This guide pertains to ONLY 1990 - 1999 models.

If you haven't already done so read my other guide

"Buying a used 1990-1999 Toyota Previa/Estima/Lucida/Emina"

If however you already own one of the vehicles here are a few pointers on them and on keeping them going.

The good points

a. The wide body Previa is the most spacious MPV on the market without a doubt (and yes I have driven the Chrysler Grand Voyager and Kia Sedona)
b. Very comfortable to drive
c. Drive very well if looked after.
d. These are back wheel drive so no CV joint/boot issues as with the other MPV's on the market. (although the independent suspension models do have rear CV boots but as these run in one plane of motion they are pretty durable.)
e. On the 8 seaters the rear seats fold down into a double bed.....very cool (7 seater variants are a bit limited when the rear seats are up)
f. With all seats occupied there is still plenty of luggage space in the boot.
g. Because of the space between the rear most seats and the rear window your passengers will be unlikely to suffer head injury if you are rear ended.

The bad points

1. As stated in my other guide, the Petrol versions are known to blow head gaskets although this is not that common and spares are readily available.

2. The diesel versions are NOTORIOUS for cracking cylinder heads and yes this is very common

3. Getting insurance on the imports can be expensive

4. There are NO official English workshop manuals available for the Imports (you will find a link to and unofficial one below)

5. Most garages don't want to touch the IMPORTS which has allowed a handful of people to carve a nice little niche for themselves repairing these. You are therefore at the mercy of their pricing schemes.

6. Spares for the Imports (Anything with ESTIMA in the name) are mostly only available from Ebay and Toyota but Toyota will be very expensive. Also the quality of cylinder heads found on Ebay are of varying degrees of dubious quality. Some head gaskets sold are incorrect for these vehicles. NOTE: - The diesel engine used in the IMPORTS is also used in other Toyota's BUT the head gasket is very specific to the car in which the engine is installed. Put the wrong one in, whilst it may fit, and it will cause the head to crack again but sooner rather than later.

7. Diesels need constant servicing so what you gain on increased MPG you lose on servicing costs.

8. Water pumps, cam belts and Turbo's are also apparent weak points on the Diesels.

9. Automatic's are heavy on brake pads.

So yours is running fine and you are quite happy with it. Great here are some points to try and keep it that way.

1. Change the radiator NOW. I don't care if it is ok, trust me on this one for £70 it is well worth doing. This goes for the Petrol and Diesels.

2. At the same time change the Thermostat

3. Change the coolant on a regular basis, every 25K miles.

4. Keep the car serviced regularly as per manufacturers guidelines.

5. Constantly watch the tempertaure Guage, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. Become neurotic about it. Glance down on a very regular basis.

6. Check the coolant level everyday, if it starts dropping on a regular and alarming basis have a pressure test and a combustible gas test done on the car immediately. This is a sure sign that on the Petrol's the head gasket is on its way out and on the Diesels the head & gasket are on their way out.
Having said that though, change the radiator cap first. This is something most people overlook but they do go over time and release pressure before they should (13psi) and water loss is the result.

7. DON'T be a MUPPET and put tap water in the radiator. Take a look at your kettle, if that happens in your engine you are on your way to a big repair bill. Buy distilled or deionised water or get rain water from your water butt if you have one. Always have a bottle of antifreeze available and mix 50% water with 50% antifreeze and put this in the radiator. You can also buy premix antifreeze to make your life easier.

8. At least once a week check the oil level and whilst at it take off the oil filler cap and look inside. If there is a milky white substance DO NOT DRIVE THE CAR ------ CALL YOUR MECHANIC

9. Personally if I had just bought a diesel Estima/Emina/Lucida, the first thing I would do is to take off the cylinder head check it and if ok, fit a new head gasket and thoroughly flush the cooling system and install a new thermostat and radiator. This may sound extreme but £50 for a new gasket is cheaper than £500 for a new head and incredibly good value for peace of mind. HOWEVER make 200% sure it is the correct gasket, buy from Toyota NOT Ebay.

As for the rest of the car maintain it the way you would any other, but note the shock absorbers need changing relatively frequently as these are heavy cars. So if when you dive into a corner the car feels like you are sailing a ship, then this is a sure sign that they are going or gone.

OK SO THE DREADED HAS HAPPENED - THE CAR IS OVERHEATING --- NOW WHAT ???

Firstly bummer DUDE !!!

Ok what to do really depends on what you have done. If the car overheated badly i.e. YOU WEREN'T watching the damn guage. I commiserate with you and will send flowers.

Here's the deal. Heat is your enemy!!!!!! Heat causes expansion, expansion causes friction, friction causes more heat, more heat and friction cause wear, wear causes component failure. Its really a simple equation. The hotter the car ran and the longer it ran like this the more things are going to be knackered. If however you were being a good little boy or girl and were watching the guage and pulled over right away and called the little man from the AA or RAC then well done, you have saved yourself a lot of money.

Steps upon failure.

When the AA/RAC man arrives DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LET THE MUPPET PUT COLD WATER INTO THE ENGINE......PLEEEEEEASE. Yes I know they are qualified mechanics but sometimes they don't think. If you put something cold onto something very hot it will crack and this will negate all the good work you have done pulling over. Wrestle him and his container of water to the ground if need be until he agrees to tow you home.

NOTE: - BOTH A HAYNES AND CHILTON WORKSHOP MANUAL ARE AVAILABLE FOR THE PREVIA'S. I RECOMMEND THE CHILTON BUT EITHER WAY BUY ONE.

IF YOU BOUGHT AN IMPORT --- POOR YOU !!! ------ HERE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RELY ON DODGEY MATERIAL OFF EBAY OR TUTORIALS THAT CAN BE FOUND ON THE ESTIMAOWNERSCLUB.CO.UK. THE DODGEY MATERIAL OFF EBAY ARE SIMPLY CD-ROM COMPILATIONS OF THE STUFF ON THAT WEB SITE. OFFICIAL TOYOTA MANUALS ARE AVAILABLE FOR THE 3C-TE ENGINE THOUGH OFF EBAY AND I WOULD RECOMMEND YOU BUY ONE.

Here is a complete workshop manual for the Toyota Previa. It is also useful for all non engine related issues on the Imports as well

PLEASE NOTE: - YOU CANNOT SIMPLY CLICK ON THIS LINK FROM THIS PAGE AS IT IS NOT HTML SO READ AND READ CAREFULLY

YOU     MUST    COPY  THE    ENTIRE   URL  AND    PASTE   IT   INTO    YOUR    BROWSER AND THEN PRESS ENTER ***** OK ??

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/22/c4/81/0900823d8022c481/repairInfoPages.htm

I had originally had a link here for the Estima tutorials but the site that was hosting them seem to have removed them. Never fear I have the content and will gladly provide it free of charge to anyone who wants it. Just send me an Ebay message. Please note that the correct way to obtain this collection of tutorials is to subscribe to www.estimaowners.com. The work contained in the tutorials is the result of many hours of hard work by a number of individuals from this forum. I offer it for free purely as a thorn in the side of those Ebay sellers who are selling this content for anything for £1.99 upwards as being original factory manuals with phrases such as "use what the workshops use". Not only are they profiting off the hard work of others they are also violating the copyright contained within the Previa autozone manual I have listed above by blatantly copying works from that page into their pirate CD ROM's.

One seller claims to be the rightful owner of the Estima content and sells for £11.99. He may well be and if so I would encourage you to buy from him. Remember there are NO official manuals available for these cars. If he and others like him decide to stop creating these works because of peoples disregard then it is YOU the Estima owner who is going to suffer. The best way to validate that he is the owner is to ask him for his www.estimaowners.com forum ID and validate him on that forum.

Petrol engines

Ok, these are relatively simple. The most likely cause is a blown radiator or stuck thermostat--Best case-- or blown head gasket --- Worst case. The first two are simple enough to fix and I would try these first before delving into the engine.

If it appears that the head gasket has failed the head will have to come off and a new gasket fitted. This can be done with the engine in situ so don't let anyone convince you to pay more to have the engine removed. Once off the head should be checked for cracks but this is unlikely on the petrols. Warpage is however possible so the head should be checked for this and if need be skimmed. It should then be cleaned and resurfaced as should the block. This ensure that the new gasket has good purchase. Whilst the head is off I would thoroughly recommend that you have the valves reseated and new valve stem seals fitted at the same time. A FULL top end gasket set should be bought and all gaskets replaced. It is false economy not to do this as eventually you will be revisiting these gaskets if you don't. You MUST buy NEW CYLINDER HEAD BOLTS!!!!!!

Word of advice, if you are doing the job yourself take pictures of all the tubes and pipes so you know where these go when the time comes to reassemble!!

That's it, reassemble and you have a nice car again.

Diesels

Well the same process should be followed as with the petrols but here it is highly likely that the head will be cracked and even if it isn't I would recommend you have it pressure tested and if need be welded. Best case scenario is a new head. DO NOT USE A SECOND HAND HEAD!!!, really this is a big job and you don't want to do it twice because you decided to be a Scrooge. I cannot advise whether or not to buy a genuine Toyota head as in my mind the genuine Toyota one is the one that has just cracked so why would another one of theirs be any better, so this I will leave up to you to decide, however a Toyota head gasket is probably wise.

If you choose to buy an after market gasket the thing to watch for is the water ways in the gasket. Make sure you strip your head first and keep the old gasket to compare. Make 4000% sure that the gaskets, new and old are identical in every respect before fitting. ONCE AGAIN BUY NEW BOLTS.

IF IT APPEARS THAT ONLY THE HEAD IS AT FAULT DO NOT LET ANYONE CONVINCE YOU TO REPLACE THE ENGINE. ALL THE ENGINES ON EBAY ARE USED........BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.

Here again reassemble and drive with a smile.

Now what if you were a silly Muppet and drove a long way with the car in the RED. TUT TUT

Well chances are you now need a new engine, as almost certainly either your liners, pistons, rings or all three will now be knackered. I doubt you will find a new engine so your only recourse will be one of the used ones off Ebay. Here you have to make a serious choice

1. Is the car worth spending another £500 - £800 on?????? (and this doesn't include labour. If you can't do it yourself bend over and lube up dude cause you are going to get it. Sorry to be so graphic but this is just a fact). Only you can answer this but depending on what you paid for it I seriously doubt you will get your money back. Don't let the car become a white elephant, you may be better off scraping it.

2. You have no idea what condition the "new engine" is in. Unless your name is Clark Kent and you have X-ray vision you cannot see what's inside. Here you will have to make a choice.

    a. Trust the sellers warranty and fit the engine and hope it lasts. It could last 1 mile or 100K miles
    b. Strip the new engine, void the warranty, and fit new components before fitting the engine. This is  the only way you will know that it is good.

One other thing to mention. If you have blown/cracked head/gasket there is a very high chance that your oxygen sensor will be shot too. Coolant has silicon in it and when it gets into the exhaust system this silicon is deposited onto the Oxygen sensors and destroys them. These are the devices that monitor and manage your cars emmisions. Now sometimes the cars engine warning light will come on and tell you that something is amis, but sometimes not. The problem is if they go and the light is not on, your car will most likely fail the MOT emmisions test. Now if you are not aware of this little token of info you could end up spending a lot of money getting a mechanic to analyse this "mysterious" issue.

Finally note that it seems that the reason the Diesels crack heads is a design flaw and no one, Toyota, included seems to know where that flaw lies. So once again you need to ask yourself if it is worth the effort. Only you can put a value on the car and how much money you are prepared to throw at it.

Think, if you paid way over the odds e.g. £2000+ for one of these and now have to pay another £1800-£2000 to have it fixed you have now spent a minimum of £4000 on a 10 - 18 year old car????
If it is the Petrol this may be ok as once the job is done you will probably get another 80 - 100K miles out of it. But if it's the diesel...................??

I have seen the new shape Previa's which look nicer, come standard as a UK model with either Petrol or Diesel and has a traditional front mounted engine, so much easier and cheaper to work on go from £5500 and up depending on year and mileage of course. So you decide.

Best of luck