toyota liva diesel - a first experience

Yes Nithi, I am using higher than recommended air pressure to avoid hits by speed breakers. Kirloskar Toyota Bangalore people and Anamallais Toyota Coimbatore jointly reviewed my vehicle after my feedback to Toyota Japan about the hits. But no solution has come out yet. They say 'your vehicle is perfect'. Yes it perfectly gets hit by steep speedbreakers with 4/5 people without luggage at recommended air pressure at first gear and crawling/walking speeds. Some zig zag manouvering over the speedbreakers does help to some extent. Oh! what will happen if luggage is added. The hit rate will improve further! (but it is not cricket here). They also say that with additional air pressure the perfect braking decreases, the life of the tyre is reduced and the road grip is reduced. But Toyota are you listening? How to drive over the tall speed breakers if the Liva is taking hits? Is this phenomena the 'achilles heel' of LIVA? It is good Nithi that you get a mileage of 30kmpl on LIVA Diesel. You are driving a car at the cost of a two wheeler! I installed alpine music system with alpine speakers oval 50w x 2 at rear and front are orignal speakers. It sounds rich.

my liva is now 5000kms.engine & brake perfect for this price.but now i cant drive car due to suspension complaint.wen i book the car i just look only because it is toyota. but toyota lost its name by introducing this liva with poor suspension.dealers also dont know wat to do!!!!!!they says everybody has the same complaint. still company has no reply.it is very bad toyota !!!!U r cheating all liva customers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Justin! The Toyota Japan mail id is ap-overseas@mail.toyota.co.jp. Send your feedback to them. They definitely will take action. Toyota Kirloskar, Bangalore will call on you and if necessary they will visit you in person. Those who all have the problem with suspension can please mail their problem to this mail id so that Toyota will wake up and act - to bring about a common solution. My mail to Toyota Japan brought two people from Bangalore visiting me at Coimbatore to check the vehicle. But they have not revealed or advised anything to me about the suspension. All their answers were beating around the bush. Probably they would have reported to their counterparts in Japan. I once again call everybody with any problem with Liva's suspension to mail Toyota Japan with supporting pictures and videos. But beware to have small size of the attachments to your mail. Otherwise it may bounce back.

even i facinf problem with suspension and pick ....ado let me know if we can take it to them

Indeed you can contact your dealer. If you are under guarantee you may get all services free from them. Otherwise you may be charged. If you dont get good response from your dealer, contact Kirloskar Toyota,Bangalore who are the are the manufacturers. Also mail a copy to ap-overseas@mail.toyota.co.jp which is the mail id of parent company in Japan

Hi Sivakumar, appreciate this initiation. i bought a liva diesel on june 1st and the only problem i felt regarding this machine is hitting back the suspension in uneven terrain even if the drive is slow. and the feedback from the dealers service centre was same as what u got. but they promised me that this will be solved in a month. atfirst, they were just beating around the bush like u said. atlast when i stepped my conversation style to the next level, they started confessing. Thanks for the mail ID. I am going to send a mail regarding this.

Alpine Single Din. Model CDE 121E. Cost approx 5200/-. Alpine Speakers SPS609 cost approx 3900/- a pair for rear only.

Hi Pirebhuoo, Riding in the same boat - same experience when you reach the hump on the road! Try to post your experience as feed back to mail id of Toyota japan - 'ap-overseas@mail.toyota.co.jp'. This common will be taken care of by them and there may be a call back for fixing it.

Hi Mr.Ganesh, I can understand your agony about the suspension in Liva. But please mail your feedback and comments with your complaint to Toyota Japan before asking for a refund. There may be a solution around the corner. I think Liva and Etios are prematured babies of Toyota. So give the mother a chance to care you better by your feedback before asking for a refund.

Hello Venitha, Yes on reporting to Kirloskar Toyota and Toyota Japan, people from manufacturing point came along with the dealer to inspect the vehicle at my residence. After a long gap of about a month I heard from local dealer that manufacturer has suggested change of tyres from the existing 175 65 R14 to 165 80 R14 and offered free replacement of all the 5 tyres with warranty. But the changes in Odometer, speedometer and torque were not taken into consideration by them. The difference was more than 6.2%. Acceptable difference has to be less than 2% according to the searches in internet. http://www.powerdog.com/tiresize.cgi, http://www.tyrestore.in/upsizing.htm, etc. The rotation per km original is 546 and the suggested tyre is 514. Actual distance travelled with original tyres for 15000 kms becomes 14116 kms. Speedometer with original speed of 100 kmph will displayed as 94 kmph wih the new tyre. Again the torque will fall accordingly. Climbing on an inclination and within crowded city will become difficult due to lesser torque. After having technical consultation with my cousin who is an automobile engineer cum OE supplier to Hyundai and Ford, I had to decline the offer of the manufacturer's suggestions. Now the local dealer has come with another suggestion for the tyre 185/60R15. The revolutions per km orignal 546 becomes 528, speedometer original 100 kmph will be 97kmph, odometer for actual 15000 kms will be 14505 kms and the variation being 3.4% which is still more than the acceptable 2% as suggested by the web sites. The Dealer says that the captioned tyre size is very much supplied by Toyota themselves with higher models of LIVA. They have suggested that all the 5 wheels will be changed to 15 and the tyres replaced with warranty. This they say will reduce the chances of the under body hitting the speed breakers. I am studying the present option and not accepted as the torque and odometer, speedometer differences are not yet discussed with the dealer and my engineer relative.

hello sivakumar you can approach the dealer for replacing the suspension with a new harder one to avoid the noise during bumbs. toyota has a new modified shock absorber ready for liva and they are changing to only those customers who insisit on changing the same. you may try with your dealer. i know my friend who got both the front suspensions changed and now he is happy as there are no more sounds.

Hello Haribaskar, Indeed Liva Diesel is good on smooth roads. Its interior is fine with large luggage compartment, good spacious seating for 3 well built men at the back, the hump at the centre is negligible. Engine is fine for all normal citizens, indeed we are not racing. Good mileage with experienced drivers indeed say 22-23 kmpl on highways. City conditions not checked yet by me for mileage. City driving too, is good. nice pick up and acceleration. Good enough AC, power steering and ABS braking. But be careful with your driving on speed breakers and bad roads. The suspension will not take it easily. This is the only Achilles heel of Liva. Also bony seats will not be so comfortable for long drives. The plastics of the interior are not so good. The door gaskets are not giving good water proofing. So you have to dry up the interior of the car after water wash. Interestingly the Liva manual doesn't give the specification about ground clearance. Again I could not find the vehicles laden and unladen weight specification in manual. But can anyone guide me thro the manual for finding it? May be I missed these in the manual while reading? But still it is good buy.

Liva is having suspension problems. My vehicle etios liva diesel, done only just 5000 km .But the suspension is replaced already. But still the problem is not addressed.

Came across this topic and some good news I have for you guys. I am not sure if you already know this or not, Toyota has come up with a fix to the suspension, visit your nearest toyota dealer and ask to fit a SPACER in rear suspension. I have fixed it in my second servicing and now it does not hit the speed breaker even you drive over 20 having 4-5 person in your car. The suspension noise from front let side has also reduced by 90%. I hope this may help you. I am getting mileage of 22 in city and yet to test in highways(expecting 25 :-) )

Hi Abishek, thank you. I was called by Toyota for a fix of the same during August 2012. I too feel better while crossing the speed breakers. I did not break the news because I wanted to test it at least for a month before I could give a positive sign to the new remedy found by the company. Now the back tyres seem to spaced out from the body visually. It will be nice if the company calls back all the vehicles and does the job on all the cars sold so that innocent owners are benefited.

I agreed. Any other update about like mileage or pickup ? How do you guys feel about performance in highway ? Do you think its lagging a bit in highways ?

Hi Abhishek The highway mileage is as good as 25kmpl without a/c and about 22-23 kmpl when driven under ideal speeds of 60 to 80kmph with full 5 seats occupied and loaded with luggage which is quite good. I have tried recently upto 130kmph on the odo and the Liva was still steady on the highway. The co passengers did not feel the speed at all and the speed was achieved with a/c on. The car is spacious and economical to run. Only the suspension and hitting the speed breakers that should be dealt with by the company. So also the quality of the interior finish could be improved further. Overall the vehicle is good. I have logged around 8000kms in this vehicle now.

I am planning to buy Liva, I have already paid booking amount & come across this post. I want to know your suggestion on this car. you have already explain but sill I want to know, after Toyota fix the suspension are you still getting issue with all 5 passenger & luggage. Is this fix already implemented in newly manufacture cars? I have told by the Sales Executive that the car he allotted for me is landed in August 2012.

Dear Kuldip, Toyota has fixed the SPACER. It is better and Liva hitting the speed breakers have reduced considerably. Still I see other models crossing the same place more peacefully. But still I liked Liva for one reason. The hump in the central part of the back seat is the lowest in Liva/Etios making it very comfortable for three burly men to be seated in full comfort. But you can hear the suspension crying with a loud thud because the dampening mechanism is not so smooth. i have seen many a Liva/Etios breaking the vehicle to decelerate to the slowest possible speed at all speed breakers or pot holes. But for this I have not found any thing else against the vehicle. You can ask the Toyota people to fix a spacer and they will do it. I don't know whether they have implemented in all the vehicles. It seems they are fixing to the vehicles that complain. On fixing the SPACER you will see visibly increased space between the tyres and the body which makes it look odd. If you don't like the excess space better go in for a model of etios/liva with 15 wheels and suitable tyres which gives a few mm more ground clearance practically, though not stated in their specifications, few of the other owners state.

Thanks Sivakumar for your reply