2002 Toyota Corolla T-Sport - 3dr review from Portugal

The suspention was not the most appropriate to the performance of the car. I began to change the original springs with TTE springs, lowering 3cm. Notice that TTE springs are in fact Eibach springs, as I could check on the springs documentation. The springs would jump out of their correct positions because the shock absorbers were extending more than expected. I changed then for Kony Sport, now limiting the extending of the absorbers in less 2 cms. Now the springs do not move out of their positions.

I had a water loss in the refrigeration circuit. It was not significant, but it was necessary to change a metal pipe that was part of the circuit.

Now comes my huge problem. I always had the car assisted in Toyota's representatives. My car is currently with 119.700Km. Around one week ago I started feeling strange noise from the engine when curving to the left. I went to Toyota, they tested the car and said it should be an exhaust pipe noise, so I could wait a few days for the 120.000 revision to check the problem. 3 days after I was driving at around 4000 rpm when suddenly the engine started to make a huge noise, like when two pieces of metal are beaten one against the other. At the same time, 3 lights turned on - the engine problem light, the VSC light and the TRC OFF light. It was Sunday. I checked the manual about these lights and the instructions were to get the car to Toyota dealer. Nothing was mentioned about not using the engine anymore. I drove back home, for about 25Km, removed all the things I had in the car to prepare it to go to Toyota in the next day. I ordered a tow to avoid extra problems. Late that night I remembered to check the oil level, despite the oil warning light never went on. For my surprise, there was almost no oil in the engine, as I had to add 2 liters to reach the minimum required quantity of oil in the engine. After adding the oil, the noise from the engine was quite reduced. The problem is that now Toyota says that my can engine is quite ruined, needing a repair much higher than 5000€. They have shown me the layers of the knuckles completely smashed. Now my questions are:

1 - shouldn't the oil light be on? A car that never had problems consuming oil should not require frequent oil level checks;

2 - As I took the car to Toyota and they tested it, saying that the reported noise could be resolved in the next revision, aren't they responsible for this situation, as they did not evaluate it properly?

3 - The garage responsible said that I should not use the engine immediately after the engine yellow light turns on, so it was my fault. However, the user manual just says to take the car to Toyota, not to stop using it immediately;

4 - Finally, how did the car spent around 3 liters of oil in 15000 Km, as there is no oil leakage in the engine, there is no smoke in the exhaust pipe, it does not present any oil marks and I park the car in my garage and there in no oil on the floor!!

Does anyone had such a problem? Can someone help me?

So far, I only had a good opinion about Toyota and, despite it is 5,5 years old, I intended to keep it for a long, long time.

The only design problem I could mention was related with its suspension, which was too soft for such a powerful car.

Now my oppinion has completely changed. I do not intend to spend such an amount of money repairing the car, so I consider that Toyota has a great responsibility on what happened. I am still waiting for their statement, but do not expect anything positive for me. I had 4 cars from Citroen in the past and never had such a problem.