Archive for Toyota

Toyota and General Motors will be recalling over 662,000 vehicles sold in the US due to defective power windows. The affected vehicles are the 2003-2004 production year Toyota Corolla, Toyota Matrix and GM’s Pontiac Vibe which is based on the Toyota Matrix platform.

Driver and passenger door glass bolts may loosen and come off, causing the door glass to separate from the window regulator. This could result in an abnormal rattling noise from the affected doors.

Toyota has officially revealed plans for its upcoming sports car co-development program with Fuji Heavy Industries, who owns the Subaru brand. The compact rear wheel drive car will feature a Subaru boxer engine, and both Toyota and Subaru will market the car separately under its respective badges. It will be built on a new Subaru platform, but will be designed by Toyota.

“I think there is high potential for this car. We haven’t had a sports car for a long time. This is a long-awaited-for model. Pricing would be not prohibitively high,” said Toyota Motor Corp CEO Katsuaki Watanabe. The car should be quite fun indeed, with rear wheel drive dynamics and that rumbly boxer engine note.

Since FHI president Ikuo Mori says he has personally driven a test version of the car and is pleased with it, development must have been going on for quite some time now. The car will be launched in 2011.

Other Toyota-FHI joint ventures will also increase, and FHI will stop producing compact vehicles of its own design. It will use Daihatsu badge engineered vehicles instead. The Subaru Justy based on the Daihatsu Boon was the first such Daihatsu-based compact vehicle, with the next one set to be a Subaru-badged Daihatsu Coo in October 2008.

Also confirmed is Toyota’s increase in Subaru stakeholding from the current 8.7% up to 16.5% in a deal valued at 31.1 billion yen (US$311 million).

Japanese business newspaper Nikkei Shimbun reported that Toyota is considering raising its current 8.7% stake in Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru) to about 17%, in a deal that is valued at 30 billion yen, or RM937 million ringgit, pending a review by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission.

Subaru will remain somewhat independent and not be considered a Toyota subsidiary as the resulting shareholding by Toyota will be under 20%. In a response to Nikkei’s report, Subaru says it still does not have anything to announce at the moment as the stakeholding increase is not final yet and still under discussions.

Of course, such reports will always affect share prices. Subaru shares went up 6.6% on the day the Nikkei reported the news.

Related Posts:
GM sells Subaru shares to Toyota

The Toyota Sienta is a compact 3 row 6/7-seater MPV sold in the Japanese domestic market. The word Sienta came from the Spanish word siete which means 7, combined with the English word entertainment. It is powered by the 1NZ-FE 1.5 liter VVT-i engine, producing 110 PS at 6,000rpm and 141Nm of torque at 4,400rpm, with the option for 4WD. The 2WD version is mated to a CVT transmission.

The compact MPV has a 2,700mm wheelbase, which is longer than the Toyota Avanza’s 2655mm and only 5cm shorter than the Toyota Innova’s 2750mm wheelbase. This should mean the interior space is actually quite decent. The rear uses sliding doors instead of normal doors, and the rear hatch is top-hinged.

This particular car was launched in 2003, and was facelifted in 2006. Following a normal 5 year Japanese model lifecycle, the Sienta should be retired in the JDM market by 2009, and replaced by a new model.

This is just a possibility and should not be taken for fact - considering Toyota’s penchant for efficiency, the Sienta could be recycled and adapted for sale in the ASEAN market, and could be the base for the new MPV being developed for production in Indonesia, as suggested by reader torishimeyakuin.

View more photos and a rather weird commercial of the Toyota Sienta after the jump.

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UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd has unveiled the new 2008 Toyota Corolla Altis here in Malaysia. Read the rest of the article after the jump to find out more about the latest fully imported C-segment sedan to reach our local shores.

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Toyota has unveiled the Toyota Urban Cruiser at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. The Toyota Urban Cruiser is essentially the Japanese market Toyota ist, which is in turn a restyled version of the American market Scion xD.

So we have the Urban Cruiser for Europe, the ist for Japan and the xD for the USA. Toyota says the Toyota Urban Cruiser was developed to fill up the void that the discontinued three-door version of the Toyota RAV4 left behind.

More angles after the jump.

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Toyota Urban Cruiser SUV to debut at Geneva 2008
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UPDATE: The new 2008 Toyota Corolla Altis has been launched in Malaysia! - click for more details, specifications, photos and pricing.

UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd has revealed that the new Toyota Corolla Altis will be launched this Friday, the 14th of March 2008. The company did not reveal expected prices or specifications, so we will have to wait until Friday to know.

More after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of New Toyota Corolla Altis due this Friday!

While the European Toyota Yaris TS uses a 1.8 liter Dual VVT-i engine producing 130 horsepower at 6,000rpm and 173Nm of torque at 4,400rpm, its Japanese twin with a different name the Toyota Vitz has gone down the forced induction route with the Toyota Vitz TRD Turbo M. Sporting a similiar engine to the Toyota Vios Turbo sold in Thailand some time ago, the 1.5 liter DOHC VVT-i engine 1NZ-FE in the Toyota Vitz gets a bolt-on turbocharger with intercooler and now produces 150 horsepower at 6,000rpm and 195Nm of torque at 4,800rpm, far more powerful than the Yaris TS.

Nearly 200Nm of torque should prove pretty fun for a car that weighs only 1,060kg, but its a shame that peak torque kicks in at such a high RPM, something unseen of with modern turbocharged engines. We’re used to peak torque kicking in under 2,500rpm in small displacement engines these days, but then again we have to remember that unlike the BMW Price, Fiat T-JET or the Volkswagen TSI engine, this wasn’t designed to be a turbocharged engine to begin with, and is a bolt-on. So the numbers are pretty decent. The Vitz TRD Turbo M rides on a stiffer suspension that also lowers the car by 15mm.

When I was browsing through the Vitz’s microsite, I also found a more powerful normally aspirated variant of the 1NZ-FE that makes 119 PS at 6,000rpm and 147Nm of torque between 4,400rpm and 5,200rpm, compared to the 1NZ-FE in our Toyota Vios which makes the usual 109 PS and 142Nm of torque. We could possibly see this state of tune being made the standard 1NZ-FE tune in the future to counter Honda’s latest series of 1.5 liter engines found in the 2nd generation Fit which already produces 120 PS.

A few photos of the TRD components after the jump.

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Toyota has been testing a plug-in version of its Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive hybrid car.

The plug-in system is expected to make its debut in the next generation Toyota Prius, which is due soon. Plug-in recharging is one of the features of the next generation Hybrid Synergy Drive.

According to Toyota, a complete recharge of the prototype’s batteries can be done in about 3 to 4 hours from a 100V outlet. Check out the 3 minute video after the jump, which previews the next generation Prius technologies.

Click here to read the rest of Toyota previews next gen Hybrid Synergy Drive

Toyota has revealed the production version of the Toyota iQ at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, but without any details on its powertrain options, except that two will be petrol and one will be diesel. So what we do know now is what it will actually look like when it goes into production late this year.

The compact Toyota iQ has a length of 2,985mm and a wheelbase of 2,000mm - such a long wheelbase for such a short length means a surprisingly large interior, very short overhangs, and a generally cute cartoon-like appearance. It takes 3 adults and a child or luggage, or the entire rear bench can be used for luggage instead.

The small Toyota iQ is definitely not a Tata Nano competitor despite it being so small sized. According to Toyota, it is designed to cater for the needs of buyers who seek more than just urban mobility but demand space and refinement in an environmentally-friendly vehicle. Those who want it to be green and convenient, but not necessarily sparse. It is also expected to score 5 stars in the Euro NCAP safety test.

The interior has a chocolate-plum colour scheme, and the dashboard sports a 5.8 inch color touch screen display which allows you to control the in-car entertainment and satellite navigation. Rear legroom has been increased by using a slim seat design for the front seats, which gives a further 40mm of rear legroom at knee height.

The short overhangs were achieved through clever methods. Firstly, a newly developed differential saves engine compartment space. The whole under-bonnet equipment packaging has been made alot more compact so that the front wheels can be placed at the very corners of the car. The rear shock absorbers are rear-angled. The iQ uses a flat under-floor fuel tank, which is something difficult to engineer because of the variance in fuel surface levels depending on the angle of the car. Somehow Toyota engineers managed to make a viable flat under-floor fuel tank.

More photos after the jump.

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Production Toyota iQ to debut at Geneva 2008
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Toyota iQ Concept unveiled at Frankfurt 2007

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