Toyota Landcruiser

Toyota Land Cruiser Q&As

Check out real-world situations relating to the Toyota Land Cruiser here, particularly what our experts have to say about them.

• My 1998 Toyota LandCruiser is stalling when shifting into gear

  Torque converters have been known to seize and, if that’s the case, it could stall the engine because there’s no slip to allow the engine to idle while the car is stationary. You need to have this checked by a transmission specialist who may have seen this very thing before. Either way, the vehicle won’t be going anywhere under its own power.

  Even if the gearbox itself had frozen solid, the torque converter should still allow enough slip to let the engine idle. So that’s definitely where to start the investigation.

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• Why has my 2011 Toyota LandCruiser 200 Series become so difficult to fill?

  This is actually more common than you think and affects lots of different makes and models. Service station fuel pumps are designed to shut off once the tank is full (to avoid over-filling by the customer). They do that by detecting any splash-back up, or pressure build-up in, the throat of the fuel filler. In most cases, this splash-back or pressure wave is caused by the fuel level being so full, the fuel being pumped in has nowhere else to go. And so the fuel pump shuts off.

  But for some reason, some cars are just harder to fill with some pumps than others. Whether it’s the path the filler neck takes to the tank to even the pressure produced by the fuel pump, it’s just one of those things, apparently.

  The best way to get around it (and avoid having the fuel pump click off annoyingly 20 times every fill-up) is to be a bit tactical with the pump nozzle. Instead of pushing it all the way into the filler neck, withdraw it slightly. The other technique is to twist the fuel nozzle, say, 90 degrees so that it sprays directly on to a different part of the filler neck. The other thing you can try is to not pull the trigger on the fuel pump all the way. By modulating the trigger slightly, you might find that the fuel now enters the filler neck at a rate more agreeable to the pump.

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• Where is the fuse for the lights in a 1997 Toyota LandCruiser

  On this series of LandCruiser, the fuse box you need to access is behind a plastic panel just to the side of the steering column, low down on the lower edge of the dashboard. Once you’ve removed the cover, there should be a legend printed on the inside of it that tells you which fuse is which. The fuse you need to check is fuse number 2 which controls all those circuits as well as the number-plate light, the glovebox light and the car’s clock. The replacement fuse you need is a 15Amp of the blade type.

  If the fuse continues to blow, then you need to start looking for a short-circuit or other wiring problem that is forcing the fuse to blow to protect the vehicle’s wiring.

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• My 2007 Toyota LandCruiser is using a lot of coolant

  Coolant leaks can be very tricky things, often starting at one point and then running down a hose, bracket or wire to drop on the ground where you’re not looking for them. If you definitely can’t find a leak, however, you need to start looking for another problem which could even be a leaking head gasket which is allowing the coolant to enter the engine’s cylinders.

  The first thing I’d do, however, is change the radiator hoses., If they’re flattening out when the engine is running, that suggests they’ve collapsed internally and are unable to cope with the suction created by the engine’s water pump (which circulates the coolant around the engine). Even if the hoses look fine, they can be damaged inside and, left this way, can cause a blockage in the cooling system which can lead to the engine overheating. Perhaps this is already happening, and allowing the boiling coolant to escape the system via the pressurised radiator cap or the overflow system.

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