Opinions on toyota deisel vans

[IH8TEC]

Right, once my car is sold, looking at toyota vans.

now what can i expect to get for around 5-6k, something nice, no rust or dents etc, and CHEAP TO RUN.

most have a poo load of kms on them, how much of a problem is this?

also what size would be best to look for, 2.4L, 2.8L, 3.0? would have to be manual. i know my mates one had 300+ kms when he got it, 2.8L deisel, 700kms to $60 deisel, goes alright. most i'd be carrying in the back would be two motox bikes and tools.

i know a turbo one would be better power wise, but what about economy reliability, is the head problem only turbo ones or both?

any help much, advice, or opinions much appreciated, or even links to trademe,

cheers
brendon

[sergei]

Don't get liteace/townace crap.
Stick with Hiace. Hiace comes with 2 major variants: non-commercial and commercial (generally). Most non turbo will be commercial, they have stiffer springs, no interior at the back, and real basic at the front. Then there are stuff like Custom, Super Custom, GL, Super GL etc. These would have some or complete interrior as well as some or complete sets of seats, Customs will have people mover kind of seats at the back.
Your best bet in my opinion getting a GL with 2.8 or 3.0 non turbo.
Turbos go bloody well, but they need good maintenance to pull through the same kms as non turbo with neglect.
You will get up to over 1 million kms with a non turbo Hiace without overhaul. Just the usual cambelt/water pump/diesel pump seals routine.
Watch out for leaky pump seals, last time I did it set me back $580 for fuel pump overhaul and 5 hours of labour (my own), as it is pretty much equivalent of cam belt job.
My dad had a 400,000km Hiace SuperGL with 2.4 diesel, it was slow but reliable (except fuel pump incident, or dropping wallet in engine bay muntering power steering pulley incident). They are not real cheap to run though in terms of fuel, fuel consumption would be 10-12L/100km city, and then you have to pay RUC on top which is very expensive in my opinion. Diesel only pays when you write off costs to business, or you run it on McDonalds.

[johndoe1025]

if they looked after, they fine, we got 3 2.4 l diesel 2L vans at our work, one on 170, one on 268, one on 280. funnily enough the one thats the best is the 280k one. not very fast but with regular maintanence they fine. ours have never been apart. bear in mind they are slow as shit, i no for a fact its top speed is about 145kph hahaha and thats absolutely going for it. they go quick enough to keep up[ with traffic, and wev had ours loaded past the windows with rubble, aparently when it went to the scrap weigh station it was like 7 ton, not sure how reliable/accurate that is though

[finx]

i do allot of the toyota servicing at work and there isnt allot that goes wrong with the old hiaces.
i do regular services on the fleet vehicles for 3 of our biggest customers and theres a good dozen over 600,000km and still going strong. all be it compleetly wrecked cos they have had so many ruff as people behind the wheels but mechanicly still in good condition. regular servicing and maintanice as said above is the key.
cam belts, shocks, brakes, the odd universal joint in the driveshaft, spring hanger bushs, belts, glow plugs, hoses and filters are about as much greif as we ever get from them. even the higher km ones

not a hiace but i do the work on an old 1990 2.4L (origonaly 2.8l) 4wd hilux for pipeline and civil limited. now this thing has done 500,000km. been rolled onto its roof no less than 3 times, blown up, and driven through swamps for its entire life and is still going strong!
shows how well these things are designed. allot of the tech in these things was crossed over to the hiaces's as well so its not supprising they are the best work vehicles out there.

the 2.8L do go allot better than the 2.4 but theses nothing wrong with the latter. turbo ones go rediculiously well and chugg up most hills like they werent even there. but as stated above dont tend to last quite as long. will still see 500,000km easily with regular servicing thou.

[IH8TEC]

good to hear guys, what sort of year era seems to be best ie 1990 - 1992 etc

[sergei]

good to hear guys, what sort of year era seems to be best ie 1990 - 1992 etc

They are pretty much the same, just watch out for rust.
Later ones have ball joint as integral part of arms, while older ones have discrete (cheaper to replace). While engine (apart from some extra emission controls) are being pretty much the same.

[johndoe1025]

we got 1990 to 1992s, the inport shape with the squarer front (if you know what i mean lol, hard to describe)

[Lloyd]

As Sergei says, they are all much the same. Places to watch for rust are at the front of the rear side windows, top of the rear pillars where you can see when the boot is open, and at the bottom of the A pillars (the very bottom by your right foot). Usually pretty good otherwise on rust

The ball joint that are part of the arms aren't too badly priced and once you've done them once you usually don't have to do them again. They usually all have some play to a degree but the ones like that have a torsion bar on the top arm which takes up any of the play anyway.

All the L series diesels are pretty good engines, the exception being the turbo 2.4s. Have seen a few with 600,000+ kms on still going fine having never had the engine opened up. One with 800,000kms that did its first head but that was an owners fault. As courier vans you couldn't get anything better.

If you want to look at Liteace/Townace stuff the turbo C series are pretty good engines and go well. Non turbo stuff is reliable but generally pretty gutless. Go for the Hiace if you can as they're a much better vehicle.

[Mr Revhead]

also beware of lowered hiaces, if to low they can suffer cracking around the torsion bar mount

[IH8TEC]

also beware of lowered hiaces, if to low they can suffer cracking around the torsion bar mount

good to know thanks warrick, cause i've seen a few nice ones that are lowered, properly in the back and wound down torsion bars.

[escortman]

2 of my mates own hiaces
1 is lwb 3.0l had superlow model stickers or something like that on all it is is that theres no wheel wells and u lose 6ins of floor height haha

other is swb 2.4 with 8gs worth of airbrushing looks mean lowered on tickford magz and to our amazment had coils springs in the back

also beware of lowered hiaces, if to low they can suffer cracking around the torsion bar mount

will tell him to check these though, the things sits just off the bumps but damn its corners flat haha


but yeh both are pushing 300000+ and still goin hard

[Mr Revhead]

yeah supercustoms (kzh100s) have a coil spring rear end, and are not best suited to carrying loads.. they can, but you need to buy uprated springs. they are designed as a ppl carrier

[escortman]

yeah supercustoms (kzh100s) have a coil spring rear end, and are not best suited to carrying loads.. they can, but you need to buy uprated springs. they are designed as a ppl carrier

o yeh that would explain how the spare wheel carries unhooked it self when we packed it out 20 deep

[Quint]

Me and my brother each own a Hilux, one with the 2.8 and the other with the 2.4 turbo diesel.

In our opinion the 2.8 is alot better, the 2.4 Turb goes harder but hes on his 2nd turbo now which is $&#$% out so he'll be onto his 3rd turbo. I've had no problems with the 2.8, both are pushing upwards of 400,000.

NOTE: Remove the AC to help prevent overheating, the extra core infront of the radiator can be enough to bump up the temp on big hauls.

[99gtt]

just get a petrol one far less hassel

[johndoe1025]

just get a petrol one far less hassel

no where near the torque of a diesel, as well as fuel usage being higher, petrol costing more. id take a diesel over a petrol in a hiace anyday

[escortman]

yeh diesel all the way, i remember when i was younger dad took his hiace in to get the odometer tuned haha

[sergei]

Diesel actually drive nicer than petrols in my opinion. They don't notice that the extra load for some reason even if the hiace is loaded until it is on bump stops, try that with petrol and it would just bog down.

[xsspeed]

Diesel torque ftw

[matt dunn]

Probably way outta the price range your looking in,

but we used dad's works 3l Turbo new shape Hiace to tow the race car and heaps of gear to teretonga.

Awesome van to tow with, never even noticed the trailer was there,
and even at 120k, you can pull out and pass something,

where as the older petrol van (4Y motor, basically a forklift motor)
that we had this weekend struggled to tow less gear on the flat much past 100K with a bit of a headwind,
And my 1998 2.8L diesil van will tow and keep up with the flow of traffic alright,
but if you put your foot down when you get to the sign that says 400m to passing lanes, your too late to make a pass, have to have a runup planned another 400m before that.