Toyota Caldina GT-Four N 4WD TURBO 2004

[jondee86]

Was looking at mid-size wagons on TradeMe, and this caught my eye...



I was wondering if anyone has owned one, or driven one, and has
an opinion to offer up ? The interweb says they go reasonably quick,
and sitting in the basic 1800 model, they seem to have enough room
for a tallish frame.

Any known weaknesses, failure points ? Reliability is quite high on
my check list, so I would hope that the turbo engine has had all the
bugs cured by now. Likewise, I would hope that the 4WD setup is also
reasonably bulletproof by now ?

Not stressing on it... just curious. If I decide to upgrade to a mid-size
car to make out of town trips a bit more comfortable, I'd like to stay
with a Toyota

Cheers... jondee86

[Grrrrrrr!]

Has been over a year, but I went shopping for one of those, had test driven 4 or 5 of them and was at a yard trying to test drive another one, but somebody else had it out so I took a Euro R for a test drive.. and never looked back.

Didn't like:
Handling, handles like a FWD ie, it plows badly, should be fixable with suspension/alignment work I guess. Decent tyres might help too.
4 spd Auto/tiptronic only... Real deal killer for me, need 3 pedals or I get bored, tiptronic doesn't cut it for me.
Didn't seem that fast for 260hp, 4 spd auto & 1500kg prob doesn't help. Quick off the line with 4wd and small turbo, but top end wasn't impressive.
Gen 4 3sgte should be pretty reliable, just make sure you put 95 or 98 in it, and don't wind the boost up or you will have pretzel shaped rods.

Most of the ones I test drove had what felt like warped rotors, so keep an eye out for that.

The N edition gets Recaros and a strut tower bar up front, and a torsen rear LSD, apart from that I don't think there is any difference between them and the standard model.

[RS13]

I was put off the GT4 by the terrible fuel consumption (Factory figure I think is around 9.5L/100km, however friends of ours own one and get 15-16L/100km around town and 12-13L/100km long distance and they aren't that hard on it at all) and that with my partner driving it 90% of the time, it would never see boost. The ZT and ZL are both 6-8L/100km so they're the ones we're looking at getting currently as economy trumps overtaking ability, plus being far newer engines they're going to be way more efficient than the 3S ever could be.

Interestingly, was driving home the other night and heard a couple of cars racing, turned to see a fairly quiet, plain-looking one of these easily pulling away from a modified-looking Evo 7 so with a little fettling they can't be too slow.

[sergei]

I have driven non-N version.
I hated it.
It was at the time when I had Celica ST205 GT4 (stock). So all experience was relative to ST205.
Biggest gripe was the gearbox, since it was 4 speed the gears were too long, and made the car feel too slow as it almost always was below boost threshold (some people call it incorrectly lag). Basically to get it moving you had to use tiptronic, or lead foot everywhere. The tiptronic is typical auto, so it was laggy as well.
As stated before, it handled like heavy FWD lots of understeer. The "lag" didn't help it either.
The top end wasn't flash either. The ST205 was much nicer to drive.
Lack of space was also an issue (you are buying a wagon after all). Similarly sized Legacy had a lot more boot space.
If you looking for turbo 4WD wagon, Legacy is far better choice.

[RS13]

Lack of space was also an issue (you are buying a wagon after all). Similarly sized Legacy had a lot more boot space.

Yeah, noticed this too. Doesn't help that the roofline slopes downwards as it heads towards the boot, which lengthwise is twice as large as our RunX but much shorter in height. I don't know whether you tried sitting in the back, but I felt quite restricted as along with the low roof the windows are quite angled inwards also. Doesn't bother me that much as I don't intend to sit in the back, but something to consider.

[jondee86]

All good I'm glad I asked, and now I'll take the Caldina off my list
of prospects. But interesting comment on the Euro R. I have heard
good things about these before, so I might do a bit of probing around
and see what you get for how much in that line.


http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/honda/auction-830624603.htm

Euro R Wagon anyone

Cheers... jondee86

[loudsir]

If you re looking at accords, make sure you test drive a Euro (2.4L) as well as a Euro R (2.0L)

I found the 2.4 nicer to drive and felt quicker for normal traffic situations, the 2.0 really comes into its own when being revved out a bit more.

[Grrrrrrr!]

Euro R likes to be revved for sure, if you want something a bit more cruisey the type S is the 200hp 2.4L, comes in wagon and sedan, but I think auto only.

Also the Euro R doesn't gets some of the options that I sorta wouldn't mind:
Cruise control would be handy while the cops are persisting with this zero-tolerance BS,
Steering wheel audio controls would be nice.
VSA (Stability Assist) might be handy for some people too.

[strx7]

try a 3 litre Altezza wagon.

[jondee86]

try a 3 litre Altezza wagon.

Looks like a great toy Downside would be lousy fuel economy and
the rear wheel arches take up a lot of space inside the car. Quite like
the specs on some of the RS200 Altezza's, so maybe I'll ditch the
wagon idea, and just buy a car. So many choices... so little time !!!

Cheers... jondee86

[strx7]

Fuel economy around town isn't great but on a trip its fine, most likely better than you'd get from a GT-T Caldina.