Major design flaw/future rust issue.

[FGRob]

Totally agree with how easily the rear crossmember rusts, i've welded up loads of them! However it is less of a worry than this filling your sills up with water problem because it is very easily unbolted and replaced with another subframe.

If i owned another Mk3 now i would be fitting my own water pipe from the inner wing vent to the bottom of the sill somewhere.

Oh and i know all about spitfires and MG rust, i have owned a midget before and currently got a Mk5 spitty on the drive, i chase the rot on that thing around the car.

I think if you do keep on top of the drains and stop any build-up of crap the water will flow out as Toyota designed it, the problem comes when the owners don't clean the drains and have water building up in the back. The most import part of any design is the ability of the water to get out and dry naturally, if it can't do that you could have problems. The E coat system drains in the same manner when it's applied so you have protection where the water goes any way.

Hey I was chasing rust for 15 years with my Spit, there's some pic's of it on here somewhere, still love the old school way of doing things. I rebuilt a Midget and an MGBGT but still prefer the Spit.

Rob.

[FGRob]

if looked after the 1zz engine is fine, as rob says a lot of previous owners bought them and treated them as a normal car.

I had a turbo, dragged it, went out on track with it, and it still in great condition not burning oil and running 100%, owned the car a year covered around 8k currently on 66k. The pre cats and crap oil clogging the oilways on the 1zz cause issues. Other than that a boosted 1zz will see most things off the road with little worry of it popping.

Rob can vouch for this too, his engine is far from standard, his owned the car circa 5 years if I remember rightly.

I was lucky with my car, it was 5 months old and only had 350 miles (It will be 6 year old in Sept this year) on the clock so I know what the starting point was, since first owning it, it's had the pre-cats removed within the first 12 months, I fitted a Che manifold, now it's got a Zero, every year it's taken off the road and all the plastics removed and cleaned plus the drains checked, it's got suspension mods, cams, PFC etc etc, which were all done while still under warranty, I like to think of my car as a keeper

Rob

[JohnnyC]

if looked after the 1zz engine is fine, as rob says a lot of previous owners bought them and treated them as a normal car.

Sorry, but I just LOLLED.
This is a Toyota, built in the hundreds of thousands, not a Ferrari F40 or something.

[iLogik]

if looked after the 1zz engine is fine, as rob says a lot of previous owners bought them and treated them as a normal car.

Sorry, but I just LOLLED.
This is a Toyota, built in the hundreds of thousands, not a Ferrari F40 or something.

So what do you class the mk2 as? its also mass produced. I have seen plenty of mk2's that are "censored" with people having engine problems.

[JohnnyC]

So what do you class the mk2 as? its also mass produced. I have seen plenty of mk2's that are "censored" with people having engine problems.

It was also mass produced.
But the 3S-GE & 3S-GTEs we see broke are 10-20 years old and the GTEs often were modified (or boost turned up etc).
But the 1ZZ-FEs just seem to break through 'normal' use very early on in their lives

[iLogik]

So what do you class the mk2 as? its also mass produced. I have seen plenty of mk2's that are "censored" with people having engine problems.

It was also mass produced.
But the 3S-GE & 3S-GTEs we see broke are 10-20 years old and the GTEs often were modified (or boost turned up etc).
But the 1ZZ-FEs just seem to break through 'normal' use very early on in their lives

if left standard yes I agree, the pre cats oil lines were an issue on pre facelift cars, these issues were rectified on the facelift cars, but they still suffer once in awhile.

I had my car a year and abit without any issues, car has been very reliable even with the turbo. I don't rate new cars tbh, I see old mk2 golfs going and going 200k plus, new cars are built to last the warranty period

[MR2Jay]

There is a lot of truth in that - perhaps this sill issue was a predesigned fault to cause the car to need replacing?

Slap me now for being cynical but don't ALL car manufacturers want you to buy new cars not rag around in old ones that go on forever?

[iLogik]

There is a lot of truth in that - perhaps this sill issue was a predesigned fault to cause the car to need replacing?

Slap me now for being cynical but don't ALL car manufacturers want you to buy new cars not rag around in old ones that go on forever?

its the same with mobile phones, they have a life span of around a year, after this they pretty much die. I remember when I had one of the first mobile phones in the late 90's was a "censored" BT thing, but it got dropped, run over with a bike, thrown around, dropped in the sink set on fire and it still worked.

my last phone previous to my new one, i left it ontop o the car when i was breaking the mk2 and it got a little splash of rain on and never worked again

[PaulWoods]

Not sure what direction the thread seems to be heading now, i just thought i should highlight a design flaw that is going to rot these cars from the inside out in years to come, i personally think allowing rainwater to run through the sill sections of a car on purpose is a shocking design.

[jimi]

Not sure what direction the thread seems to be heading now,

off into the distance a usual don't worry it'll come back on track ..... sometime

i just thought i should highlight a design flaw that is going to rot these cars from the inside out in years to come, i personally think allowing rainwater to run through the sill sections of a car on purpose is a shocking design.

I'm not a polite, I'd say it was crap design, it would have been just as easy and no more expensive to have designed and implemented a proper drain

[roadsterman99]

I'd be more worried about the rear cross member, that does crack and rust in under 10 years if not protected. A good nylon coating / waxoyling will sort that out if caught earlier enough

Totally agree with how easily the rear crossmember rusts, i've welded up loads of them!

Could not agree more, I have seen one from a friends 8 year old Roadster and there was lots of missing metal caused by a very active worm.
Roadster was a single owner high mileage car but always serviced and MOT'd by Toyota no modifications and had the Toyota extended warranty. Cross member was in a shocking state and Toyota response was "what you'd exptect from an 8 year old high mileage car and no we will not cover this under warranty or contribute to its cost".

[FGRob]

Not sure what direction the thread seems to be heading now, i just thought i should highlight a design flaw that is going to rot these cars from the inside out in years to come, i personally think allowing rainwater to run through the sill sections of a car on purpose is a shocking design.

I think time will be the only one that will bring this to a conclusion, we have cars over 10 years old so if it's going to be a problem then it will happen sooner rather than later, me I will continue the cleaning process and am very confident I will not have a problem in that area.

Might be an opportunity to make some kind of retro fit part, but I would have thought the USA would have come up with a solution if they thought it was a big enough problem.

Every car as a design fault you just don't always get to hear of them, it seems that Toyota just lately have had more than most, mind you Honda is catching up - they are all as bad as one another.

I've worked on many a car plant, especially in the body area, one that springs to mind as an eye opener is Aston Martin

Rob.

[FGRob]

Could not agree more, I have seen one from a friends 8 year old Roadster and there was lots of missing metal caused by a very active worm.
Roadster was a single owner high mileage car but always serviced and MOT'd by Toyota no modifications and had the Toyota extended warranty. Cross member was in a shocking state and Toyota response was "what you'd exptect from an 8 year old high mileage car and no we will not cover this under warranty or contribute to its cost".

Was it a UK car or an MRS, I now some of the MRS's don't come with the plastic under trays which does leave them exposed to the all weather conditions.

I had mine re-coated this time last year, plus it got a good blasting of waxoyl on the inside, it now looks like this:



It's a nylon coating which is used on valves that are used in the water industry, it chemically bonds to the metal which gives even more protection than powder coating, the only downside is the size that can be coated and the finish which is a satin black, I've had the anti roll bars done for 2 years now which you can see in the above photo.

Rob.

[roadsterman99]

Rob, yes it was UK car.