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- Toyota Emina 4WD GX
- JPO12345's review
Have a picture of Toyota Emina 4WD GX?, please send it to us.
Picture courtesy of Neil Allan.
| Performance | 6.5/10  |
|---|---|
| Practicality | 9.2/10 |
| Reliability | 7.2/10 |
| Value for Money | 7.7/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 7.3/10 |
| Overall Rating | 5.4/10  |
By JPO12345
on 1st Apr 2005
| Year Manufactured | 1995 |
|---|---|
| Length of ownership | 10 Months |
| Performance | 7/10 |
| Practicality | 10/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 |
| Value for money | 8/10 |
| Overall value | 8/10 |
 JPO12345's recommendation | |
Good Spec, good value, Very spacious, well built, Reliable.
Need to look around for a good one and need to spend a little bit of money to be assured of continued reliability. Rear wheel drive so doesn't drive well in snow or ice when it's empty of people, cant speak for the 4WD version.
We bought our Toyota Emina GX People Carrier middle of 2004. It had done 54,000 miles, We did a lot of shopping around for the right one. we were looking for some sort of service history and certain features. Ours has the J top roof which adds about another 3.5 inches to the hight of the interior. It is a 1995 M plate and was on the forcourt for £5999. We found that we had some bargaining power and was able to get another £1000. off the forcourt price as is pretty standard these days. Check the waranty covers you for parts and labour for a minimum of a month, one of two dealers didn't cover the mechanics of the car only the electrics which is no good, but they were much cheaper about £2000. Cheaper but I would not recomend going their, we went back to the original dealer and he almost matched the price for us to get the sale. Most of the jap imports don't come with a service history but that said ours has had stickers placed on the engine compartment door under the pasenger seat indicating when the services were done, there were also some lables inside the fuel cap door so have a good look around to see if there is any indication anywere. you need to hear the car from stone cold.
We had a Thatcham cat 1 alarm fitted by the dealer which made our insurance much cheeper the alarm cost us £250. fitted, My wife and I are in our late 20s and live in a reasonably good area and pay around £600. a year fully comp with breakdown, legal, and accident recovery thrown in. some of the big names in car insurance couldn't get near to that quoting around £1200. if at all.
The first job we had done was the Camm/Timing Belt as the small print it often reads that if the cam/Timing belt goes this isn't covered by the waranty, but we had no idea when this was done if at all so we had it changed and had it checked over by a Toyota dealer, In heinsight I regret having Toyota do the Cam/Timing belt as it cost us £350. with a serivce as appose to about £150. at a reputable independant garage. Something well known with the Estima Emina/Lucida's is that the Japs didn't change the coolant very often and in some cases at all and this causes overheating and hence blown cylender head so have the collant system flushed through thoroughly reguarly, if your coolant is mucky you need it flushing as this can quickly cause overheating, it cost us £30 We then had the car undersealed as they have no protection against the elements as european cars do. this cost around £80. and I will have it done again every 2 years. We also had it fumigated and valeted to attempt to remove the yellow cigaret smell and stains as a lot of the Japs smoke This cost another £80.
As you can see the money can quickly mount up and a lot of you may not goto the expense we went to but we were looking at a long term investment. If you do nothing else I would advise you change the Cam/Timing belt and reguarly change and flush the coolant through maybe once every 2 months. Toyota recomend an oil change every 5000KM but I would probably do it every 1000 miles but most of my journeys are long distance. We found that the oil needed topping up every 700miles or so when we first got it but now it seems to be approx 1200miles or when we have an oil change. I just put it down to good regular use and propper maintainance.
The major bad point with this car is the weight issue, or lack of it when as a driver you are the only person in the car. In snow and icy weather the rear wheel drive makes it hard to get the beast up any hills and I am very nervous about driving it full stop in snow and ice, even more so now as I have just had a major accident in it relating to this issue and it is now spring time. I caught a patch of deisel just after setting off from a set of lights and only doing 25 mile per hour managed to spin the car 360 degrees and slam the front into the barrier on a motorway slip road, My lesson is that you make sure you put some weight in it when there isn't anyone else in the car, It doesn't take a lot to loose control.
All this said it is such a good car, myself and my wife love it to bits, we have family that cannot drive and we easily have room to go on hols with them and still have plenty of room for the luggage.
Do your homework when you buy one, if your not convinced, drive one, they are very nice.
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