robin

Driving home today the car was not sounding well and power is down. The usual turbo spinning sounds has been replaced with a wooing/whistle sound. My immediate thought/worry is a blown turbo or if I'm lucky maybe a bad vsv valve or something? There is no smoke that I can see and with no load the engine revs/sounds normal. Driving off boost seems fine/normal as well. Here is a video of the sound, car is a UK supra. Any thoughts on where to start with this?

you tell them what oil you were using and the brand etc. This helps them to know what might be an normal for the oil and what might be a problem. For example some oils use boron as an additive so its normal to see it in the oil, if your oil doesn'tuse that as an additive and there is loads in the sample it could mean there is a problem. They also send through some guides on how to interpret the results. Guide to Sample Report.pdf TBN Guide.doc

I have a UK supra with only one cat in it, the originals failed and Toyota wanted £1200 or so and I ended up with a single generic on welded in and it passes every year as long as the cat is hot enough, maybe take it for a big run then drop it in for the test?

I used these guys http://www.theoillab.co.uk/product-category/oil-testing/engine/ and did the silver package for 39.99 + VAT. It is a tough one really, no point in testing new oil as it is always going to be a good result so I wanted to leave it sometime to get some miles/age and then see how it was. They send a syringe with tubing, small bottle and a cardboard tube to post it back in so you can just get a sample from the dipstick if you aren't draining it all.

As my supra approached 204 thousand miles I have been curious to see the results of an oil analysis. I was also curious to see what state the oil would be in after 18 months and 4000 miles or so, I know the manual does say to change every 6 months but I have been using reasonable quality synthetic oil and I think it is possible to eek out a bit more between changes. The oil I have been using is Gulf Formula G 5w40. Anyway here are the results: It is worth nothing that I changed the oil when I took the sample, however from the result it might be possible to keep on up to 2 years+ and maybe 6-8k miles. Just a shame that an oil analysis costs more than an oil change!

I am about to go away and would love to take our bikes with us. Has anyone had any luck at all getting a bike rack on to a supra? If so which make/model?

I've seen a couple of threads about these over the years but I wonder if anyone has fitted one to the stock exhaust system? How likley is it that something like this will fit? http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/141540512453?nav=SEARCH

That is a good point, didn't think the battery could start to drop off that quickly. (it all happened in the space of 15 mins) but who knows how bad the charging has to get before being flagged up? It is the V5 petrol engine.

I car pool with a friend and on the way home in his golf the dash showed "Workshop Alternator" and displayed a red battery symbol. The auto shifting also became harder and more noticeable. This occurred a couple of times before the Slip light, ABS light and Air bag lights all came on along with the accelerator failing to work and the engine stuck idling a bit high at 1.1k. Even flooring the throttle didn't change the revs from sitting at 1.1k It also sounded pretty rough. when at the side of the road the speedometer was frozen at 22mph even with the engine off and the car now fails to start. Seems to me like the ECU has completely lost the plot. Any thoughts on how this could be resolved or advice I can pass on?

My car is a standard UK TT Auto with 193k on the clock. The most I have had was on a steady 60-70mph motorway journey. 33.6MPG. Around down it is a lot worse, anywhere from 16-23MPG depending on how heavy footed I am and on just how bad the traffic is.

I've used toyo T1-R's (stock 17 sizes) for the last 3 sets of rear tyres. I personally rate them above Avon ZZ3's and continental sport contacts which are the only other tyres I have tried.

Only mine popped off and all I noticed was a slightly high idle?

about 45k miles in 5 years or so.

I bought a domain name the other week while drunk and set-up a cpanel account and everything. The following morning I wasn't entirely sure why I did it.

Just a quick update to let you know how things turned out. The crank is fine, looks like it is just a simple case of a deformed pulley but the garage had a hell of a time getting the bolt off and ended up using something called a "Mini-Ductor II" to get it off after the usual breaker bar and cranking the engine over tricks failed.

Lovely car and photos, shame the watermark isn't a bit less... intrusive?

Get yourself a night vision car camera and hopefully catch them in the act.

Awesome video, if a little scary to watch. On another note does anyone know if a supra can go above 70? Has anyone tried?

Ideally a new OEM or good used one to help me get the car up and running again

The only thing keeping me with o2/be and preventing me from going to BT Infinity is the worry that they will manage my traffic or I will see terrible throughput at the weekends/evenings due to contention.

I cant move the bolt at all. I just started it up again and on closer inspection it looks like there is no wobble on the edge of the pulley closest to the engine but as you get further toward the front of the pulley the wobble becomes noticeable. Which part is made of rubber? If I try to wobble the pulley myself there is no play so it's starting to look to me more like the pulley wheel is deformed/misshapen or coming apart as opposed to being mounted wonky.

I appreciate the advice but this isn't a case of me neglecting the car or trying to save cash, if it is broken I want to get it sorted. The car was (and still is) behaving normally other than a slight wobble which I hadn't noticed until the cover/under tray was removed while doing other work.

Luckily for me the the car hasn't moved since the video was taken and it doesn't need to move any time soon. A couple of years ago the timing star fell off the toothed bit behind this pulley and I had to replace the toothed gear/star pulley. To my eyes it looks like its just the outer edge that's wobbling but now I'm starting to wonder if it was all put back properly?

It hasnt been making any nasty sounds or anythying, I only noticed while changing the coolant so who knows how long its been like that?

oh yeah, the last thing I would want is for it to slice through the brand new radiator or worse....