Hello Veeky Forums this is my first time posting here, I'm a britbong living in Turkey and i'm looking for a good decently priced first car. Unfortunately cars are extremely expensive in my country and even a crappy renault or fiat costs a good 7-10k GBP or 40K Turkish lira respectively. Now I was browsing a bunch of ads for second hand vehicles and came across a beautiful Toyota MR2 AW11, the car seemed to be in good shape and will cost around the same as a shite french car or cheap italian. Plus since its a vintage vehicle you don't have to pay tax. I have had trouble discerning if it was a Mk1a or Mk1b and I have posted a picture of the engine to get some advice off you guys (pic related) What difficulties may I face? How can I extend the life of this beautiful car? What is Veeky Forums's advice? Any other recommended vehicles I should look out for?
The interior is black leather and the car is a smoky dark gray. The pop up headlight motors work but I have yet to see the vehicle in person. The seller says it has no rust and only needs some TLC.
an AW11 isnt a good choice if it's going to be your only car and you absolutely NEED a car to get you to work/school/wherever.
in my own experience, rubber seals, gaskets, and o rings are going to be an issue. Theyre about 30 years old now and if they havent been replaced at some point things are going to start to leak.
mk1a vs mk2b is mostly just body style changes IIRC and isnt super important beyond aesthetics. As long as you know the year of the car you should be okay for parts.
Preventative maintenance will help and if you can do the work yourself it isnt very expensive, but if you need to pay a mechanic it will get expensive quickly.
Ian Torres
U can expect spoopy skelertons from owners past 2 haunt u, flip the headlights 3 times and doot the horn 2 avoid da haunting of snap oversteers.
Cameron Thomas
how hard would it be to change the gaskets and o rings? The owner said it was serviced recently by an official toyota maintenance center.
Ryder Nguyen
Also forgot to ask , why wouldn't the AW11 be a good daily driver? Does it have a bad fuel economy?
Joshua Cooper
If you're asking overall if gasket and o rings are hard to replace, not specifically this engine, then seriously don't get the car. You won't have the technical prowess to keep up on it without issues every few months. If you really want a decent dd with good fuel economy and 80s aesthetic look into 944s. It's way more practical and reliable.
Owen Torres
Porsche 944's cost 50k Euros here senpai. Even if i did have the money I would opt to go with the MR2... Can you discern if this engine belongs to a MK1b or MK1a? I read that the gearbox setup is slightly better on the b model.
Isaac Perry
Shameless self bump yet again? I need all the information on this vehicle I can get...
Luke Lopez
>why wouldn't the AW11 be a good daily driver? Does it have a bad fuel economy?
because its a 30 year old car and 30 year old car break down and need a lot of attention. Unless you're buying one that's been fully rebuilt - as in a completely rebuilt and refreshed engine, suspension, and body - you're buying a project car, and project cars don't make good daily drivers.
Charles Ross
>how hard would it be to change the gaskets and o rings
The act of replacing gaskets isnt difficult in itself, but getting to them can be. I'm in the middle of replacing my intake manifold gasket, so far I've removed:
>intake and throttle body >supercharger and all its associated plumbing >intercooler >fuel rail and injectors >coolant resivoir and coolant outlet pipe >a ton of vacuum lines >disconnected probably 75% of the wiring harness in the engine bay
If I wanted to remove the head to do the head gasket as well I'd also have to remove the alternator, distributor, exhaust system, camshafts, timing covers, and probably a few other things I'm not remembering off the top of my head.
I have never touched a car mechanically before I bought this one so you can certainly learn to do all of this stuff, but I dont need a car to get me to work or school so it isnt a big deal if its sitting on jackstands for a week (or longer) while I get parts and install them
Bentley Fisher
I see thank you for the heads up. I can get to work easily using the subway line, Istanbul has a great public transport network system so I think the car is merely a luxury to me rather than an essential utility. Yet that said what should I look out for when buying this new car? Do you have any bad experiences with it? And will the parts cost alot to replace for example the suspension?
William Fisher
Also forgot to ask, is this engine turbocharged ? If so is this said part the turbocharger? or is it merely and intake filter and the engine is naturally aspirated.
Connor Carter
It looks like a mk1b N/A. The box you highlighted is the air filter. The hose that connects that to the TVIS is a dead give away for Mk1b. Mk1a intake hoses are curved like an S with a breather line in the middle of it. Infamously hard to get a replacement for.
Landon Ortiz
There are no turbocharged AW11s
Unless you, or the guy you bought it from did a 3SGTE swap
That's just the intake filter and runner
Ethan Kelly
Either that or that's a half assed air intake hose to replace the original mk1a hose. Only way to tell is tg breather line which I can't see.
Alexander Perry
>Porsche 944 >More reliable than an AW11
You're on drugs cunt, I drive an AE82 Corolla which is pretty much a back to front AW11 and I trust my life with it. I can't kill the damn thing.
Levi Sanchez
I take these comments back. Its a Mk1a. The intake pipe to the TVIS is home made, and the breather is bypassed directly to the air filter box. Also, the air filter box is missing the pipe that goes around and under the battery to pick up fresh air. So that box is picking nothing but hot air around the engine. It should work fine, but be weary about that shit.
Logan Perez
That doesn't look like a 4AGE to me, and mk1 mr2s are supposed to have blue/red lettering on engine (blue for mk1a, red for mk1b I believe) did he do a swap?
Aaron James
>dd with good fuel economy and 80s aesthetic look into 944s. It's way more practical and reliable. Bread on buspass.
Nolan Edwards
Looked it up, 1986 models and up have "16 valves" in red, before that it was blue. I don't see 16 valves anywhere on the engine cover.
Jeremiah Carter
I daily drove a 944 s2 with no issues for 6 years so I'm guessing your only experience is
>hurdur I saws da peepl on da Veeky Forums say 944 unreliables, I am expart now cuz memez
i also meant mainly the fuel economy and daily drivability, 944 > aw11. Reliability, they're both fine. As a daily, I'd take a 944 over an aw11 any day. As a fuck around, whatever car? Both serve fine.
Brody Reed
That's clearly a blue top 4age.
It just has painted valve covers.
Blake Lopez
So it's at least pre 1986. Probably mk1a
Cameron Peterson
Do whatever you want but I'd strongly advise against purchasing this with the intent to use it every day with no issues. If you think an air filter box is a turbo, you do NOT want this unless you are expecting to dump a lot of time and money into learning everything and working on it in a lot of your free time. I know you said public transport is fine for you so you have a back up, just know that it's really gonna be a project car no matter what and you're probably going to be in way over your head with extremely limited knowledge.
Leo Nelson
Okay so it appears to be an Mk1a, which undoubtably has more issues right? In essence you guys advise against buying this car? There is no rust and the condition exterior and internally looks great (Will still take a look at it up close and give it a test drive) I guess maybe i might opt for a better condition car...
Luke Gomez
How many miles or km does it have?
Blue tops are very reliable and I have seen many with over 300k miles on them. They'll burn oil though.
Cooper Bailey
You're probably going to be able to use it fairly regularly and probably be able to do regular maintenance things. The risk comes that it's old and shit is more likely to break. If something does that's out of the ordinary, beginner stuff you're likely to be pretty boned with low knowledge. Not saying you can't learn and definitely get if your heart is set but just keep it in mind and shop around some more maybe.
Connor Lee
Since I'm in Turkey there have only been 4 known to exist imported from Japan. This is one of the 4 which seems to be in fairly decent condition. The owner says the meter notes 44,000 km's but he says its probably been run more than that. I dont mind replacing the oil constantly and i can handle low maintenance things, found this website for blue top buying. challoner.com/mr2/tech/mk1bg.html
And i am also willing to dedicate time and effort into maintaining this car. One quick question can i keep the car outdoors or is a garage mandatory?
James Sanders
I'm going off memory cause I can't be fucked to go double check but if I remember right the aw11 has vents on the engine bay hood that water seeps into, so a garage is definitely preferable. Might be the sw20 but p sure aw11.
Luke Morris
Yeah it seems to have that issue. I suppose a garage won't hurt. Should I replace the air intake with an aftermarket filter? It seems like the botched job on this one seems unhealthy.
Gabriel Martin
Can't hurt it as long as you do it right and they're fairly simple especially on na engines so I'm sure you'd be fine. Might help mpg/performance but I don't know enough about mr2s to say forsure.
Mason Cox
Thanks man.
Anyone else have any input? I will probably go for the car if i can muster up the guts...
