Faults:

I drove 3 of these before buying 1, and found 2 out of 3 had flat spots. I replaced the air flow meter in mine, which improved but did not eliminate the problem. I think the throttle body needed replacing to totally eliminate it.

General Comments:

Car looked great with its full factory bodykit and mesh grille.

It handled really good too. Had tonnes of grip with the factory 17s. Really couldn't see why it had traction control.

Performance above 4700 RPM (where VVTi kicked in) was good, but under this it was lacking a bit, and was especially slow off the mark / under 2000 RPM. This is due to it having an electronic throttle body, which in the Altezza's case takes away the responsiveness. Fine to thrash around the hills, but not much fun in start stop traffic.

The gearbox was nice and smooth changing, but the gear ratios were stupidly low, and this made it use a lot of fuel for a 2.0L 4 cylinder. At 100kph I recorded 4800 RPM in fourth gear, 3700 in fifth gear, and 3300 in 6th.

Faults:

One sparky, and that's it.

General Comments:

All round good runner. I had this car after my Audi A3, which was too small for me, and the car before was an Accord euro.

Although the car is 5 years older than the first Accord Euros, I think it holds itself really good compared to the Euro. It's not as fuel efficient as the Accord Euro, not as smooth or comfy, but something with its handling and RWD just makes me wanting to have this car more and more.

Faults:

Diff seal started leaking, minor fix at the dealer.

CD stacker jammed - very common fault with these cars.

General Comments:

Great car, extremely reliable and great on fuel for the performance offered.

Probably a nicer car to drive as an automatic, but over to personal choice.

Big boot, looks great even as a 12 year old shape, and now great value for money.

Don't buy a Camry or even a Corolla sedan, get one of these.

Faults:

Ball joints worn at 90k.

A/C failed at 110k.

Rear shocks failed at 114k.

Rear suspension bushes failed at 114k, requiring whole lower suspension A arms to be replaced.

Moisture in both headlights at 120k.

Fuel gauge only ever worked intermittently.

Gloss black paintwork started to self destruct at 110k; oxidation and flaking.

General Comments:

Brought the car for two reasons. It looked fantastic in gloss black with 18inch telephone dial alloys, great japanese interpretation of a 3 series BMW. The second reason was that it was by Toyota, so I expected reliability and reasonable running costs.

Good bits:

It looked great, and was admired by many out and about.

Front seats were comfortable and supportive, steering had a nice meaty sports feel and it handled well.

Great factory sound system too, with sat nav capability.

It was a good size too, not massive and bloated like many modern cars, so parking was easy.

Bad bits:

Performance from the Yamaha Beams engine was peaky, so the car was lethargic under the variable valve timing threshold. To make matters worse, the 5 speed tiptronic gearbox was total garbage. In auto it constantly shuffled around gears, and if it needed to downshift a couple of ratios, it would take an age to do so, leaving a few seconds of no acceleration at the most inconvenient times. Overtaking required shifting manually, and the spacing of the gear ratios meant having to upshift in the middle of an overtaking maneuver. If there were four people aboard, you just wouldn't bother as the car was just too heavy. The engine ran on premium fuel, and was extremely uneconomical for a 2.0L 4cyl car.

The cost of the suspension parts were eye watering.

Servicing itself was affordable, but if anything other than belts, plugs or filters was needed, it was expensive.

Fit and finish of the dashboard was not good enough for a premium car of the post 2000 era, and when we sold it at 120k the paint was deteriorating, there were trim rattles, and the seat fabric was wearing.