arthurj

Thanks!

I need to get a small dent in my tailgate repaired and resprayed. The body shop said that I would need to source replacement badges as they’ll have to be removed and they can’t guarantee they’ll survive the process. I can find the listings on Amayama but the VELLFIRE badge itself has been discontinued and replaced with this one. https://www.amayama.com/en/part/toyota/7544158090 I can’t work out if this package contains the ALPHARD badge, VELLFIRE or both. I don’t want to order the wrong one, obviously. Does anyone know? Or, does anyone know a another reliable source of badges?

The user manual has torque setting for wheel nuts, not sure about other items.

That’s really interesting! Do you know whether you have a JDM car or one made for Malaysia/Singapore? The latter have some kind of multi-language capabilities but I’m not sure how far that goes.

Nothing interesting! I usually have set it to show a split display with the map on the left (even though it just shows blue) and media on the right (which only shows the name and track of what’s playing but no video). Keeps distractions down. ideally it would show a map in the front and video in the back.

Mine can open from both sides, yes. There’s a separate button for each direction.

No chance of being able to fix and respray, unfortunately.

I got rear-ended while waiting at a roundabout. The impact was minor but the rear bumper's a bit bent and has a crack. Does anyone know roughly how much it would cost to source a replacement and get it replaced? 20-series Vellfire, black. Toyota will do it of course, but it'll cost a fortune. Was hoping for a cheaper one from a breaker's yard in the UK or something, I just don't know where to look.

Yes it’s legal to only have one reversing light and for the other one to be replaced by a fog light. There has to be a separate switch on the dash, clearly marked. My 20-series has this setup.

Be careful with replacing the reflectors as you need to make sure you still have working reflectors to pass the MOT! My Vellfire has one of the reversing lights replaced with a rear fog light, as you only need one reversing light.

Not the same issue, but my ATH20 with the same engine did have a piston rebuild in Japan due to recall. I haven’t heard of any others that have gone through this process though, it think it may have only affected a small number of cars. The hybrid works in quite a different way to the standard petrol. Similar engine but it uses a different cycle and pressure build up due to engine braking is not an issue because hybrids simply don’t do it.

I still have mine, mainly because the kids love watching dvds in the back and it’s great for that.

I think those 4 are for Japanese TV, either an aerial or decoder box.

As it happens…

Let me know if you find one. I can’t find anyone nearby who will look at the hybrid stuff. I’ve been looking for over a year now.

Britax Romer fit the middle row fine.

Absolutely no problem so far. We’ll see what happens over winter but I’ve had none of the symptoms I was getting before. The hybrids need an AGM battery, they provide a solid 12-14V even when partially drained, unlike lead-acid batteries, which can drop much lower. The hybrid computer needs a minimum of 12V to boot up.

Well, sort of. The Alphard is closer to the size and weight as a T4 or T5, so it’s not fair to compare to a Golf or Passat. A T4 diesel gets around 35mpg in real life, and I hear a T5 averages around 40mpg, maybe slightly better on a long run. My Yeti diesel doesn’t get close to 70mpg on a long run, ever. The brochure said it does, but I get at most 50 if I turn the air con off and have the wind behind me. I don’t even have a heavy foot. The way to think about the hybrid in the Alphard is as a turbocharger with 4WD. Combined power puts it closer to the 3.5 than the 2.4 and fuel efficiency is better than both, certainly better than the 4WD model. Is it cost-efficient though? No.

You can’t change the language on that model, sorry.

I did a long drive in my hybrid recently and got 630km to a tank, which is 55l. So that’s about 33mpg on average.

Getting mine done tomorrow. Quoted over £800 by Toyota, £500 by a local garage that deal with imports.

20-series hybrid original is a Panasonic S55D23L AGM. The Yuasa HJ-S55D23L is a perfect replacement. Not sure if the same battery is used for non-hybrids.

I think ULEZ in cities requires Euro 4 status for petrol vehicles, and my 20-series hybrid is classed as Euro 5 in section D2 of the V5C, so it passes.

Well, I took it to the Toyota garage, showed them the squeak. They said that since they can’t connect their computer to the Japanese systems it’ll cost £120 of an engineer’s time to diagnose!

I got the Lockwood dials fitted. Very happy with them. Clock remains in km.