Hmmm...is it that bad???

oldnotdead06

New member
Hey all.....I was just readin thru the chat forum about "You know ur an Alltrac owner when...." and I am like really worried now!!!! Do they really break down all the time? I work graveyard shift and I really dont want to be stuck on the side of the road 11 at night......HELP!!!!!!!!!
 

PhilipK

New member
I think that they are very reliable cars. I myself did not have any problems before I rebuilt the engine, and I had 110k on it. It just depends on how the previous owners took care of it and how you are going to take care of it now.
 

jprine01

New member
Its reliable like any toyota. It just depends how much you care about everything being right. Like the rubber bushings on any 15+ year old toyota they are going to be all dry and half worn out. But do any of the people driving those 15 year old camrys or corollas think its a good investment to go take the whole syspention apart and replace every bushing? No they just leave it and drive it how it is. Us with our cars we think wow we have this rare care that we never want to sell, I will fix everything that is not perfect on it.

If you were happy with your alltrac stock, and just do regular things like plugs and belts and fluids you would probably be ok. The 2 most non-regular maintmence items for the car is somewhere between 100-200k miles the seals on the engine start wearing out and it will start dripping oil. And the rear differential bushing will also need to be replaced at 100k+ as it will start clunking from excess movement.
 

jprine01

New member
Oh I do want to add that changing some parts is just allot more difficult on our cars then others. This is why you will read that "nobody wants to work on my car" or "the ones that do stop working half way though". Things like changing the clutch are just allot more complicated because of the extra driveshaft comming out of the tranny & no room in the engine bay. But being hard to work on does not mean it is not reliable, they are 2 seperate things.

When i pulled my engine at 150-160k my stock clutch still worked fine. The stock one should last long enough for your engine to start leaking oil, then when you take the tranny off to change the seals you change the clutch at the same time.
 

98RACE

New member
I would have to say that the alltrac is a very reliable car. yes I dont drive one the the steet but I think we do beat the shit out of it alot more then most people do or would even think of.

1.During a race the only the car is below 4k RPM is right before the green flag drops and the rest of the time the its right below the red line.

2. The car sits all week in temps from -10 to -35 C, and when we put the battery in sat morning it starts no problem every time.

3. The car is built like a tank!!!!!

Dave
 

oldnotdead06

New member
Whew.....thanks, I dont feel as anxious now. I mean really with any 16 y/o car, your gunna have issues. It just had seemed there were way more with this one. I already have to worry about the speeding tickets I'll end up getting :twisted:
 

PhilipK

New member
Yea, I felt the same way you did two years ago. I got on these forums before I purchased my car and read about all these problems. It kinda freaked me out. But it really is not that bad. I can tell you this, if you take care of your car and use the best parts, it will run great. I think most here will agree that this car is something special, you get connected to it.
 

oldnotdead06

New member
Ha....i'm beginning to wonder did I really buy a car. Maybe it was just my imagination. It all seemed so real....weird. :twisted:
 

MetalliKAT97

New member
Don't get too discouraged from that thread. We all love and hate our cars in a sense. But then again im sure any car forum would have a thread just like that. Im sure as hell the DSM guys have something like that going/or that went on (we all know how reliable they are :wink: ). Its nature for something to go on with every car. But the love is there :D
 

theUNYTEDone

Moderator
indeed, i can say i agree with most people here. i bought my 90 185 with quite a few flaws...fender damage (jerry rig paint job) :doh: ...a CUSTOM TWO-PIECE DOWNPIPE (cracked)....and lots of little things i wish were fixed...but i learned to love it, because it's my new mission and passion to make her BADASS...a lot of stuff you discover wrong with your car isnt that bad..."well, it's still RUNNiNG..." but yeah, it just takes patience, and an eagerness to learn.
 

___Scott___

Active member
My ST165 has been my daily driver for over 9 years, and soon I'll have put 100k miles on it since I've owned it. So yeah, it can be a fairly reliable daily driver. However, things do break and/or wear out. The only time it left me stranded is when I forgot to plug in the alternator cable after the regular replacement. It ran fine for a day and a half... then died a few miles from home when the battery died.

My first problem was an idle speed that hunted between ~700 and ~1500 rpm. I took it to a shop down the street (recommended by co-workers) and it took them all day to figure out that "if you pinch this hose just the right amount with vice-grips, the idle stabilizes." I took it to a shop that specializes in Toyotas (at almost double the hourly rate) and they identified the problem in about 30 minutes.

So, two lessons: 1) if you are not going to do all the work on the car yourself, at least find a shop with a clue. It can be a prohibitively expensive car to own otherwise. 2) Learn everything you can about the car and do as much of the work on it as you can yourself. Even qualified mechanics (if you can find one) are expensive.

Craftsman grade tools usually pay for themselves the first time you use them vs. paying a "mechanic" to do the job. Snap-On grade tools take just a few more uses to pay for themselves. So don't let the price of tools deter you from doing your own work.

I didn't know about the GT4 Yahoo group when I first bought my car, and I don't think this forum existed then, so I was slow to learn about the car at first. But with the great group of people on this forum, you can ask questions about anything where search results are lacking and usually get an informed reply. I learned a lot on the Y! group and I still learn a lot here.

You've come to the right place.
 
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