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I bought a 6 year old TSpirit (with sunroof) from an authorised Toyota dealer in Kent. One (business) owner, full Toyota service history and a verified 45,000 miles. The dealer gave the car a 3 month warranty. Four months after I bought the car, I became aware of a rattle coming from the dashboard directly in front of me. Small road irregularities would produce a sound like two pieces of metal tapping against each other. When stationary, if I pulled and pushed on the steering wheel, I could hear - and feel - a small clunk. I returned to the original dealer who said (I paraphrase) "it's probably something loose in the dash and - anyway - it's not covered by warranty." I contacted my regular Toyota dealer (Jemca in Croydon) who I'd been using for the past 10 years with my earlier Prius - and a Corolla before that. Jemca Croydon said it could be the lower steering shaft (£385 fitted) or the upper steering column (over £1000). See pic. The Workshop Controller at Croydon said "these Gen 3 Prius are common for both noisy bearings in the upper steering column, and even more so for the lower steering shaft universal joint". He added that "the Gen 3 Prius did not have a recall for this. Although they do suffer with a knocking issue they were not found to fail, hence there was no recall." Jemca Croydon diagnosed a worn / knocking lower steering shaft. Croydon 'negotiated' with the selling dealer and I paid Jemca Croydon £60 to have it replaced. But the tapping noise continued, albeit at a reduced volume. Croydon said that it had to be the upper steering column. I contacted the Honest John website. The reply was: "Tell the Toyota dealer who sold you the car that for it to have worn so badly in 4 months, the fault must have already been developing on the date you bought the car and because of this the dealer is liable to repair it free of any charge to you." I contacted the Citizen Advice Bureaux. They advised: "Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the goods purchased were not of a satisfactory quality. This means it is reasonable to expect that the goods are free from faults, be fit for purpose, last a reasonable time and be safe to use. These are your statutory rights by law. Goods are covered for up to 6 years from point of sale, under the limitations act. This is separate to any guarantee, or warranty you may have, or returns policy which the Trader advertises, or has stated. Repairs that are carried out should be free and any replacement should be on a like for like basis." I contacted my local independent garage and they said no steering shaft should ever wear out in 50,000 miles. Further, I could not have worn it out in four months, the previous owner must be responsible for 95% of the wear. The concluded that the selling dealer should replace the part free of charge. I contacted the selling dealer with this information and they replaced the upper steering shaft free of charge.

Lots of debate this time of year whether winter tyres or not. On 29th Jan 2019 it dumped with snow over the snake pass in the Peaks with very expensive 4x4's on their standard summer tyres failing to get over the top and even making the point of winding down their window to tell me that I had no chance on making it as they had tried twice & failed. I had lots of surprised faces when I passed them all and I was the only one over the top at 3pm on Tuesday afternoon - Winter tyres are the way forward if you live in an area that gets is bad!

No need to remove anything, only the rear seat base is lifted the backrest stays put, just make sure the fuel level is < 1/2 a tank

Looking at your other post about the users radio preset stations being lost when the battery is disconnected, the same can happen to the ECU, so it enters learning Mode and gives symptoms of erratic tickover for the first few miles. Is that what you have done /experienced ? Re the Radio codes, when the radios logic is programmed its presumably given some base radio stations, but when the user enters new ones there is no method to store them when the power is totally removed; power is clearly being used even when you take the keys out, hence it appears to save them, but not fully. Expect some more modern and costlier units have such a feature built in to save them, for our older car you can find a variety of Power Saver devices that can be used when you need to disconnect the main battery, loads on ebay etc

Very true 😄 I have picked up some oil, a filter, and air filter, and my plugs, and hope to fit them tomorrow, weather allowing 😄

Shame we haven’t anything like your way so I couldn’t experiment. The other year when I was at strinsdale at the roebuck inn. It had snow that night. The car park is sloping, just popped it in to drive and let it creep up hill to the road. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Deet I now have a gen4 Prius which is only 25k miles old.....but I did have a 2010 Gen 3 which I sold with 105k miles. I bought it privately with 100k, so didnt do many miles, but the previous owner had done 50k in the previous 2 years as a private taxi (and taxi drivers look after vehicles well as its their living) and nothing to report re steering. I did a lot of research before I bought that gen3 (and the Auris hybrid before it) and never did see any comments re steering rack. The only "problem" I read of was a little clunk when on tight left or right hand turns at slow speed. This was rectified by tightening the universal shaft joint pinch bolts still inside the car and accessible _bottom of steering shaft just before it goes thro the floor and approx 6inch above that.

Totally agree. I run Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-2 on my Aygo, and the difference is like night and day between summer and all season tyres. The previous Continental ECO's were utter rubbish on the slippy side roads. The Goodyear's are very good on slushy, wet, snowy and icy surfaces. There's a slight compromise in the summer, but as I don't hoon around like my butt is on fire, they give me confidence all year round.

Thanks Konrad. You mentioned that the part in question is accessed under the rear seat cover plate. I presume that might involve moving/removing rear seat/s? As I have a dog guard fixed to the back of the rear seats then looks like I should remove the dog guard before I take it to the dealer? My car was first registered March 2015 and the current version was introduced from April 2015. When I'm asked by suppliers what year Avensis I own I have to make it clear that mine is not the later 2015 version because there are of course differences between the two. I recently completed a Which survey on my experience with my car and found no difficulty at all in answering a question about what I liked about my car. When I came to answer the following question about what I disliked about my car I found it very difficult to come up with anything. In the end I mentioned that the rear of the car gets very dirty on wet roads! Small price to pay for what I think is an excellent car!

Aye.... You'll struggle to score Cap + leads for £7 (N.O.S.)👍 Blueprint rotor arm around a fiver. Amazon ftw... 2sav