2007 Toyota Hiace reviews

Toyota Hiace 300 gs 2.5 d4d 2007

I have had many new vans provided by employers over the years and the Hiace is my favorite. I am a mobile engineer and it would be my first choice if I went self employed and had to buy a van myself. It has the legendary Toyota reliability and the gearstick from the floor area, which I prefer. It’s easy to maintain and is a good size of van for town use. I love the tinny sounding sliding side door. I currently have a Vivaro just now, which I am sick of as the trim falls off all the time, e.g door handles wing mirror, bits of dash, window winder etc. I’m wanting another hiace again after carrying out some maintenance on a friend’s and I had to take it on a wee test drive. The common problems I’ve found over the years with the hiace (but keep on top of them and they will be like new), are: Steering column gaiter through bulkhead wearing and letting excess roadnoise into cabin at speed; Anti roll bar droplink bushes wearing circa 30k-40k miles- under £40 (dingbro) for both sides for complete droplinks, no need to remove wheels to fit, this dramatically reduces roll and makes everything seem a lot tighter at the front. I have had a few sets of ovaled brake drums, d4d engines EGR valve coking up; I disable the EGR on all my diesels to stop the inevitable. On the 2.4d had a run of worn crankpulleys and they caused wear on crankshaft; the pattern was that they had been to the dealers within a few miles for timing belts so probably had not been torqued correctly. Keep the batteries topped up and the terminals greased along with the regular (10k) servicing. The ignition barrel/key wear can make the steering lock difficult to release on circa 130k vans, but if you keep rotating keys and applying a small bit of grease every now and again this should not be as much of an issue. The cons are: The usual plain dash compared to all others, whole bland interior for that matter, but on my transits etc the more cubby holes = more rubbish in them; Small wing mirrors and poor rear visibility means most of these vans have rear door and quarter damage due to reversing into things; The long wheelbase Hiace has a terrible turning axis and is poorer to drive. I didn’t like the facelift on the last one I had, but it grew on me so the conclusion is that I like a van to be a van and not try to be a car with these dash mounted gear sticks that need constant adjustment and crazy power outputs and low reliability. Transits have constant EGR valve and electrical problems together with fuel pump leaks, gear selectors dropping out of place and general VW engine management issues. The Vivaro has been reliable but sheds some plastic.