[TheARUN]

Originally Posted by Vicki_Rau

Will wait for the petrol (less noisy and nearly 70% more power to satisfy the petrol head in me).
2. Manual (hope they offer it)
3. The base version and try to get the drivers seat height adjust retrofitted(any suggestions anyone). Otherwise, its back to Stanley and ask them to heavily pad the seat, when doing the leather install.
Looking forward to your and the groups feedback.

You should come here more often and post, 86 posts over a 10 year membership is simply not done

Would also be interested in a long term review of your 205K Kilometers Innova

The petrol Innova would be very thirsty generally and expensive on long distance trips. Having said that, since you want to retain it forever, resale value needn't be on your purchase tick list. I'm sure the Driver's seat can be retrofitted, however, what I have noticed with Toyota since the Qualis days is that they have quite a few goodies in their top end models that cannot always be retrofitted. Case in point being the hard dashboard on the Qualis FS models and padded dashboard on the GS models.

Your purchase decision is going be a classic case of "Do I stay in the cheapest room of the costliest hotel or in the costliest room of the cheapest hotel?"

You can buy a top end car from the competition for lesser money than the base Innova, but I doubt you would do that, you being a self confessed Innova Man

[sridhu]

Originally Posted by Vicki_Rau

Hi there Sridhu,
Wonderfull story about your old Innova and the process of choosing its successor. Your writing style is awesomely refreshing.

Thank you. You are too kind.

Originally Posted by Vicki_Rau

Reading your review and being a petrol head, I am now leaning towards the MT too(shucks to the heavier clutch and steering). I also read somewhere that the Auto cannot freewheel and if one is not careful on accelerator modulation, rocks the passengers forward, if you lift of the gas.

Not really true - it is actually quite smooth & trouble free. The only issue I had it with it was it was a bit noisy in shifting in the first 2-3 gears. Otherwise, you do not notice it.

Originally Posted by Vicki_Rau

What I cannot understand is why people want to pay over 8lacs more over the base version, for basically luxuries in automotive terms. OK the 1-1.3 lac for the auto box, for city users aside.

The key are the safety features - 7 airbags & VSC. They are worth it. There is no point going to a Zx otherwise.

Originally Posted by Vicki_Rau

The base GX Crysta has everything mechanical that the V had (except for the driver seat height adjust, which is a deal breaker for me, as I am 5'6" and am finicky about the perfect ergonomic setup, on long drives).
...

Long story short, this will probably be my last car buy, till the end of my licensed/safe driving days(of this I have supreme faith in the "Innova" brand), so :-
1. Will wait for the petrol (less noisy and nearly 70% more power to satisfy the petrol head in me).
2. Manual (hope they offer it)
3. The base version and try to get the drivers seat height adjust retrofitted(any suggestions anyone). Otherwise, its back to Stanley and ask them to heavily pad the seat, when doing the leather install.
Looking forward to your and the groups feedback.

Petrol Innova seems counter-intuitive to me! But whatever floats your boat. If you are the only driver, then your padding solution might be OK. (Seat design has a lot of engineering behind it; typically they prevent submarining. If you pad a seat you might lose that, creating a safety hazard.)

If not (or if the above scares you! ), and you want the MT, I would seriously advocate the Vx. You get your money's worth on the additional 2 lacs you pay - yes, mostly nice things but they make a lot of difference in the travel. In fact, the petrol would be on par with the Gx AT.

Do keep us posted on your decision & your rationale.

[chakri400]

Originally Posted by sridhu

There are 2 more hook/ latch like things on the D-Pillar. I have no idea what these are for!.

I am not sure if this is already answered.

This could be for top tether to secure ISOFIX child seats. In this video, at 2:20, you would see a similar tether hook on the pillar and the video generally talks about the benefits

http://youtu.be/qL3c3hs9who

[Vicki_Rau]

Arun & Sridhu,
You both hit the nail on the head.
Back in the day of buying my first Innova, what had swayed us was the 2 airbags and ABS.
During the 10 years, ABS
saved us definitely once(a buffalo driven across the highway, passing through Vellore, by a herder, maybe purposely. Missed it at high speed by inches because of the ABS).
YUP, safety trumps, so its the V model, at least in my crosshairs now.
Loved the parable about hotel rooms. Agreed, may as well "stay" in comfort for the next ten years.
The only thing left is to test drive the petrol Crysta, something my wife is very set on, seeing the NGT fiasco etc. (she was influential in us buying a REVA, but thats another story altogether).
Signing off now to read Sridhu's post on Crysta ICE

[sridhu]

5000 KM service update

The car has picked up a few irritating niggles.

• Auto Windo up/down failure The Passenger window does not do the Auto-up thing from the drivers side. (Works with the switch in the passenger door). The service adviser said they have seen it in a few cars and said it will be replaced under warranty
  
  Suggest you folks also specifically check your auto-up & down on all windows individually & from the driver's door switch cluster
  
  
• Jack Rod Failure:The jack rods have a small, spring loaded nub which hold it together. The rods are in 3 sections & hollow. On the whole, I found the jack rod very fiddly and not very confidence inspiring.
  
  On one of the rods, the nub does not work. So, this too will be replaced under warranty
  
  Gave up on this, and bought a Qualis rod (single piece, solid iron rod) for about 300 at Toyota itself.
  
  
• The Auto AC switch seems not to work as I thought it should. You press the Auto switch, the automatic AC mode comes on. If you press the same switch again, one would expect the auto mode to go off but it does nothing. The only way to switch off auto mode is to change the fan speed setting. All people (4 of them - the Service Advisor, her boss, another service adviser and finally, the mechanic) I showed it to said "Yeah, that is not right". But when the car was given back to me, they claimed it is working as designed.
  
  If that is true, it is another example of stupid UI.
  
  Update: Checked the manual - page 366 says that the off button has to be pressed to switch off the Auto mode. It also, quite interestingly, says while the auto mode light goes off if the fanspeed or airflow mode is changed manually, the OTHER modes continue to be automatically managed. This is news to me! Still think this is stupid but I was certainly wrong about it!
  
  
• Extended warranty: I had been asking about the extended warranty from before I took delivery. They finally reverted to me when I said "Nobody has given me any info on extended warranty" to the nice lady who took a 10 min feedback call on the vehicle & the buying process. (from Toyota?). At that time, they said it would cost 27k (For the 1.4 lakh km/ 5 year plan) as it was over 2 months since I bought the car.
  
  Threw fit about not wanting to be paying for their laziness and finally Toyota did the right thing and gave it to me for the introductory price of 22.7k.
  
  Should have been a lot easier but the result was good in the end.
  
  
• Saw an ad for a rat mesh being added by the dealer. It is 1800 but requires the dismantling of the dashboard. Prevents rat entry into the passenger compartment; not the engine bay. Dropped it as I did not relish the thought of them dismantling the dashboard and because the main issue is rats biting wires and pipes.
  
  Have sprayed the engine bay with rat spray.
  
  
  
• Starting Problems: The car is very unpredictable when starting. I tend to switch off the car at lights. The car does not start when you press the clutch and press the switch. Takes 2 - 3 tries but is not consistent. Does not always happen but you can imagine the chaos it creates at Sony World signal, if I delay starting the car by 1 nano second!
  
  Toyota said "issue not found" and closed it. The issue is certainly there ( happened even when I started the car after service!)
  
  Any idea how to reproduce consistently? I feel that the clutch press sensor is too far into the travel and if the clutch is even 1 mm away from "full press", the car thinks the clutch is not pressed.
  
  
• Spares Cost/ Policy: The plate under the mirror housing, the one covering the motor etc, fell (fitted on the part that attaches to the A pillar. The movable part of the mirror sits on this part) off in my car. Asked them to replace it (thinking it will be around 500) but the SA said that the entire mirror has to be replaced and it will cost 16k.
  
  Picked up my jaw from the floor and decided to live with it. Have asked a mechanic friend if he can source it from accident cars.
  
  Very poor form, Toyota!
  
  
• Dealer Knowledge Wanted to change the # of blinks for lane change from 3 to 5 ( this is mentioned as a dealer changeable option in the manual). But the dealer did not know it was possible! Did not get done.
  Page 539 of the manual shows clearly that it is customizable upto 7 blinks or off by the dealer
  
  
• I noticed black smoke once while backing up. The mechanic said that it is likely to happen the next time you start after driving in power mode for extended time. Dropped it.
  

Cost: nothing. 330 for the tire rod. 2 days for the "no touch" service. This service is just an inspection/ clean the car service intended mainly for upselling random stuff to you. They tried telling me to do the teflon coating. Firmly refused.


On the whole, the 5k service, I would rate the service about 3 out 10. They kept the car for 2 days for no discernible reason. This was very irritating

It took them close to 2 hours to deliver the vehicle. Part of it was the extended warranty issue (about 30 min) but a lot of was a process implementation issue. They had not noted down the tire rod issue and to replace a 300 buck part, they had to take photos, call some 5 other folks etc. They STILL did not replace it but said they will have to wait for Toyota to send it. Warranty claim items seem to have to go back to Toyota for replacement, even if the spares are available.

From a customer perspective, this is very inconvenient.

[Vicki_Rau]

Hiya again Sridhu,

Keep checking for the black smoke while driving. Had this problem when I took possession of my Innova V, all those years ago. It got so bad that once when I gunned the engine (to around 3k rpm), I couldn't see the vehicles behind. Toyota initially stated that there was no problem, since it didn't happen at the dealers. In fact thats how I got to know about Team BHP, when I went home that evening and googled(in those days Yahood I suppose).


Went back to the dealer and created a ruckus. They told me to come back the next week and I think there was a senior engineer from Toyota standing there. Was informed that it was an engine ECU problem and would be fixed and Catalyctic Convertor changed under warranty. Problem was solved. BTW I used only Shell diesel for many years (till my br-in-law, who was in marketing in IOC, told me that Shell sources its diesel from Mangalore refinery & I was a mug to pay the extra amount.) Read somewhere in the FORUM that the Toyota dealers are asking Crysta owners not to use Shell Don't know if this post will be of any help.

Cheers.

[rajaslaw]

Can anyone has any idea on the exact ground clearance of crysta. As i am planning to buy GX variant. I heard that ground clearance is 186 and/or 190 mm. Thanks in advance.

[Ankoor]

Originally Posted by rajaslaw

Can anyone has any idea on the exact ground clearance of crysta. As i am planning to buy GX variant. I heard that ground clearance is 186 and/or 190 mm. Thanks in advance.

The ground clearance for Crysta is around 174 to 176 mm if i am not wrong.

[FlairBoy]

Originally Posted by sridhu

Auto Windo up/down failure The Passenger window does not do the Auto-up thing from the drivers side. (Works with the switch in the passenger door). The service adviser said they have seen it in a few cars and said it will be replaced under warranty

Suggest you folks also specifically check your auto-up & down on all windows individually & from the driver's door switch cluster[/list]

My friend had the same problem on his crysta V version. The mobile unit of nandi came over to fix the issue. The technician disconnected the battery and waited for 10 mins - post which he individually rolled the left front passenger windows up/down (4 times) using the switch and then tried the up/down with the driver seat switch and it started worked. He repeated this on the rest of the windows one by one and at the end of another 10 mins all the windows individually and driver controls started working.

Magic !! looks like some programming issue of the controller.

Is a little amount of rust on the disc brakes normal - closer to the center (0.5 - 1 cm). No issues in braking and three service centers said it is normal but it feels strange or is it because the previous car didnt have alloys that my friend couldnt see it.

[karthi.stark]

Hey sridhu uncle,(as I'm a 15-year old)
I saw that you tried out the GX AT before buying your vehicle. How do you find the seat covers in the VX? Do you feel it is worth upgrading the GX seats to the VX's?
Please give your views as soon as possible.

[sridhu]

Originally Posted by karthi.stark

Hey sridhu uncle,(as I'm a 15-year old)
I saw that you tried out the GX AT before buying your vehicle. How do you find the seat covers in the VX? Do you feel it is worth upgrading the GX seats to the VX's?
Please give your views as soon as possible.

Hey Karthi

I knew I will change seats to leather so that did not matter. Even otherwise, I think the vx seats are MUCH better than the gx in terms of the fabric.

BTW, in terms of cyber security, do not go around identifying yourself as a 15 year old in your posts. The FBI site has a bunch of videos on cyber security for teens: please have a look

[badri]

Congrats on your ride and thank you for the excellent report!

I have an old gen Innova (2007 V) that has clocked 140K and the ownership experience is absolutely trouble free. I'm also very happy with the ease of maintenance and cost of spares. Many of the components were modular and you don't need to change the whole assembly. For ex, you can just change the fuel filter mesh and not the whole unit. Looks like Toyota changed their philosophy with Crysta. 16k to change the mirror assembly? This for a missing base plate? Not fair.

A quick question. How would you rate the ride quality of Crysta compared to the old Innova? After 5K Km usage you must have a good idea about this. Is it significantly better compared to the old model?

[karthi.stark]

Originally Posted by sridhu

BTW, in terms of cyber security, do not go around identifying yourself as a 15 year old in your posts. The FBI site has a bunch of videos on cyber security for teens: please have a look

Regret that. I should have been more careful while posting. Anyways thanks for cautioning me against that. Also,thanks for mentioning the sites helpful for me.

[sridhu]

Originally Posted by badri

Congrats on your ride and thank you for the excellent report!

I have an old gen Innova (2007 V) that has clocked 140K and the ownership experience is absolutely trouble free. I'm also very happy with the ease of maintenance and cost of spares. Many of the components were modular and you don't need to change the whole assembly. For ex, you can just change the fuel filter mesh and not the whole unit. Looks like Toyota changed their philosophy with Crysta. 16k to change the mirror assembly? This for a missing base plate? Not fair.

Yes, I was shocked too. Hopefully the bigger items are more modular.

Originally Posted by badri

A quick question. How would you rate the ride quality of Crysta compared to the old Innova? After 5K Km usage you must have a good idea about this. Is it significantly better compared to the old model?

I have hit close to 10k now!

In the city, not much different. On highways, the ride is better in the Crysta but it seems to wallow a bit when there is a sudden change in direction.

It is an absolute pleasure to drive though!

[sridhu]

10k Service update

Total Cost 4314

Replaced engine oil (mineral), wheel balanced, aligned & rotated (5 wheels).

Complaints: black smoke, loud noise & low mileage at highway speed (100-120 kmph. I was getting about 11.5.kmpl whereas I used to get about 14.5)

Black smoke - they said happened when the engine is gunned. They validated with other cars & their diagnostic laptop. Will continue to monitor.

Noise - they narrowed it down to a loose dash panel. Said they have tightened it & that it will fix it.

They did not make any specific claim on the mileage but said with replaced oil & cleaned air filter, it should improve. Again, will wait & watch. (did not know air filter was only replaced every 40k km)


They kept the car for 2 days as the black smoke was a warranty claim. While I understand the need for care, this seems to indicate that they are discouraging warranty claims

The car feels nice & tight after service. They wants 2800 for a buffing & Polish (no coating) and 2600 for interior cleaning. Opted out of those.

Will keep you folks posted on developments.

BTW, got the interiors done in leather at Stanley. Cost 80k.ongoing fight to get them to do the gear knob, boot, handbrake boot & steering wheel down in leather. They are advising against the wheel as they are not sure the leather will stay on on the top wood. They are also scaring me with 'we can't guarantee the air bag'.

The rest will happen over the next couple of weeks.