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When I start the car the engine is stationary on 1500 and it drops and drops after a few minutes until the engine turns off.Can anyone help me or give me some information.
Thanks
I have a Rav4,2004 auto. for more than a year this February. I loved the car and had no problem until last week. I was in a down town street parked waiting for my wife to buy something when I dicided to go to park someplace else near where she was shopping. I depressed the gas pedal to go slow, instead the car went forward accelereted like if I had step on the gas hard.
Good thing no car was comming, otherwise it would have been an accident.
I took my wife and went home very nervous. I did not tell her anything.
Two days latter I went to do the groceries and when I was parking in the parking lot head in I tried to park right in the middle of the lines I was crooked I put the reverse and slightly deppress the gas pedal, my god the car accelerated even more than the first time hiting the left rear end against the firehydrant that was in back of me. This is only a second but I do not wish anybody to go through that. I applied the brakes and it was like if they did not exist, finnaly in terror I applied the hand brakes, almost to late.
Since then the car is parked and I only go there every day to warm it up. I live in NJ and we are having snowfall almost every day.
I made an appointment with the dealer for nex saturday, but I feel bad having to tell him that the car accelerated by itself, he might think I am nuts.
Please advice me, I am even afraid to move the car now.
I only have 3000 miles, mostly is city drive, my wife and I. We are both retired.
I had a Matrix for a year before I traded it in for the Rav4, reason, two inches more front leg room. I am 6'4". I should have stayed with the Matrix.
Please help me with this mess.
Sincerely,
Jordi Sama
P.S Excuse my English, it is not my mother language.
im from the philippines, and i have the same problems with my RAV4, really same as your case(engine sludge?). We have made some talks with our dealer here but they do not seem to care. Our RAV4 has only ran about 65,000 miles, just three year old. And now the engine is dead and we cannot use our RAV4 for 2 months already. What seems to be quite interesting with our case is that, the engine died out only around 15 days after its last periodic maintenance, the cause was engine sludge. We really dont know for sure yet if its accumulated engine sludge or it was just really because the engine of our RAV4 was really prone to engine sludge. To think that the one doing our periodic maintenance is the dealer, they should have spotted the problem or sludge before it got worse if they were really doing their job. By the way, they were using Amalie Oil. when the sludging happened. Is this a good quality oil? We are quite in limbo here because the dealer does not have any options but for us to pay for the repair or to change the engine. They were very cold and heartless the letter that they sent us.
tidester, host
I've got a 2001 Escape V6. Still runs great at 66K miles. However, if I'm in the market again
in a couple of years then I may would consider one w/the 3.3 V6 or a pumped-up four-banger at 180+HP. It sounds to me, if the above info. is correct then the 3.3 could easily output 200 HP+.
This would probably be a higher-end option on the new RAV4, which could easily put the RAV4 in 30K
territory w/AWD. If they offered the 4-banger at the entry /lower end then it would obviously be at lesser cost.
My wife curently has an '03 RAV4, low-low mileage as she drives 3/4 mile to/from work everyday. Hardly enough to get the engine heated-up. When she first got the car we went on a short vacation.
We got 29mpg on a particularly good stretch, but generally on the highway it's about 25mpg. In town it's about 22mpg. The main complaint I had was the visit(s) back to the dealer three (3) times to the get the well-documented dash-noise(s) taken care of. To their credit I finally believe that they got right the 3rd time. I had a minor door-ratle in my Escape which I took car of, but otherwise my Escape is pretty solid. The RAV4 seems more solid, now that the dash-noise has been taken of.
Today it sits at my regular mechanic's shop and they will be looking for this mysterious problem. Any suggestions? I have owned it for 3 years and I have had no problems with it until last Fall when I began commuting these long distances. Please help!
de-carboned using a shop's BG/Wynn's/Justice Bros.
machine and chemicals. The service really does help if the intake is carboned-up bad.
Not sure what a cat-converter runs for the RAV4,
but your mechanic will inevitably be cheaper than Toyota.
http://forums.autoweek.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/31-11435-239487-3791/rav4200514.jp- g
http://forums.autoweek.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/31-11435-239487-3792/rav4200513.jp- g
I have a 2001 RAV4. I am about to hit the 5 year 100k miles point. I have 2 noise problems.
1 is a chirping noise coming from under the dash when I am on even a slightly bumpy road. Toyota dealership said it is a busted spot weld under the dash and it will cost hundreds to get at it and try to fix (only covered in first 3 years). Can anyone offer any advice on this problem?
The other noise is an intermittent static-like crackling noise. Toyota dealership fixed this problem for a while in the first 3 years by moving a cable that was too close to my battery terminals. The noise is back and they were unable to stop it this time. Any suggestions?
Thanks for your help,
Kwivo
No more Toyota's for me. I have a brand new Prius also but am trading that in next week just because of the Rav4 issue. All cars have issues, but Toyota not fixing this one is enough for me.
quote of aprox. $9k to fix it by the way.
:sick:
thanks!
hoped that helped..john
That is what I said-- it is absurd to try to charge someone $9k to fix a sludged engine.
Couldn't you get a brand new engine for less than that?
My wife and I got a new RAV4 2005 FWD, only 1 month old, with 1250 miles on it. Right now we're getting ONLY 20.3 mpg at city. I've check it four times and this is an average. Is this OK for this car? Should we go and visit the "doctor" to check if something is wrong with our RAV4?
Thanks a lot to all,
K.
tidester, host
And, what are the specific driving circumstances? I can tell you, we're located in Houston area, not much of hills around here. I don't know if this is kind of the circumstances you're talking about. Would you please explain us this?
Thank you,
K.
Factors affecting your mileage include the amount of stop and go driving you do and how rapidly you accelerate. Being in Houston the terrain is not an issue affecting your mileage.
tidester, host
Steve, Host
RAV4 March sales: 6,233, YTD: 15,660
CR-V March sales: 13,639 YTD: 34,991
These are from Toyota's North American Sales and American Honda Sales reports for March 2005.
Not quite 4x, more like 2x, but definitely more.
--Dan
i just installed a timing belt on a 1998 rav4 2.0 for $100 bucks. It took about 4 hours and everything is ez to get to.
I am design manager in the company that design, manufacture, test and supplies with many parts (like pumps, transmissions,....) GM, Ford, and Chrisler, and overviewing MercedesBenz, VW, and BMW design, and sometimes get Toyota and Honda on the desk. So it is how i know about cars quality. NEVER TURN ENGINE ON AND THE SAME MOMENT PRESS GAS PEDAL, for it can damage journal bearings in the engine. You have better then you can imagine and now care for that baby.
I have RAV4 also 2004 L, and it is my first Toyota. I had pt cruiser before i got a job in automotive industry here in Toronto.
I also got new radio Alpine CDA-9835 and two speakers Alpine CDR-136. I have them for a while but still not instaled. My RAV4 was on starage for winter time. I would like to install that sound makers myself but would not like to damage anithing. If you have some picts how to remove Toyota radio and how to remove front door cover i will appriciate.
Tires are important at high speed (140 km/h) and over. I got 235R16 tires with the car (and aluminum rims) and right away replaced tires with Michelin 236R16 Hydroedge. When i drive i more care that someone do not hit my car then how tires perform. 235 i think just looks nicer and that is all. We all like to have nice car so if you can get 235R16.