Any Avalon owners here?

Just bought a 2002 Avalon XE with 127K for my mother in law. Wondering what I'm in for.
One family owned since new, seemed pretty well maintained, the normal Walmart door dings and presentable paint. Paid $5,200.

We were in a bind to get her into something quick due to her previous car getting totaled by a stop sign runner. I live 360 miles away so the repairs will have to be done by a shop.

Only problem I found was a weak right rear door lock motor. Unlocks fine but can't fully unlock. I have enough tools with me to fix that before we head home.

She drives less than 2K a year. Her 2010 Focus had 21K when the asshat kid in the CRV killed it.

 

Got a friend who owns one; it's like any other Toyota - the very minor occasional switch or window motor replacement but other than that, super relible. His is a 2007 or so and he has 200K or so. Never any major repairs.

 

Just a few:
- ’02 XLS (sold it to my contractor friend a few weeks ago..over 250k trouble free miles….didn’t want to sell her, but needed to thin the herd….by far the best sedan I’ve ever owned….my friend has over 420k on his Tundra, so I know he will care for “Old Bessie”)
- ‘05 Touring (165k and ran like a Swiss watch…..until a 70+ year old distracted driver slammed into it while parked on the street in front of my house, in a residential development on a sunny Sunday afternoon…totaled)
- ‘13 Limited (90k, another trouble-free Swiss watch)
- ‘19 XSE (39k, awesome car)

 

I think those have timing belts, I would replace it every 90k to 100k miles. It think they put timing chains starting in 2004.
If there is no documentation that the belt was replaced......do it now, it's a cheaper repair now.

 

The car is in our possession now. The owner kept pretty good records. Even handed me a factory shop manual. Timing belt was changed at 89,000 miles. New eyeballs coming tomorrow so I'll get those changed out and have the shop doing the inspection align them before we head home. I broke one of the 6mm screws holding the license plate on using my pliers of my old leatherman on the sides of the pan head screw. Just call me Col. Steve Austin.

Coming back in a month and will bring real tools to drill and tap that booboo.

On another positive note this morning I fired up my poison printer and wrote an email to the insurance company regarding the fair market value of Mother in Law's totaled car and got them to pay her $11,189.00 instead of $9,143.00 which was their original offer. An increase of over 2 grand for a few hours of research.

To be honest this 20 yr old Avalon rides and drives better than her 12 yr old Focus which had 107,000 less miles. I can go back home knowing she'll be safe. Plus, my wife loves it too.

 

Did the timing belt twice on my ‘02….at 90k and 190k (water pump at the same time)…..that was the only job I had the dealership do…..I did all the other maintenance stuff since new myself… fluids, brakes, plugs, valve cover gaskets (get hard with age and start to leak), F&R struts, etc. It’s an easy car for an average skilled DIY mechanic to maintain….just get the Toyota factory service/shop manual off eBay.

‘05 went to a timing chain with the 3.5L. My ‘05 was also an easy car to maintain…only went to the dealership for recall/warranty work over 165k…..had a nagging oil leak once that required them to drop the entire engine out to get at and fix.

 

That's not at all surprising to me; my ex-GF's father's Avalon with 200K rode better than a friend's *new* Focus. LOL

 

Previous owner put LED bulb replacements in the headlights. I drove it last night and think I'll go back to the standard halogen bulbs. My suspicion about these LEDs is correct. They can't focus the beam properly like the standard bulb can. The headlights needed cleaned up and I used a Turtle Wax kit and a bucket of elbow grease yesterday. Impressive results.

 

I had a 2008 Limited and put ~150k on it, pretty much trouble free. I liked the room in the back seat for clients.
One thing I did consider a pain was having to remove the front bumper to repair the halogen headlights. Do them both while you have the bumper off.

 

My plan to replace both headlights with Amazon's finest went south when only one was delivered and it had a broken mounting tab. Turns out the 13 buck restoration kit was probably a better idea and keeping the OEM units.