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Used Car Tune Up

Drivetrain Repairs

• Rusted Wheel Arches
• Frozen Parking Brake
• Clunks and/or vibrations/shimmy from the steering/front end
• Wheel Nut Torque
• Electric Windows
• Sunroof rattle
• Floormats
• Bouncing Speedometer
• Warped Brake Rotors and more Brake Info
• Interior Cosmetics
• Lights and Wiper Switches
• Leaky T-tops

Rusted Wheel Arches:

For those that have to deal with MR2 rust problems, the first place that rust usually occurs is in the rear wheel arches. Sometimes it can be stopped and saved, but if it cannot be stopped, and you really like you Mr2, you can have the entire rear quarter panels replaced for a very pricey sum. A great deal of labor is involved. Please check out Jorn Innset's story on the matter:

Rusted Rear wheel arches

In general, it is the MR2s that face salted winter roads that will, or currently have this problem.  In areas where this is not the case, the MR2 holds up pretty well to the elements.

Frozen Parking Brake:

Please check the master brakes section for all brake info.
 

Clunks and/or vibrations/shimmy from the steering/front end:

Wow.  What a pain.  I think that the infamous front end clunks, rattles, vibrations, shimmies,  etc.. is if not THE  most infamous of all the AW11 problems, it would at least be a top 3. This is a common problem that sometimes can be hard to trace.  There are many things that this could be including any number of combinations of the following:

Problems that can cause both clunking and/or vibrations/shimmies are: 

• Steering rack (could just be simply worn out, or a specific problem)
• Worn out sway bar end-links

• Worn out struts (almost guaranteed to be dead if the car is over 100k)
• Worn out suspension bushings
• Worn out ball joints
• Worn out tires
• Worn out strut tops
• Non-hubcentric wheels (possible only if you have aftermarket wheels)
• Bad alignment
• Mis-balanced tires
• Incorrectly tightened lugs  (torque to 76 ft/lbs)

Wheel Nut Torque:

Tire service stores will often wrench on the wheels way to tight, thus causing various vibrations/shimmies. The factory specification is 76 ft/lbs. Incorrectly torqued wheels can also lead to warped brake rotors.
 

Electric Windows:

If your window makes bad clunking noises on its way up, or will not come up all the way, the Nylon drive gear on the electric window motor has probably stripped causing this problem. This is the #1 cause of window problems.  The gear has an unusual center shaft mount that looks like a 7 point star.  This is a non-standard pattern, and thus there is not standard replacement gear that can be sourced from somewhere besides Toyota.  What most do is to try and find a good one in a junkyard, from someone parting out a car, or to go ahead and bite the bullet and buy a whole new regulator assembly from Toyota (~$70) as the gear cannot be purchased separately. Another solution is to purchase a new gear from http://www.twosrus.com/

Sometimes the power windows will not work because the switch is just full of crud, and a good cleaning will fix the problem.  Another problem is when the small center switch becomes wallowed out and will not make contact.  A cheap fix for this is to take out the switch and carefully cut off the bump stop for the larger button and make the larger button work both up and down.  Also, a non working window could also be from a snapped regulator cable.
 

Sunroof rattle:

Tim Kingsbury once again gives valuable information:

There are two major sources of annoying noises from the sun roof. The retaining spring and catch or the plastic clips that the air deflector is attached to. You can easily determine if the retaining spring and catch is the source of the noise by reaching up and grabbing it while driving. The catch is on the left side of the roof and easily accessible while driving with the roof open. If the noise is coming from the clip, it can be silenced by thoroughly lubricating the clip. Any decent lubricant should take care of it (WD-40, lithium grease, etc.). 

The air deflector clips take a set with age, and can being to rattle. They can be removed from the car by pushing the tab with a screwdriver. Pop them out and put some felt underneath. Snap them back in and the rattle should be cured.

Floormats:

As all AW11s are at least 10+ years old now, many of them could use, and would like a new set of floormats. Unfortunately, you can no longer get the factory floormats for the car. However, you can get the MKII floormats, and while they are not a perfect fit, they are very close. They also have the added advantage of being a high quality factory mat, along with the fact "MR2" is embroidered on them.  Call your favorite Toyota dealer and get a set today.
 

Bouncing/Broken Speedometer

This is 99% of the time because of a bad speedometer cable.  The speedometer cable is not the best in the world, and in time they will stick and make the speedometer read funny.  The cable could be either bent, sticking, or broken.
 

Warped Brake Rotors:

Once again, check the master brakes section for all brake info.
 

Interior Cosmetics

Now that the AW11's glory days have come and gone, it is unfortunate that many today are in a sad state of shape.  Some of the most common interior cosmetic damage that you will find is the following:

Broken ashtray hinges.
Cracked instrument cluster surround piece near the screw holes.
Messed up radio/AC trim
Cracked and worn armrest pad ('85 and '86)
Bad shift boots and/or missing shift boot hold clips
Torn Leather Seats

When finding a car that does not have these things wrong with it, that may be a good sign of a well taken care of car!  As far as repair goes, your best bet will be to either try and find one in a junkyard, find someone that is parting out a car, or to just simply break down and buy a new one from Toyota which will not be cheap.
 

Lights and Wiper Switches

As I speak from first hand experience, things get rather exciting going around a corner at a high rate of speed, in the middle of the night, on a deserted highway, with no moon, when all of the sudden all of the lights on the car cut off. 

While not a problem that happens often, malfunctioning lights is something that many AW11 owners have had to deal with.  (Luckily it appears the retractable light motors are bulletproof, thus avoiding the embarrassing "lights up syndrome" that many Fieros have. hehe)  The most often reported cause of this is a corroded switch.  This problem can be fixed by carefully taking apart the switch and cleaning the contacts.  However this is not always the case.  There have also been other sporadic reports of bad wiring harnesses, shorts, or other oddball hard to trace down problems that would cause this to happen.  Luckily this is rare, and a simple switch cleaning is all that is usually needed.

Secondly, it appears that cute pod switch #2, aka the wiper switch, is not immune from creating its own problems as well.  While that I have found from my experience that wiper problems are a somewhat rare thing, others have had problems with them.  Once in a blue moon, the motor itself will go bad while other times it will be the switch.  John Shepardson shares his experience with us:

I fixed my windshield wiper switch a little while back. It was the old problem of no intermittent and no return to park. That was an easy one, and I think it was mostly covered in the archives, but I want to be a little more specific.

The solution is to test the wiper motor according to BGB and when that succeeds pull out the wiper switch.  The wiper switch has a plastic rectangular cover with a screw in the center.  Remove screw and cover . See printed circuit board. There are two PCBs in the switch, one you are looking at and one at the back of the switch at a 90 degree angle.  These two boards are connected by seven wires  at the aft end of the board.  They stick out about 1/8th of an inch.  It appears that the two boards were manufactured parallel to each other and then bent at a 90 degree angle to fit into the box.  It seems that this bend puts significant stress on those seven solder joints.

If you take a magnifying glass and look at the solder joints at each of those seven wires, I think you will find that several of them are broken.  Resolder these and reinstall.  I only resoldered two of these and when I screwed the plastic cap back on , two other joints cracked.  So resolder them all.

Leaky T-Tops

A problem that almost all T-top owners have.  As with most any T-top car, over time the seals will dry up, and/or start to get flattened.  Unfortunately, there usually isn't an easy fix for this, and there are many different opinions on how to fix this problem.  The first thing that you can do, which is free, is to simply adjust your windows and T-top locking mechanisms.  After that, there are many different paths you can take.  While some have had luck with various rubber restorers, some are not able to stop the leak unless they replace all the seals with new.  In addition to this, some simply create extra gaskets that can be sandwiched in-between the stock worn out gaskets.  As far as the rubber restorers go, some have had luck with the Kano Labs rubber restorer product that is somewhat hard to find.