Toyota's Suck

"...skewed view of foreign cars as there really aren't that many on the road..."

Brucie, it's your world view that's skewed up beyond belief.

What do you think has happened to Detroit over the last 30 years? Automakers in Japan, Korea, Europe are making cars that get 35-50 mpg while GM morons are making Humvees for Americans to drive to the mall. What's wrong with that picture?

"Windsurfer" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

As far as I can tell Toyota does not require routine replacement of the fuel filter. So why are you complaining? Were you having a problem that you diagnosed as a clogged fuel filter? I replacing the fuel filter really that hard? I though it was mounted on the frame rail under the passenger side. Looks like a couple of bolted fittings and a couple of mounting bolts is all that is involved. The fuel filter on my old (1992) F150 was in a similar location. You didn't need wrenches to replace it, but you did need a special tool to release the quick connect fittings, and they tended to "stick" after a time. I would have preferred screw fittings. My Nissan Frontier doesn't even have an external fuel filter. The only filter is the one in the tank, so unless I want to remove the tank, there is no way to replace it. My SO's old Chrysler van did not have a specified interval for fuel filter replacement. For whatever reason I decided it needed to be replaced. What a pain. Although it was external to the tank and had quick connect fittings, you still had to partially lower the fuel tank to get to the fittings on the top side of the tank. Clearly Chrysler did not think routine fuel filter replacement was required (and it only got 1 in 200k miles). My Sister's old Civic had an easy to see fuel filter, but it did require wrenches. At around 25k miles I replaced it. Later I was talking to one of the local Honda mechanics and he said I wasted my money. He said they never needed replacing. So, I never replaced it again. When she sold the car at 150k miles, the filter I installed was still in place (125k miles later). The fuel filter on that '97 Civic looked very much like the one for your

4Runner. On the other hand, Ford seems to encourage routine fuel filter replacement, and their filters have those quick connect type fitting you like. However, for my 1997 Expedition they placed the filter in a place that was so hard to access I actually paid someone else to do the work. By the time I replaced the 1997 Expedition with a 2003 they figured out a better location, so I could do it myself. I also owned a 2001 Saturn Vue. Like Toyota, Nissan, and Chrysler, GM did not specify a routine fuel filter replacement interval. Furthermore, the fuel filter was completely buried and did not use quick connect fittings. So apparently GM decided Toyota was doing it right, or at least right for some applications. Do you think GM waited for Toyota to come up with this innovation so they could steal it?

Ed

So you replaced something that didn't need replacing, and you are complaining that it was hard to do?

Ed

What the hell kind of Toyota are you driving?

There isn't much you can't do on a Toyota with one of the above mentioned tools. Or, sometimes, no tool at all.

Forget it! The whole discussion's not even worth pursuing any more. The OP is whining because he's missing the most important tool of all: A hydraulic lift. Next time you go to your mechanic, tell him that next time you stop by, you want him to do the exact same repairs mentioned in the OP's first message. But, you want him to do the repairs without the lift.

Let us know what he says.

"...whining because he's missing the most important tool of all..."

Common sense.

BTW.... "swiftwater" = "windsurfer" = a zillion other wacky aliases on Google Groups. The guy's a certified fruitcake.

Yeah, right!

A lift, A lift, my Kingdom for a lift!!!

There are some things I actually *pay* to have done just because I don't have one.

Anyone make one that can be placed outdoors...?

I've seen in-ground hydraulic lifts placed outdoors, and "portable" scissors lifts, but I have not seen permanent outdoor lifts other than parking lifts.

Why do you find that dishonest?

Can you replace the brake pads on a late model GM with those tools?

Brake pads are easy to replace on any GM vehicle. You need three tools. However, with a thousand tools at my disposal, I can't correctly install this Fuel Filter.

Does the service manual offer any tips?

Maybe the problem is not the thousand tools and not the service manual but instead is the incompetent idiot trying to do the job.

I wasn't able to replace the brake pads on a friend's GM with just the tools you listed above. Can you share some tips on how to get around having to get around having to use the large Allen sockets and cleaning the rust out of the bolt heads so the Allen socket will fit deep enough to turn the bolt?

Does your 4Runner have the canister in-line type fuel filter? What kind of difficulties did you run into when changing it? Were the fuel lines hard to loosen? The ones mounted in the engine compartment are hard to reach but the ones mounted underneath the vehicle are pretty easy to reach.

I grew up in the northeast. And every once and awhile my dad would rent a lift from the local gas station owner (anyone could rent it by the hour). It was an in ground, outdoor hydaulic lift. Can you imagine being able to rent one of those today (in doors or out)?

With all the lawsuits that took place between then and now, it's not a likely scenario. Ah the good old days, when you could spend a crisp fall day playing under a lift (at the age of 6) while your dad worked on his car..LOL..

As far as toyo's being hard to work on, I was a tech before I got sensitve to chemicals and fumes. In a retail garage we'd fight over the toyota v. the american POS. If anyone considers the repair tech at all, it's toyota. I enjoy working on mine now..

When I last lived in Long Island (1970s to 1982), there was a place with a bunch of lifts for rent. It closed its doors just before I moved away. I suspect liability was the reason. Now, I watch my mechanic place the lift "pads" under my truck in precisely the right place, and he's commented that doing it just a little wrong could result in his having a very interesting day.

There's probably a fixed percentage of "public" that would get it wrong. I wouldn't want to be writing the insurance policy for a place that rented lifts.

Ahh yes, I remember rent-a-bay locations. In the 70's lots of old time gas stations started renting out bays when they started losing revenue (self service gas stations and cars that needed less routine maintenance, were killing off old style full service stations). I worked in the Detroit are in the winter of 1978. I owned a 1975 Datsun

208Z and the clutch was acting up. I decided to replace it myself and rented a bay. The damn transmission in that thing weighed a ton! And the clutch alignment tool the store that sold me the clutch lent me sucked. It took me at least four tries to get the transmission back in place. I was only able to succeed by adding a layer of duct tape to the alignment tool to get it to fit tighter. I think I spent 5 hours doing a 2 hour job. And in the end, my arms ached like h**l. That was my last experience with a rent a bay. The next couple of transmission I did I used jack stands and laid on my back. It was actually easier since I could use the floor jack to lift the transmission. My favorite local garage doesn't even have a lift. They do everything with jack stands.

Ed

I don't think Toyota is any better or worse than other companies. Some Toyotas are good, some are bad. The worst POS I ever worked on was a mid 80's Cressida. It was engineered by demons.

Ed

>

A high-lift transmission jack would have made the job a lot easier!

I found Cressidas to be pretty good, reliable cars, other than the leaky engines, which caused enough brain damage to make people forget about the rest of the car. ;-)