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Join The Toyota Alphard & Vellfire Club

Our community has been built by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts, and proudly run by Alphard owners' for over 7 years. As an independentnon-official club, everything you’ll find here, advice, support, and opinions, comes directly from members with genuine Alphard & Vellfire ownership experience. By being a member you can gain access to active community forums, videos, news, events and more...

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Latest Alphard / Vellfire posts

  1. The van starts and runs fine. I removed it because it looked after market. The previous owner said they had used the fob so I put a new battery in it and gave it a try. I removed a large amount of after market stuff including two separate audio systems. There was a lot of video stuff too as it had been fitted with sun visors with screens as well as having the drop down screen in the back.
  2. It looks aftermarket - if it was factory I'd have expected a Toyota part number on it. I wonder if it has a 'ghost' type immobiliser on it - with those there's typically something secret you need to do like a button to press or whatever, otherwise the car won't start. Do you have to do anything like that? This box would be the part that detects that button press. I've seen (on a Range Rover on YT) ones where there's a box in the cabin that talks to a receiver under the fusebox which surreptitiously disconnects the fuel relay - engine turns over but won't start without the secret handshake.
  3. Generally the Toyota hybrids are very reliable - Priuses are good for 350k miles. The 10 series has an issue with the inverter cooling pump (inverter overheats which damages the IGBTs), but is that a problem with the 20 series? My Gen2 Prius has never had it changed and it's at 175k miles. The one issue with the hybrid batteries is they don't like heat. In the 20 series (and the Estima) the battery is cooped up in the centre console with only a small fan at the base of the rear. Especially in hot climates like southern Japan, Malaysia and Singapore the batteries can get hot, and the fan isn't that great at cooling them. Also, if that fan gets blocked or clogged then it can reduce its cooling ability and the battery can overheat. Another reason why you should always run the aircon in hot weather. Typically it's the cells in the middle that suffer as they are the least well cooled. I have 3 bad modules on the upper bank (each module is 12 NiMH cells in the upper bank and 8 cells on the lower) so I'm planning to replace them and refurbish the rest when I've sorted some other jobs. For now it's still drivable but with fuel economy about the same as the petrol 2.4. I only get the fault code showing if I let the battery become over discharged - just let the engine run for a minute before turning off and it'll leave some charge in it. If you can get to London there are quite a few garages who will refurbish batteries - the battery is very similar to the 2006-19 Estima, and the hybrids of those are popular as London minicabs. Search eBay for 'Estima hybrid battery' and you'll find them.
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