driving around after a good wash down and changing all the fluids. Like many of the vehicles on here it has been subjected to offroad abuse, swimming, heavy pulling, probably overloading, modifications and so on. I honestly believe i would have spent far less keeping it on the road if it hadn't been subjected to british offroad conditions.

I've had a couple of other little gripes, but the above are the only times i've been unable to go somewhere or get home. That ain't bad for a 16 year old motor that stood for 2 years of it's life previous to me getting my hands on it. When i got it i knew nothing about diesel engines but read up on here as and when i need help, and i'm not afraid to get the spanners out.

Your budgets 5k more than mine was, and the vehicles you are looking at are an altogether different beast, but treat them well and they'll treat you well too. Yours will be several years newer than mine on that budget, and hence several years more reliable.

[The Lovely Boyo]

This thread is getting like The Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo - hilarious after all these years.

Raht, when I were a lad, we used t'lick road clean



I've had mine for nearly 5 years, its done over 250,000km's, gets abused off roading (a lot!), only major fault was new head two weeks after buying it.

Nothing major gone wrong since, and servicing it is easy (if quite often).

I'd never buy another - coz I'm gonna be buried in this one!!!!!!!!!!

[ian2144]

Thanks for your coments,guys...Most of you have made the decision for me!!

It's just a matter of when and where it comes from.