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Hi everyone, New to the forum this will be a long opening post. I started out with a Toyota Yaris as a runabout, always thought Toyota's were reliable cars and managed to pick up a nice cheap 1.0 Blue VVTI I loved this car was great on fuel never missed a beat but the rust that kills Yaris's was starting to come through. I work in the motor trade (Aston Martin) and we had some trade cars ready to go to the auctions, in the corner I saw this: I didn't know too much on Avensis's but I took it for a drive and loved it, has all the toys sat nav, cruise control, full leather, electric seats and importantly the later chain driven engine. Was a former Toyota demonstrator vehicle and a one owner car, the car was on 99,000 when I bought it and I felt the car was too clean to go to auction and deserved to be loved by me, the rear seats look like they have never been sat in! So I managed to get the car for £1,750 which I think is a bit of a bargain, has MOT until October 2015 but I inspected the car and it needed brakes all round (cost me £200 for parts), tracking aligned and two front tyres. Here are a few more photo's of the car. Also took the car on a 450 mile journey to Newquay where it was effortless on the motorways. I have owned the car now for 3 months and in that time I have had no issues at all. The car has been serviced and I have been getting around 45-48mpg in town and 55-60mpg on motorways. It is a joy to drive. I felt the car needed a little bit more 'umph' so I fit a tuning box from a local diesel tuning company, I have also blocked off the EGR valve and it hasn't brought up any EML and the engine feels a lot stronger, the two combined have made the car pull harder it smokes a lot less and I'm getting much better MPG's. However and this is one reason I have signed up to the forum. I read something that scared me on the head gasket issues on this particular model. The car does not burn or leak oil, it starts and runs as it should engine sounds very healthy, the car is currently on 103,000 miles. I didn't get the service pack with this car as it was a trade we weren't required to request them but I'm aware it has a full Toyota service history. A few questions, should I worry about the head gasket? There are no signs right now to suggest it is weak. If I contact Toyota with my chassis number would they provide a history of my service history? How likely is it that the head gasket issue has already been fixed? I am impressed how clean the car is underneath brake lines are mint as are coil springs and it has a new exhaust system. Only issue I have is my injectors appear to be leaking is this normal? Sorry for cramming in so much info I had planned on joining sooner, hope to contribute more thanks!

I have a 2006 (56) 2.2 D4D and mine is somewhere in the middle of light and heavy, I would say it is perfect for me, on 103k too I suspect it has been changed, also you are from Durham quite local to me .

Interesting topic and easy to see the difference with the Before and After pictures - seems remarkable. If I ran a diesel I'd certainly be thinking of using something like that. On the subject of extending the oil change interval to 15,000 miles I don't see it doing any harm given the fact that you're using a premium oil and the type of running you do. If I recall correctly (don't like that IIRC) when they introduced fully synthetic engine oil for road going cars some years ago the price was astronomically high but they said this would be offset by oil changes being extended to 25,000 miles or even longer. Big Oil soon changed all that though!

I have just filled up following a 435 mile return trip to Worcester over the weekend. Average mpg 42. Set cruise at 70 mph whenever possible with the odd burst to overtake those doing 69 mph. 57 reg 2.2 XTR with 52,000 miles. BG244 every 10,000.