Re: My ONE complaint with my Scion tC

There's too MUCH padding! You sit on top of the seat, not in it like the old Toyota seats. And there is no lumbar adjustment, and whoever designed the seat got a little overzealous on the lumbar region, and it pushes you forward.

And, where the handle for the seatback release on the side of the driver's seat is, the cloth is separating from under the plastic trim and you can see seat foam. I didn't notice this until I changed the seat covers yesterday.

I wonder if Supra seats will fit...

Trip comfort isn't an issue. I can drive a long time. But the bottom of the seat pushes you up, and the back of the seat pushes you forward.

I don't drive the car a lot since I use one of my fleet of beaters most of the time for work or for trips to the store less than ~10 miles. Maybe if I sat in it more the seats would 'break in', but I never had to do that with a Toyota before.

1983 Celica GTS seats...

1971 Chevrolet van I used to own.The seats were uncomfortable for me.I went to an auto junkyard and I bought a drivers seat from an old Mitsubishi car.(I think it was a Mitsubishi, I don't exactly remember now) I installed that seat in my van.It had a knob I could turn for lumbar support and I could lean the seat backwards and forwards too.That was a good seat. cuhulin

What I have found is that adjustment is really important in my case. I have a bad back, some vertebral disc damage from long ago.

Our Avalon seats are very adjustable, and I find this makes a lot of difference on a long trip.. In addition, if I dont take my billfold out of my right hip pocket and leave it in the dash compartment, just that half inch or so of thickness will send me to the chiropractor.

Yup. Never had a problem like this with a Toyota before. Usually comfortable seats.

My Honda was good, too, but I think the most comfortable car is an '89 Subaru I have.

I used to see Corollas and Tercels with the seats and stereo from ripped off from Celica GTS

Think your mom would notice if you swapped the seats from her car?

Interesting. In all my years of Toyota ownership, I have only had to replace one belt tensioner on an '86 Corolla.

So, what's the surprise?

The tensioner appears to be a common trouble spot on the tC, at least that's what we gleaned from tech forums while researching the issue. (We also discovered his water pump was leaking and replaced that as well.)

That would be telling.

There are only four possibilities for repairs on these cars:

1. The engine has to come out

1. The transaxle has to come out

2. The radiator has to come out

1. The dashboard has to come apart.

Now, there are some possible combinations of these involved, like the repairs that require the engine AND the transaxle to come out. And in this case we can rule out the dashboard.

If you're VERY lucky, you should hope it's the radiator.

--scott

Well, what you will find when you attempt to remove the bolt the tensioner pivots on is that it is about 1/4" too long to come out. The head of the bolt hits the frame rail. Absolutely a brain-dead, uncaring design.

I imagine the factory-recommended method of replacing this bolt is to pull out the engine. (Eyes roll!) On a Scion tech forum an alternate method offered up was to basically unbolt the subframe, one of the motor mounts, and the exhaust system to rotate the engine at enough of an angle to R&R the bolt.

After much evaluation of things like the rusty exhaust pipes (it's a 2006 Scion tC with near 60,000 miles) and what deep dark places we might be going into, we came up with another plan. What we ultimately did was to purchase a replacement bolt from the dealer for a few bucks and hacksaw the original to get it out. We then "custom modified" the new bolt so it was short enough to go in, and used blue Loctite to prevent it from backing out.

This was back in the spring. The bolt has not budged, but it will be checked at every service interval (oil change) to make sure it does not start to come loose. Note that if anyone takes this shortcut on their tC it is at your own risk -- this was definitely a hack job and I accept no responsibility if someone tries it and screws their car up!

As I mentioned when we got in there we also found the water pump was leaking, traces of the pink Toyota coolant could be seen down the side of the engine. Very disappointing on an engine this new.

The pump was straightforward to replace, but the rubber O-ring gasket used on the original is not available. The factory recommendation is to use a bead of Permatex Ultra Black RTV in the channel where the O-ring would go. The replacement pump came with a paper gasket (not used on the original). We went with the factory recommended RTV instead of the paper gasket and it's been fine. But what the hell is in that Toyota coolant that makes it worth $25.00/gallon in a 50/50 mix with water? (That's actually $50/gallon for the coolant itself!) Cripes!

BTW, I am very sympathetic with your initial problem of bad seats. I've been driving the same car for over 30 years (1975 AMC Hornet). I purchased the car when it was just a few years old. The original seats were backbreakers with no support at all. I suffered with them for a while trying things like pillows etc., but they were just miserable despite the reclining feature. They had obviously been designed just to be cheap and to save space. (Quite a surprise since earlier Ramblers came with nice, comfy coil-spring and foam seats.) I finally got more comfortable individual seats from another AMC model, (junkyard wreck) which bolted in place. Big improvement. Hope you find something suitable to save your back!

Or you could use bolt cutters, instead of that tedious hacksawing. cuhulin

"Was" or "is." If they are still selling it, I'd like to go buy a couple of gallons. I am surrounded by Toyota's and like to keep the right stuff on hand.

Ed

When I was the thread title, I was expecting a discussion about the tC's poor gas mileage.

The original with the 1.5 engine was rated as 38. We looked for one, not knowing they had made them bigger and the sticker said 22/30. That seemed like a backwards move to me.

I'm talking the tC here. The tC always came with the 2.7 VVTi engine.

The xBox and the xA came with the 1.5L 'tercel' motor.

The one you looked at must have been the second iteration of the xBox, that got the 2.7L as standard equipment after Toyota realized they were losing the youth market with an underpowered motor.

I HATE VWs, but the one thing I will say about them: all the motor mouting points are the same, so you can put just about any VW engine in any model.

If Toyota did this, you could 'order' a car with an engine to your liking. My "Hachiroku" was an upgraded version of the SR5 (The SR5 was the downgraded version of the GTS?) and even though you could swap engines, the bracing and the suspension were quite different. The GTS was a delicious handling car, and while the SR5 was fun, it just wasn't the same.

That was good 20-30 years ago. Today I expect better, in fact much better. I think part of the problem is people accepting crappy gas mileage like that and thinking that it's "good".

The thing is, cars today aren't really any better than they were 20-30 years ago. In some respects some of them are worse.

People who are used to working in the computer field where everything changes dramatically all the time often develop unrealistic expectations about technological change elsewhere.

Try driving a Model A some time. It's 90 years old and really it's not so different than a modern car. It would be fine for a short commute every day.

--scott

but they don't have a choice. as engines have gotten better, car weights have gone up substantially, so any fuel efficiency gains have been consumed by the extra energy expenditure necessary to lug 30%-50% more mass about.

this is the dirty little secret about the current emphasis on making cars "safer" by making them heavier - they consume more gas. and worse, because they're heavier, they're harder to stop and control, thus are more prone to accidents in the first place. fact: high strength race cars with safety cages that can withstand much greater crash velocities than road cars can weigh in at less than 1000lbs. there aren't many passenger cars that weigh in at less than 3000lbs today. has the oil industry paid any attention to how passenger car "safety" can be "influenced" in the last two decades? youbetcha.