Right, I'll talk about the maintenance first. This time, as usual went back to Vision Auto again (located in Bangsar, their website is www.tomsracing.com.my). This time I'll need to give it a major service, which include the regular oil change, brake check, automatic transmission oil change, spark plug change, wheel alignment & balancing, and a system diagnosis. This time however I need to change the wiper again, which I thought that's pretty fast!!! Well, I did notice that the wiper is not able to wipe the windscreen during rainy days, so I gave them the green light to change it. This time also, the other side of the drive shaft boot is showing wearing sign as well, so I have to replace it as well. All in all, the total as accumulated to RM 1,700.00++. Well, if I didn't change the drive shaft boot, it will be RM 600 less. The reason for that extra RM600 is because of the price of the part + labour costs. Yes, they'll charge extra for other parts changes, which they have already stated in their pricing info, so I'm totally fine with it.
But strangely however the drive shaft boots wearing out. So I asked the servicing manager that attended to my car on what could be the cause to this issue. He told me it can be caused by constant stretching of that section, normally will only happened during turning in corner. Ouch, I guess it has to do with my driving habit then because I do have a few times driving it fast through a corner. Isis is not designed to be a car for high speed cornering, so it's definitely my bad. But anyway, thank goodness that they're able to help me to identify that issue, otherwise I may ended up paying a lot more if the whole drive shaft is damaged.
After the service though, I do noticed that during driving, it's producing some high pitch sound. However, as with my previous experience, my Isis would occasionally produce those sound. I have no idea why, but the mechanic in Vision auto told me that just drive it for a while first, and if the sound is coming out very frequently, only then send it back to them for a check. So, will just have to drive it a while first to observe it.
Now, back to the questions that been asked a while back (sorry again...).
- For the location of the Vision Auto, it's already mentioned above.
- As to how much I bought mine? Well, I bought mine back in 2007 for a cost of RM140K. Mine is also a 2005 model, single automatic door, 1.8L, no rear camera, with body kit, no extra gadget. The 2.0L version comes with either 2WD or 4WD, and it would have 20 more horse power, but a lower mileage/liter average than the 1.8L. The 1.8L could give 14KM/L, whereas 2.0L could give 11KM/L, according to the published spec in the official Japanese Toyota website. Those spec is accurate because so far my Isis does 14KM/L based on the indicator from the on board panel, even after 5 years of driving it.
- So far I have no issue with this car because it fits my purpose pretty well. The main reason for me to have this car is because I want to be able to fetch people esp. older people with comfort, but within whatever I could afford (the maintenance fee, road tax, etc). I can't afford an Estima or Alphard or Vellfire, so this is my choice. It is not a fast car, so can't expect much from that perspective. But I'd dare to say that it's a comfortable passenger car (minus the passenger in the last row if they're tall people...). Plus, its seat arrangement is really a plus, which can be used to carry stuff around (but not sure about bicycle because I haven't tried it yet). So, it can be considered as a good car for day to day living, if POWER!!! is not really of a concern. However, I do need to point out some issue here. The basic model may not have the air conditioning in the last row, which can be quite inconvenient esp. during hot day and the car is full with passengers.
- I've often heard about people saying that the spare part of this car is really hard to find. Well, one thing I need to say is that the windscreen? Yes, it can be very hard to find the windscreen replacement. But as for the engine, and the drive train? I don't think it's an issue because it uses the 1ZZ-FE engine, which is exactly the same engine used in the previous (the one before the current facelift model) Toyota Corolla Altis. The automatic transmission of mine is also the same as that model of Altis. Plus, most of the Toyota models as I read from the official Toyota Japanese website, almost most of them are sharing the same engine and drive train, i.e. Toyota Isis and Toyota Wish, both are using the same engine and the same transmission for their 1.8 and 2.0 model. So if it's engine parts, I don't think it's of any issue. Of course , the cosmetic spare parts would be a different story, such as the windscreen that I mentioned earlier.
One interest thing to note. In Japan, the Isis has been updated with newer engine back in 2007 and 2009. I'm not sure if they've done any more update in 2011 or last year, but as far as I could see from the specification sheet, the latest model after 2009, is using a newer engine, that would give a lot more mileage/liter at the same if not more horse power. I.e. the 1.8L would do 15KM/L as compare to mine which is 14KM/L. Well, don't look down on the 1KM/L extra though, imagine 40 liters of gasoline, with that extra 40Km, I could travel for another extra trip before filling it up again, which can be quite handy. The only surprising element for me in the latest model is that the 4WD is only available on the 1.8L version but not the 2.0 version, which is kind of strange.
Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to check this blog more often now so that I won't missed out anymore questions.
