Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 05:02 pm, by: Glen Muller(Doom_and_gloom)
I lurked around here for ages before buying my Soarer, learning all I could about these fantastic machines before I made the commitment to buying one. All those times spent lurking, and all the time I spend on here now I own the car, with my (now) personal experience, leads me to believe that Soarers indeed have a mind of their own. Let me elaborate:
We all know just how awesome these cars are, but did anyone else's Soarer "test their patience" about a week after purchase? For the first week the car was just amazing - and then stuff starting going wrong.
1. I knew the car had been sitting around for a good 7 months before I purchased it, so I was fully aware that I'd need to give it a good service and clean up either the day I got it or the day after. Borrowed my girlfriend's dad's driveway, shed and tools for an afternoon since I didn't want to drive it back to Bendigo before changing lots of fluids. Done, awesome. Car felt better and idled more smoothly. Smoky exhaust disappeared.
2. I had a feeling the battery might be cactus, but it fired up beautifully when I collected the car. Wicked!
3. I pulled the A/C filters out to give them a clean. They were bloody putrid, and now they're a weird off-white. Gave them some smelly stuff. Instantly better.
4. I needed a new tyre for the RWC, but couldn't get a Dunlop Sport SP9090 in 235/45-R17 in any tyre joint in the Southern Hemisphere. Bought some Firestone Wide Oval jobbies - they feel good. Tyre rotation from front to rear, and Bob's my uncle. RWC passed, rego transferred.
Now here's where it goes pear-shaped!
1. I think I did some miles, because I planned to service her on 225,000km. It was on 223,000km when I got it, so a little run-in period with a follow-up service can't hurt... anyway, I'm already 200km over it! I've only had it for a few weeks... gahh!
2. The battery died. I had it's funeral today, and $180 extracted from the wallet to get a new one. At least I don't have to ask someone at the supermarket for a jump start.
3. The A/C bloody stinks now! HOW? I cleaned those filters til my hands were red and raw, dotted them with some of the girlfriend's perfume oil, and it only smelled like strawberry for a few days. It's worse than when I started, and yes the filters were bone dry when I put them back in!
Thank god I don't need tyres yet. Oh yeah, the EMV played funny buggers with me and I had to re-tune the radio stations a few times in one day. I still can't work out the TV and I'm mystified as to why my TEMS Sport light won't stay on.
But... I wouldn't have it any other way. Has anyone else's Soarer tested their patience a week or two after purchase, only to give you years of faultless service therein after?
I apologise for the lengthy story... it ended up being a bit of a rant.
Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 05:14 pm, by: Justin Wilson(Juzz51)
I've had mine for just over a year. With some of the stories on here, I think I've been really lucky. My Soarer never once gave me a problem. The only issue was the radio unit, which was annoy, but easily fixed when the money was available.
And now that it's come time to sell it, I can assure the next owner they will be pain free just like when I got it. Buy a Soarer with a brand new battery, front lower control arm bushes replaced, fixed radio unit, air con regass, how could you go wrong?
Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 05:24 pm, by: Karen Farmer(Angel_wings)
I have had mine for a mnth now.. I brought her from a dealer.. the day after i took her home the blinky dash started. Then two days after that i got a huge nail in my tyre.. Then i went to put a new cd deck in it.. but needed the whole thing re wired. All in a week!!! But now shes perfect
Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 05:31 pm, by: Glen Muller(Doom_and_gloom)
Justin Wilson wrote on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 05:14 pm:
Buy a Soarer with a brand new battery, front lower control arm bushes replaced, fixed radio unit, air con regass, how could you go wrong?
True that. Mine was fairly as-is, but I'm not whingeing about paying $8k for it. My old man doesn't know much about JDM imports and thought I was being ripped off for a 1992 model car, but after a visit to Red book he changed his tune!
Friday, January 18, 2008 - 06:52 am, by: Lawrence Ostle(Lawrence)
When you consider how old these cars are, the 'problems' are insignificant.
I have had brand new Ford company cars that have literally been in the 'shop EVERY month for one thing or another, including a broken cam belt at about 10000km which caused the engine to commit suicide.
Read the recent Unique Cars magazine for a Holden Statesman owners patience testing saga - now THERE are problems ....
If the complaints are it's 'too much driving', 'a new battery' and 'smelly a/c' - oh the humanity !!
As far as a nail in the tyre - you can hardly blame the car for that....!
Friday, January 18, 2008 - 09:14 am, by: Brenton Trafford(Traff)
I'm not sure if this will work, I'm thinking of doing it myself so if anyone out there has an idea of whether it will or not, please let us know. Here's what I'm planning, and Glen it may help your smelly a/c problem too.
I'm thinking of doing very similar to Glen, in terms of taking the a/c filters out, giving them a good clean and putting some nice smelling oil/air freshener on them before replacing (or replacing with new ones). Whilst I have them out, is it worthwhile running the a/c and spraying something like Glen20 or an air freshener into the space where the a/c filters normally are in an attempt to get that through all the pipework? Will this help with a smelly a/c??
Friday, January 18, 2008 - 06:17 pm, by: Luke Barnes(Noddy)
only troubles i've had were the front brakes, and the engine electrical warning..
The brakes... The top slider pin was locked solid on the drivers side. Took it to the brake specialist here in town, they couldn't free it.. I had to heat the bridge around the pin to expand it enough for the pin to release.. a caliper kit and a new pin, and new pads sorted the rest of the problem. brakes are now more responsive than ever!!
engine electrical warning... this one still has me stuffed.. if i don't start the car for a week or so, it will smell like fuel, run on 4 or 6 cyclinders, smoke like hippie, and shuuder like a nude eskimo. sometimes it will clear after an hour, other times, a day or 2. either way, it has me stuffed.. it goes as long as i start it once every 4 or 5 days...
and the stacker laser broke too.... still can't find one of them to get to damian... other than that, shes a ripsnorter!
Friday, January 18, 2008 - 07:22 pm, by: Karyn Cornwill(Limesoarer)
I;ve been pretty lucky with my soarer, Had some air con problems fixed and had to replace the fuel ecu apart from that no probs, Just about to have the hundred thousand service done ( hope its only done a hundred thousand) going by the condition of everything it looks that way, I have a warning light come up on the dash occasionally but think its just a faulty sensor as it runs like a dream hopefully it stays that way lol
Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 06:34 am, by: Justin Cook(Justin)
My car has never given me any problems, but I gave it problems. After heavy modifing it ran like crap, then I put it back to stock and its lovely again.
I seem to have a lot of problems with the wheel plastics on the passenger side, always rubbing and scuffing...but thats about it! 5.25 years now too...
Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 09:21 am, by: Tom Nicol(Goosemonger)
I bought my Soarer a bit over 1 year ago. Drove fine the first couple of days, then I was just checkin out the engine bay, seems like the bloke who sold it to me got a dodgy RWC, the oil on the dipstick was black, and the radiator "coolant" was brown water. So I went and got a complete service and a radiator power flush. So all happy after that. But then... After giving the car a run for it's money to see what it could do, the diff •••• itself! So my mechanic was nice enough to fix it up at his own house for me, and he tracked down a replacement diff. Turned out to be one of the best things that happened to the car, cause when he told me he got hold of a diff, he said "It's a limited slip... is that ok?". So I'm like "HELL yeah!"
After all that, the car goes perfectly now. Almost like it's new! And it just ticked over 215000kms.
Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 12:17 pm, by: Glen Muller(Doom_and_gloom)
Funny how people see how many km your Soarer has, spot over 200,000 on the clock, and go "man this thing's been around!" in some smart-arsey fashion.
Then you casually remind them that it's 15 years old, and that works out to less than 15,000km a year... and that a 1UZ is good for a lot more km's than that! Toyota, Lexus, BMW.. can't beat 'em for reliability.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 06:24 pm, by: Brian Timms(Turbo_brian)
Bought mine about a yr ago now (woohoo, time for the car's birthday)...
Anyway, bought the car without rego, so I couldn't legally test drive it, so I went through the diag port, started it cold, rocked up 2 hours early one day to test it, and was happy.
drove it home (yep, unregistered), and when I got home it was making squealy noises on the power steering, re-filled it, and found 2 pin-holes in the main pipe.
Quoted $1600 from Toyota, ended up going to Pirtek the next day to get it fixed (had to also get it inspected for rego and CTP insurance, so needed the car fixed.
2 weeks later, it wouldn't start until I frigged with the battery, had to short the system and it would start. Thought it was the immobiliser, sent it to an auto sparky to get the aftermarket rubbish removed, and he came back claiming it was a battery terminal as well, so he replaced the battery, the terminal, and removed the aftermarket immobiliser.
8 weeks later it was bringing up clink-on messages constantly, to the point where I put the damn thing in the trading post, but I couldn't part to let it go, and I never sold it.
Finally found the messages where water getting into the top of the suspention, found the leak, fixed it, and it's never come back.
Middle of the year, the damn thing wouldn't find 2nd gear, turns out a gearbox solenoid failed, so I had to manually select 1st to take off at lights.
Got new solenoids, did a replacement, and also flushed the box.
Just recently, the starter motor gave out, having to be convinced to start, so I replaced the starter and she's all good.
Now I have lent the car to a friend while his gets a new clutch (torn his clutch apart tuning an Apexi boost controller and hitting boost cut, but the manufacturer is replacing the clutch under warranty).
My friend loves my car, I love the car, and when he's done with it, I am taking if off the road, respraying it, and cleaning it up completely.
Would I sell it, HELL NO!!
Total cost of allmy heartache, probably about $2000 for the year, and another $400 in the servicing and parts as well, so $2400 for 12 months isn't a great deal.
B.
Dave Billings Goo Roo Louisiana SC 300, 2JZE, 5 Speed
Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 05:08 pm, by: Brett Muir(Beveldrive)
I bought my '92 TT Soarer in Feb.2004 with only 51,000kays on the clock, three months later I used her at my wedding,with my bride's father on chauffeuring duty (much to his delight)while I rode to the event on my gorgeous old '78 Ducati escorted by a bunch of mates on their bikes. A couple of days later in the middle of our honeymoon on the Noosa hinterland the Soarer started to play up, she would fire up & run for about 20 seconds before dying, this left us stranded in the small town of Cooroy about a 1/2hr. drive from our accommodation. Thank goodness for country hospitality, a local mechanic towed the car to his workshop where we tried unsuccessfully to find the problem, he then gave us a lift back to our holiday house & arranged for the car to be towed to Gympie where repairs could be better carried out.He didn't charge us a cent!
Luckily we still had the bike to get around on but had to ride home to Brisbane in pouring rain, upon arriving home the clutch cable snapped on the bike(a lucky break?). A week later we got the Soarer back home, it turned out to be a faulty fuel pump relay. The only other problems I've had with the car were a blown turbo oil line, aircon.compressor,radiator and recently I had to replace the water pump.Apart from that I get an ABS waring and the solenoid goes crazy, usually when the car is cold,the brakes seem to be working fine though. Whats been bugging me lately is a smoky exhaust, it's been happening for quite some time now and used to be intermittent,only occurring when the car got hot in traffic or when the aircon was turned on, as soon as I got onto the freeway it would clear up but now the problem seems to be getting worse, has anyone out there got an idea as to what could be causing this? I still love my car!
Monday, January 28, 2008 - 11:50 am, by: Glen Muller(Doom_and_gloom)
That's the thing. Most things mechanical treat you the way you treat it. My Soarer was lovingly cared for by a die hard enthusiast before I came along, just the period of sitting dormant before I bought it forced a few things into need of repair. It's all apples now... and everyone I know is jealous!
Monday, January 28, 2008 - 08:42 pm, by: Brett Muir(Beveldrive)
G'day guys, I hope no-one thinks that just because I've had a few things go wrong I don't look after my car, after all my Soarer is 16yrs. old, and for the 4yrs. of my ownership has been serviced every 5000kays.Recently a new timing belt kit was installed along with new platinum plugs. Vehicles of this age are bound to have something give way sooner or later especially if they are driven almost daily (as mine is) or not babied all the time. Still would like to hear some opinions on the smoky exhaust, I've heard it's a reasonably common occurrence with Soarers.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 09:33 am, by: Callum Finch(Sigeneat)
Brett, you would be surprised at how many Soarers have bucket lots go wrong with them and the owners choose to do nothing about it due to ignorance or penny pinching. One of the main reasons why the market is in the state it is.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 10:27 am, by: Glen Muller(Doom_and_gloom)
Brett Muir wrote on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 08:42 pm:
Still would like to hear some opinions on the smoky exhaust, I've heard it's a reasonably common occurrence with Soarers.
Mine did when I first went to see it. Also had a tapping noise coming somewhere from the engine, deduced that both problems were due to all the oil sitting down in the sump and too much friction causing oil to burn and parts rubbing together. Nothing an oil change didn't fix!
Other than that, I only get smoke from the exhaust when I give it a damn good hard rev, but that's as common as dogshit amongst all vehicles, motorcycles included!
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