Ptarmigan

Thanks. I have indeed bought one, a 2012 with a sad hybrid battery among other faults. I'm planning to rebuild the battery when I've got hold of another one to rob for cells. I'll post a thread about that when I've started making some progress...

This is the screen on the display. You can see the rear motor on the right side - when it's in operation the arrows show power flow from or to the battery. Obviously no help if you have replaced the head unit! If there is a problem with the rear motor then I would expect a 'check engine' light as the car will be down on power as only one motor is operational.

How tall is it including the loop at the top? https://size.name/en/catalog/brake_pads?length=96 finds some of the right shape, but they're 62mm tall. That appears to include the loop. Searching on the Blueprint part number ADT342125 brings up a series of matches: https://www.simplycarparts.co.uk/products/adt342125 and on the Toyota part number 04466-50100 leads to the Brembo part P 83 059: https://www.bremboparts.com/africa/en/catalogue/pad/P_83_059 which has a drawing. If I overlay that on your picture it looks a touch smaller but would maybe fit? Anyhow, someone is selling the Blueprint part on ebay for £9, so perhaps worth a punt?

Digging around suggests that Sumitomo is a supplier to Toyota, so it's possible those are OEM pads, or they could be aftermarket. It seems that Advics is a consortium of Toyota, Denso, Sumitomo and Aisin, and they make both OEM and aftermarket parts. They have a Japanese website: 株式会社アドヴィックスセールス ADVICS SALES CO.,LTD.株式会社アドヴィックスセールス ADVICS SALES CO.,LTD.ブレーキパッド、ディスクローター、ホイールシリンダーなどのブレーキ部品を販売する「株式会社アドヴィックスセールス」。自動車用ブレーキシステム・パーツの開発・製造を手掛けるアドヴィックスグループのアフターマーケット事業を担う会社として、世界のお客様により良い商品とサービスを提供します。and it could be worth poking around there looking for clues. At the very least measurements off the existing pad may give you something to go on.

Amayama says the part number is 04466-58010 which is what's shown in your listing. Has yours perhaps had any upgraded calipers, maybe in Japan? If you hold that pad next to the outside of your wheel, does it look the same size as your current pad?

For the record, a condenser replacement isn't a big job. I don't know anything about the 10 series condenser specifically but it'll be attached to the front of the radiator pack behind the bumper. Basically you take off the bumper, get access to the rad pack, install the new condenser, connect up the hoses and gas up the system. I've done this as a DIY job on a Prius. One thing, if the system has been open for any length of time, I'd recommend is blowing through aircon flush solvent through whatever pipework you can access to flush out any dirt that has collected. Then connect everything up and run a vacuum pump for a while - this will pull out any solvent or water that may be lurking. Disconnect the vacuum and check it will hold vacuum for half an hour. If it does it's ready for gassing up. I gassed mine with a can of R134a from Halfords, but it's better to use a proper machine. This is all standard aircon repair stuff. Any garage that does aircon repairs (not just Kwik Fit style gassing up) should be able to handle it. If it was the hybrid you'd need a garage with a dedicated machine for hybrids as they use a different oil and oil contamination can kill the compressor (for those I can recommend Bee Cool Aircon of Kettering, a bit out of your area...) When buying the condenser, you either want one which comes with a new receiver/dryer or to buy one. It looks like it's included with the Toyota condenser which is part number 88461-58050 (but you should check based on your frame number) at about £500-600 on Amayama including tax and delivery from Japan. Google is not finding an aftermarket one on that part number but I've not looked very hard. You may need to hold the garage's hand and/or get the parts for them as 'it's not on the computer' - if you can find an old school garage who are prepared to think a little out of the box then they likely have the skills to do it. I'd not buy a used condenser: they're lots of thin aluminum fins exposed to the full force of the weather and debris at the front of the car. They get bent and sooner or later the aluminum corrodes and develops leaks. If you aren't able to get the original or replica part it is possibly worth seeing if there's a part from another vehicle that will fit: they are just a long bit of metal piping at the end of the day, so improvisation might be possible.

So it seems like it's one of those external CarPlay screens for cars without. It uses the stock head unit for Bluetooth audio but everything else is on its own screen. If it does radio when you only have Japanese FM then I could see that as an advantage, but otherwise it seems not much different from using your phone in a holder. Maybe the CarPlay/Android Auto interface has bigger buttons than the regular phone that make it easier to use? (I have been discovering that some of my regular apps don't do Android Auto, or want a subscription to enable it. So a phone has its advantages too)

That's my understanding too - it's more 'AWD' than '4WD', as in the power gets put down where it's needed. It's similar to EVs like 'dual motor' Teslas which have a motor on the front axle and another on the rear axle. I haven't looked into the rear motor setup but I don't think there is a lockable differential like you might get on an all-terrain vehicle. Like a Tesla, the second motor allows more electric power to be put down compared with only a single motor, as you have four tyres worth of grip instead of two (although the Alphard motors are nowhere near as powerful as Tesla's). From what I read somewhere (don't have it to hand, may have been ATH10 rather than ATH20) there is a 4WD light but it only comes on when there is a fault. So the absence of a light means things are working normally.

There seems to be an issue with the IGBTs overheating in the inverter of the 2003-8 hybrid - either the inverter coolant pump fails or the heatsink grease dries out and they don't make good thermal contact with the coolant block, resulting in them cooking and failing. Perhaps that was what was meant? (I don't know a whole lot about the Gen1 hybrid system but I've seen this fault mentioned a few times)

Can you expand on 'dislocation'? I've not heard that term before. Do you mean physically coming loose? Or failing in some way?

The service manual has this, mangled via translation from the Japanese: This seems like the kind of thing that's routine in gearbox servicing - they don't necessarily have handy drain plugs so you have to do things like sucking oil out of the filler hole, or overfilling in the hope of mixing up old oil with fresh. Amayama: https://www.amayama.com/en/genuine-catalogs/epc/toyota-japan/alphard/ATH10W/43189/chassis/3901 says there's a '90341-18023 Gasket (for rear differential filler plug)' but no corresponding drain plug gasket, implying there is no way to drain it without suction. When filling you'd pump in oil until it overflows, and once it's stopped overflowing then you know that it's full. There's no service schedule for it that I can see.

Rubber suspension bushes do wear, so this is maintenance that you should expect to do every so often. The ride will typically feel better afterwards too, and so replacement is something you might expect to do at midlife on a used car. I don't know any Alphard specifics about these particular ones/parts/etc, but they are just bits of rubber at the end of the day. What do you mean about 'dislocation of battery'? The high voltage hybrid battery or the 12V one?

Once you have the part number, call your local Toyota dealer and see if they can order them in. Toyotadirectparts.co.uk are sometimes cheaper than my local dealer, although often you have to put in a request with the part number for them to create a web page for that part that you can order from. Another option if you get no luck finding one locally is to put the part number into zenmarket.jp and search Mercari and Yahoo (called JDirectItems outside Japan for legal reasons) auctions. Those tend to have more used parts available if there's no UK stock. You pay a fee for then handling the purchase, shipping in Japan for the item to their warehouse, shipping from Japan, and VAT on top. They do make sure that taxes are paid so the parcel doesn't get stuck at UK customs awaiting fees.

That looks rather handy... I have some headlights to do soon so I'll give that a go. Thanks for the videos btw, they've been very useful on the beginnings of my Alphard journey.

It may help to get a clamp meter to measure DC current and measure the current flow at various points. Is there current flowing from the alternator, is it flowing into the battery? Is it going into the dash, the indicators, etc? Check both sides positive and negative. If you find current is not flowing, then measure the voltage along various bits of wiring. eg if there's a wire that goes from the battery to the ignition, put one multimeter probe on the battery terminal and another where the wire meets the ignition. A good wire should have a low voltage difference along it (substantially below 1V), but a bad (high resistance) wire will have a much greater voltage. The same would happen if something is interrupting the wire, for example a blown fuse. When a high current is flowing, there's more voltage drop along a wire and you should see that in your voltage measurement. That's why the lights dim when the starter is running. This is the sort of thing an auto electrician will do to try to narrow down the fault. My stab in the dark might be to suspect a grounding fault - it's easy to check a positive wire that's obviously there, but if the return current relies on the component having a good chassis connection then that could get corroded and be overlooked.

What's the first part of the chassis number? The hybrid is the E-Four, that's ATH20. The petrol version has a 4WD version which is the ANH25 (2.4l engine) or GGH25 (3.5l engine). As these aren't hybrids I believe it's a classic propshaft and mechanical differential box between the rear wheels. If it's an ANH20 or GGH20 then it doesn't have 4WD. I think it's the same for the 10 series - ATH10 is E-Four, ANH15 and MNH15 are differential box, other 10s are 2WD. If you do have an ATH20 there's an electric motor on the rear axle. I'd be very surprised for that to not work but nothing complaining.

Schutz is a generic name for a bitumen based under body coating. It's similar to the kind of tar used on flat roofing. It's derived from crude oil and contains a solvent which makes it flow (eg white spirit). Once applied the solvent evaporates leaving a tarry layer. Unlike paint it has some flex in it, so it can stay stuck to a surface which changes shape through eg thermal expansion, where a rigid paint might flake off. When applied it has the consistency of whipped cream, although you can thin it for spraying. Lanoguard is perhaps the most heavily advertised (ie expensive) of various lanolin based products, including Fluid Film and various DIY mixes. Lanolin is a wax that's a waste product of the wool industry - basically Australian sheep farmers had this wax left over from wool processing and wondered what they could do with it, and found out it had similar flexibility properties to the bitumen above. Again it's thinned for application and the solvent evaporates leaving a waxy layer behind. I've used both, and while I'm no expert I'd say the lanolin wax often comes out as a thinner layer than the schutz, but on the other side lanolin has more compatibility with rubbers and plastics where an oil based product may cause degradation. So schutz is more for bodywork, where lanolin is safe for hoses, gaiters, suspension bushes etc. But the lanolin layer being thinner is more susceptible to stone chips etc so needs redoing regularly, while the schutz is more of a one time application. As your car already has schutz I might be looking to top up the schutz on the body and perhaps use lanolin on the mechanical parts. I don't really have a recommendation on brand - I did a car in black Waxoyl schutz underneath and clear Waxoyl wax (which is more like paraffin wax) on the mechanicals and in the cavities and without further treatment it lasted 7 years before signs of rust started to come. More recently I've been using Fluid Film - too early to say but it looks to have stopped the rust. What I did do on my Waxoyl job was spray surfaces with penetrating oil first, to displace any trapped water and provide an oily surface for the wax to key onto - that seemed to work quite well. One downside of the schutz though - as it never fully sets, if you later work on the car you do tend to get black marks on your hands, clothes, etc. But that's just evidence it's doing its job.

Sounds interesting. I might be interested in buying it... I've sent you a PM.

For anyone who has tried both, how do you rate the seat comfort between the 10 and 20 series? I'll be carrying someone who has a bad back and for whom seat comfort is very important. I've been looking at 20 series as I like the look of the captain's chairs on the 7-seater, especially those which have an ottoman on the front passenger seat. But there's an 8-seater 10 series local to me and from pictures the seats look like well padded chairs, even if there's no ottomans. But people talk about how the 20 series is more luxurious - how does that compare with regards to the seat comfort?

From the photos the 20 series one is physically different so doesn't look like a drop in fit. Toyota doesn't list a part, but it's possible one from another model will fit. If you click on the Amayama link for the 84140-32240 it takes you to a page which lists 22 Toyota models the 10 series stalk fits - click on 'view ... on diagrams'. Perhaps you can find one that was sold in a market that requires a rear fog and find out the part number of the version with the extra fog switch. Might take a bit of sleuthing but Amayama often shows you a picture of the actual part, or you can search eBay/AliExpress/Zenmarket with the part number for photos. I bought a cruise control stalk for my Prius and the AliExpress listing said it fitted a huge number of models, so I suspect there's lots of commonality. It's also possible a stalk will physically fit but the connector is different - but that can be changed.

No, Amayama says that's just for the 20 series. The headlight stalk for the ANH10 is 84140-32240 which is discontinued but about £10+fees+ship+VAT from Yahoo auction: https://zenmarket.jp/en/yahoo.aspx?q=84140-32240 However, Amayama doesn't show a separate part with fog light functionality - 84140-32240 is the only stalk listed and the picture only shows front fog controls. So I'm not sure if there is one with rear control.

https://toyota-club.net/files/faq/03-03-29_e77-04_eng.htm (that site is always a very useful source) indicates that part number is 08886-02105 for 4 litres. Searching on that does seem to suggest a lack of stock in the UK, but: https://yoshiparts.com/parts/toyota-0888602105 is in Belgium and shipping is £14 so not awful. You could also try ringing a Toyota dealer with the part number and see if their supply chain has any stock. The above link says the spec is JWS 3320, and there are some aftermarket fluids to that spec if getting OEM is awkward.

There are plenty on Yahoo Auctions Japan, £20-40 (+fees+shipping+VAT): https://zenmarket.jp/en/yahoo.aspx?q=84140-42080&p=1

Ah, thanks. I've been watching too many videos and maybe I was confusing the 30 series 😀 . There there's a space inside that has the spare wheel, and I think some have a tray that sits on top: https://youtu.be/vL5it8ucvuU?t=596s Looks like on the 20 series the spare wheel carrier sits underneath and the space is under the floor instead: https://youtu.be/qW1cS9syak4?t=56s

Under the back of the boot floor, below the seat rails, there is a storage area. I think there is a shallow plastic tray between the rails and then a deeper space below that. Would anyone mind measuring this larger space, ie the full depth with the tray removed. I'm interested in measurements for the 20-series 2WD petrol, the hybrid and the 4WD petrol - I'm not sure if the rear diff or the rear motor occupy any of this space. Thanks!