We've just bought a 2007 Alphard 2.4 for our growing family (5 year old and 20 month old twins) and must say we're absolutely delighted with it! I think it's a low spec one as no power sliding doors but the manual ones are super light and glide open with ease anyway. It's got 91k miles on the converted odometer/speedo which tallies up with the auction sheet which shows it left Japan with 147000km but was wondering if it's normal for a slight ticking sound coming from the engine? It's otherwise super smooth but I've read somewhere that the valves need adjusting every 100k miles or something. Can someone confirm this and how much that could cost? Or could it be something else? Also, ours has the rear parking mirror but I'm thinking I remove it as it does look rather odd plus it already has a reversing camera. Is it easy? I'm fairly handy with spanners! Any info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Guy

The ticking may be Too large a valve clearance. This generally is not an issue. It will affect fuel efficiency a tiny bit.

  The problem is with exhaust valves becoming too tight. They do not tick,but can cause valve overheating issues and serious reduction in performance.

Scheduled servicing is a key to good vehicle reliability. This is one of the reasons I buy directly from Japan, these people do not cheap out.