1998 Toyota Avalon XL from North America - Comments

The muffler was replaced at 100 miles to eliminate an annoying hum when accelerating up a hill. The tires needed to be replaced at 14,000 miles. The dealer said that I should be happy that they were wearing evenly. Our next visit is to replace the bushings with a new design. This was not a recall, however since the car is still under warranty they will replace them for free. The sound is more definite on roads that are washboard like. We also have an engine light that will not turn off.

We are very disappointed with the car. For the price we paid we expected a better quality vehicle. The tires have left a nasty taste in our mouth. The dealer told us that 15000 miles is normal and we were right on schedule for replacing them.

I have a 1997 Avalon XLS purchased new in June of '97. During the 12 month warranty period, car developed clanking sound in the front brake calipers which were re-shimmed by the dealer at no charge under the warranty. Since that time, the clanking has returned and the dealer tells me that this condition is now "out-of-warranty" and correcting this condition will be at my expense. Has anyone out there heard of this condition or is it peculiar to my car alone? Has anyone heard of a "silent recall" for this problem?

I bought a certified 1997 Toyota Avalon XLS in November of 2001 and couldn't be happier. It runs superbly and looks like it just came out of a showroom. The closest thing to a Mercedes that I could imagine. It is so quiet that it is hard to hear the engine or to discern that the car is even turned on.

I sympathize with people who bought what appear to be "lemons" but- I want to say that this has not been my experience by a long shot. This is a well-engineered car that absolutely "purrs" on the road. I LOVE this car.

Hi I own a Toyota Avalon XLS 2000 and my wonderful experience started when I was at the dealership buying the car and it has been bliss ever since my car runs wonderful and Toyota keeps it well maintained for my I am a Toyota customer for life.

I purchased a Toyota Avalon XL 1998 model new from Houston. The car today has 57,000 miles. By no means can I say that I am a happy customer. I have had my share of problems over the past 5 years that I owned it. During the early part of the cars life ie first two years, I had problems with the steering column and steering wheel slip. This took about 4 trips to the dealership before it finally got resolved. Next I started to have an annoying hum in the muffler on acceleration. This problem was never identified by Toyota. I finally located this problem after a detailed inspection at Midas Muffler. They say a baffle inside the muffler is vibrating. At 35000 miles I had a smoke problem followed by engine sludge problem. Toyota claimed it was poor maintenance on my part. After a lot of correspondence with Toyota, arbitration and finally after joining a Toyota Avalon users group that was fighting for the same issue with Toyota we finally got Toyota to admit that their 3.0L engines did have problems. They finally rebuilt my whole engine at 50000 miles at their cost. I paid over 27000 for this car. I think this model of Toyota is not worth the money they charge for it. Those that have had good luck with it are just lucky.