Direct Automotive Garage

Not many of these getting around

Classic Toyota goodness 👌

Does your old Toyota or Lexus need a good talking to? Here at Direct Automotive Garage we have all the right gear to make your Toyota problems disappear!

What a brilliant weekend.

Our annual trip to Albany for Targa was possibly the best one yet.

A week before the event... we went to start the soarer with no luck. Another dead fuel pump... fuel pump replaced and it ran for about 30seconds before frying the fuel pump ecu (common soarer problem) we bypassed this and she was alive again.

After a couple test laps. She was deemed good to go.

With some second hand tires and a borrowed trailer we were off to Albany.

When we unloaded the car in Albany, we had a new problem. The car didn't rev past 2500rpm. A limp mode of sorts. After some quick diag we turned our attention to the ecu and found some of the capacitors had leaked.

With 2 days to go before the event, we thought we were s**t out of luck.

After a post on one of the local pages, Daniel from Albany Car Stereo hooked us up with some capacitors. (At 9pm on Saturday) thanks again.

On Sunday Harry met a mutual friend to carry out the replacement of these caps while Michael and Cliff went to spectate the quarranup sprint.

It was pointed out that there were more leaking capacitors, but we'd fixed the worst of them... upon plugging the ecu in, it looked hopeless. But after 5minutes of running full RPM was achieved and we were 1 step closer to running on Monday.

After the quarranup sprint, we bled the brakes on the soarer and took care of some last minute items for scruteneering.

The Soarer ran nearly flawlessly for all 6 runs. Harry's best time was a 1:44 earning him a 3rd place trophy in class. A very unexpected, but extremely welcomed result.

A massive thank you to everyone who made this weekend possible.

The organisers, scrutineers, marshals, none of this would happen without you. Thank you.

We are extremely lucky to have been able to take part in the event.

The soarer is being put up for sale. What are we going to take next year? 🤔

PSA: We service late model Toyota and Lexus!

Toyota's Mild Hybrid system (as seen in the Hilux) is not new. This is a 2004 Toyota's Crown Comfort. "Japan's Taxi" and it is fitted with a very similar mild hybrid system. This should prove the systems reliability.

Thanks Matt for bringing us this lovely example.