2004 Toyota Altis 1.8G review from Malaysia

I was pretty happy to read comments on ALTIS in here. Hence I would like to take this opportunity to mark my comment here as well which I believe to be the longest by far! I got my ALTIS 1.8G April 2004. Of course changing from a WAJA 1.6A to a 1.8 VVTI ECT etc gives me a great pleasure of driving.

Unfortunately I have whole lots of lousy experience with my car and am now pretty well known to 3 major service center! Althought this are all the little problem and not major breakdown. I think I check in toyota service center even up to 2-3 times a month!

My first 2 months :

a) Driver side door making loud noise when closing door. They filled the arm bar (inside) with silicone gel to absorb the vibrating noise.

B) Driver side (right hand) headlight changed 3 times in the first 8 months due to water vaporing/trapped inside!!

C) This is shocking as I am not a rough driver, but the both the drive shaft making crazy noises in 11 months! Yeap, I waited like almost 3 months for the parts to arrived from PHILIPINES. Good thing I bang right up to the HQ manager to speed the stock up a little faster.

D) Both side of my front disc brakes been skimmed. Guys, when you feel the steering vibrates whenever you hit on brakes. Go get your disc brake checked!

Its not normal to vibrate when brakes.

E) Both front mcperhson strut absorber being changed due to making heck lots of loose noise.

F) Recently, I just changed both front DISC CALIPER too! Systoms are very loud noise whenever braking and its hard to brake!

G) Oh yes, this got to be the laughing stock... all of sudden my left side mirror motor went kaput (kept rotating) by itself which has to be replace with a brand new set.

Now despite that all parts and labor are FOC for the first 3 years, can you imagine now how often I visit TOYOTA showroom? I been to Shamelin, Midah, SS17 and SS14. But I got to tell you that lately their customer service and waiting louge are getting better. I recommend the best by far MIDAH branch. Tea and cookies served working on free WIFI while waiting for my car.

There will be one major service that cost us like RM1200 whereby they service the aircond as well. After that, I get this irritating screw rattling noice from inside dashboard. Took me 3 months to discover by dismantling the drawer myself to witness 1 nut missing and another loose dangling half way which caused the rattling noise. So some scumbag did a lousy lazy job here. Oh yes, I do get this poor odour occasionally emitting from the air cond vent which is really awful. Yeap.. engine hoses turned grey in a year time. Wind breaking sound is also very poor with all the poor quality rubbers.

My top 'acceleration' tested dozen times is 180km/h on straight road and the acceleration cuts off at that point. Only a long stretch or down slope will push my ALTIS to 190 or 195 max by far. Unless someone can modify the ECU to bypass the cut-off speed and do ROUND the CLOCK! Whoever did that... please give me some tips at albert.lim.78@gmail.com.

Despite all those problems, I have no complains with the pick up power going uphill, safety gear during downhill and the best off all the super clear sound system by FUJITSU CD player. My ALTIS has travel to Singapore like 6 times, PHUKET 2 times, Hatyai 4 times, Langkawi and all around Malaysia with no break down (touchwood)

Was eying on the latest CAMRY releasing sometime October 2006. But I think I will like to try out continental car this time, prolly a WW or AUDI or VOLVO to compare.