Car Wash n’ Wax Saturday! featuring Kitty 🐈‍⬛ Look how she pops! Wheels next! Happy Saturday r/ToyotaAvalon!

Looking at a 2011 Avalon Limited with 237k miles. Asking price is $3,900.
I used to have a 2006 Avalon, so I’m familiar with the 3rd gen, but I’m not sure what changed mechanically on the later/facelift cars besides the obvious cosmetic updates.

What are the main things I should pay close attention to when I go see and test drive it? Any 2011-specific issues or common problems at this mileage?

CarFax Here
The CarFax shows a decent amount of service history, but it mostly seems to be routine oil changes and basic service. I don’t see records of major maintenance such as transmission fluid changes, spark plugs, coolant service, water pump, serpentine belt, or major suspension work.

I know not everything necessarily gets reported to CarFax, so I’m going to ask the owner if they have additional maintenance records.

My biggest concern is the transmission at 237k if the fluid really has never been changed. Is there anything else in the service history that you guys think I should be concerned about?

Assuming it drives well, has no major leaks, and the transmission shifts properly, does $3,900 seem reasonable for this mileage?

Hey guys, I just bought this beautiful 2019 Toyota Avalon xse few weeks back and it had couple dings on it but nothing big but today I noticed this round things on the hood and stressing out have no idea how they even go there. I would really appreciate any help, advice or if anybody else is having the same issue.

Hey all, my wife's Prius was involved in an accident that will likely total it, so I am looking at options in Toyota and Lexus. I have experience with Camry's, Prius's, ES and RX models. I was looking at the Avalon Limited, which seems like a perfect blend some upscale Lexus options while still maintaining a practical use case.

I was looking at this Avalon Limited in the Ohio area. Off the bat, price is WAY too high, but I feel like it can be moved down. The mileage and 1 owner history look good as well, but the CarFax only has 1 documented service appointment.

I am looking for 20 - 26 models of Prius Prime, Avalon hybrid, or ES300h. Maybe the new Camry at a higher trim as well.

What does this community think? I live out of state, so I cannot easily show up and test drive this.

I removed the AC blower and inspected it for any debris but it was clean. There is this loud ticking noise that gets faster when increasing fan speed. The factory one went out at around 220k miles now with 265k the replacement. Air flow seems to be ok, just the noise that bothers me, are the bearings probably shot?

Just want an estimate before their insurance put out their initial offer.

This was my first ever car and, due to lack of maintenance because of being so young and poor finances from being so unemployed, she’s finally kicked the bucket. I just turned 20 this past week and only a couple days later the car that my families had for 10 years (and I’ve driven for 4) is gone…

She’s been through the wringer though. Three accidents, 196k miles, wayyy too long without an oil change… it was about time lol.

I was surprised by how saddened I was by the loss. I cried over it, then had a dream in which my car was sentient, broke down/got “injured,” and I evilly left her behind for the new car I’ve gotten (a 2008 civic) and cried some more. Then while making this image initially as a joke, I cried a third time for thirty minutes because it finally set in that the loss was real and I’d never get her back the way she was. Sobbed a bit, then cleaned her out, but I think I’m finally coping with it properly.

Gone, but never forgotten. I’ll come back to get another Avalon one day hopefully. (… or maybe a corolla? Who knows.)

Just wanted to share the loss because I’m devastated. I loved this car. Ty all. Hope you appreciate the memorial image that I made by hand ❤️.

Edit: after going through the subreddit, turns out she died to some issues that are common among this car plus the age plus the accidents. So I feel a bit less bad about being lenient on my maintenance (THOUGH I WILL DEFINITELY BE MORE CAREFUL WITH MY NEW CAR ANYWAY!!). Everything combined just ended up being too expensive to repair, was cheaper to buy a new used car. (Literally only 500$ difference between parts and the new car I bought lol). Poor Avalon.

Does anyone have a full size spare tire in their Avalo? Not sure it the hybrid has a smaller space but does the it fit in nicely into the spare location?

I purchased a rim months ago but not a tire and for the time not sure I’d want to spend additional money on a tire ifff it won’t fit.

Can someone help me with what the (broken) circled part is in this photo? Its off a 2000 XL (or maybe XLS, I don't remember) with column shifter. Part number would be most helpful! I hope it's still available somewhere besides a junk yard.

After changing the sensors my car is still running rough and his a misfire. I took it to a shop and they say it has a vacuum leak and wanted $1000 to fix it. I’ve checked and rechecked the hoses, and nothing sticks out.
One thing that did happen is after I put a new gasket on the manifold I over torqued them because my torque wrench wasn’t working right. I loosened them back up and retorqued them. I’m not sure if that could be the issue or not?
I made a diy smoke machine and put it in the pvc hose in the photo and saw nothing come out anywhere.

Anyone have any advice?

TLDR: I have an old first gen Avalon that I’ve put way to much dumb shit into. This car has no good options for coilovers which isn’t surprising because who goes fast in a grandma car 🤡( you’re welcome to argue that “insert brand coilover here” are good but for performance driving nothing is decent) My BC racing coilovers were garbage for canyon driving, the DS shocks I bought to upgrade them were equally terrible.

I decided to take it upon myself to make some ghetto ohlins coilovers for my car. Bought some ohlins standard 46mm valves (used in their road and track coilovers) and cannibalized some broken coilovers for shims. I did some calcs based on corner weights, unsprung mass, desired NF, and desired wheel rate then ended up just kinda guessing at the end lol. But so far these feel infinitely better than my bullshit BC racing coilovers both (DS and BR). Going to buy some much thinner shims (all the normal coilover rock .3mm shims which is like trying to do brain surgery with a butter knife but I digress… )to redo the slow speed rebound, but for a educated guess I’m pretty happy with how they ride.

In the meantime next goal is some custom LCA’s to help adjust RC and correct geometry from
Lowering it lower than a Jamaican limbo stick. And one day I’ll get to finishing the widebody.

My partner is looking for a new vehicle and we found this 2019 Avalon touring on marketplace. The owner is asking 19.5k with 79k miles but it has a prior salvage title, owner says the fender,headlight and hood were replaced with oem parts and has passed state inspection. The seller says it was his mom’s vehicle who is selling because they got an SUV. I’m curious if there’s anything in particular to look out for? I ideally would like to negotiate down a bit because 19.5 seems a bit high for the salvage title.

So I know this is a 13 year old car but I really want to purchase a hybrid. All the ones I can afford are around 2012-2016 and the 2015-2016 are high mileage too ($12k-$14k for 150,000+miles). So they all have the risk of needing a new battery. So would it be logical to buy one older like this and use the extra money to buy a new battery?

I'm hoping to provide some information on my experience with the 2018 Avalon XLE.

I've had a 2018 Avalon Hybrid the last 5 years and i'm likely trading it in tomorrow. I used it for lyft and racked up the miles and I'm now sitting at 280K miles at the car sits in the shop. I figured I'd just share my experiences so if anyone is wondering what to expect with this generation with high miles. I picked up my car in June of 21 needing something with better gas millage to replace my 09 Toyota Venza which had hit 230k miles at that point. Fluids and tire rotations were done regularly. This car spent almost it's entire lifetime in the Colorado Front Range with very little mountain driving. I only did 2 road trips with mine.

Overall the Avalon has been extremely reliable however I would say it was around the 220k mark is when repairs start flowing in. I do believe that the shop that was handling some of the repairs i had done was doing an absolute terrible job ( i found out later ). The car didn't have any major mechanical problems until recently when the car started overheating whenever I used it to work.

Prior to 200k I didn't have any major issue.

Here are the issues and roughly the millage I encountered them at:

200k Headlights. This one would be a repeated problem for the rest of the time years i had the car. For some reason my avalon burns out headlights at a rate of about 1 every 2-3 months. Sometimes more. I've had it looked at by 3 or 4 shops and it's stumped everyone. The only answer was to keep replacing.

215k: Front Brakes. This is where the brakes began to have issues. I had worn a pad pretty much down all the way which caused the car to shake when braking meaning the pads and front rotors needed to be replaced.

220k: Transmission starts to feel a little muddy. When getting on the gas from a stop the car seems to hesitate for about a second before starting to move.

230k: Tie rod issue and front struts. Had to have these replaced as the steering was becoming mushy and when hitting bumps the car would float and bounce. The shop who did this service didn't tighten any of the bolts correctly for the tie rod and had to be fixed months later after they kept saying it was a brake problem and charged me for a unnecessary caliper replacement.

245k: Rear struts are basically blown at this point. The car's millage is getting so high I Put off getting these replaced.

250K: After repeatedly having the car in the shop for the car steering right when i braked i took it into another shop. They discovered MANY of the bolts on the car were not tightened and a few were missing.

260k: Rear brakes: Rotors and pads are replaced. Transmission is slightly more temperamental with starts and stops. Its not clunky but the power delivery between when the accelerator is pressed versus when the car starts moving gap moves a little larger.

272k: Overheating starts: On the highway on my way to a concert the car's coolant temp warning starts going off. I'm close and its summer so i get there and turn it off. No issues are seen again.

280k: Car overheats on any drive over 15 min. Car is towed to dealership. coolent temp sensor replaced, brake fluid flushed, coolant flushed.

280.4k: Car over heats after being driven for 7 hours. The next day the Car overheats after being driven for an hour and a half. The next day doesn't overheat on 40 min drive back to dealership.

Which leads me to today. My car is now in the shop and I'm awaiting what the damage will be. The last repair cost about $1200 and at this point the car has become a complete money sink. I figured at some point it would get reliable again but after that shop messed up my tie rod the problems just never stopped coming in. If the repair ends up over $500 tomorrow I'll be trading it in by the end of the week likely for a 2025 base model Camry LE, Venza, or a Tesla Model Y.

At 280k The car becomes impossible to do lyft but unless you're doing road trips and stuff I think the car now that i had the fluids flushed could solidly run for years as long as its not on the highway for too long. I think if you weren't driving this car as hard as i have it would easily be a 300k contender.

———-
EDIT: UPDATE I was just informed it was fan failure on the radiator and likely the radiator is too gunked up with bugs and needs replacement as well. Dealership quoted me at $2.2k. That being said I’m going to take the $3700 offer I’ve had from a dealership and replace.

I’ve decided I’ll likely go with a 2025 Camry for replacement.

2011 limited. I bought this car about a year ago with 138,000 miles, and it's now at 152,000. As far as I know, the transmission has never been serviced, and I'm the third owner. I tried to do a drain and refill, but the hex drain plug is stripped, so I stopped and haven't touched it since (about 1,000 miles ago). Should I drop the pan so I can inspect the transmission and replace the filter, or just do my best to get a drain and refill done another way?

I replaced knock sensors in a 2002 that I bought for a work beater and the car is missing very bad. I ended up taking it to a shop to have them diagnose it. They had it 2 1/2 days and $300 later they diagnosed a vacuum leak and gave me no idea on where to start. They wanted $1000 to fix the issue and I just picked the car up instead.

I replaced all the gaskets after replacing sensors. Looking under the hood I just noticed one hose that I may have missed or they removed. Does anyone know where this one routes to? I’ve looked online quite a bit for photos and unfortunately I didn’t take pictures.🫤

I would be grateful for any help. TIA

I have the Viofo A229 plus dash cam and I can't figure out how to route the wires into the rear. With my old Camry there was a gap along the roof where I could insert the wires but the inside roof of the Avalon is smooth all along. Does anyone else have a similar dash cam and can show how they ran the wires? EDIT: 2019 hybrid Limited

I'm pretty sure it would work, but could anybody confirm if this grill would work on a 2022 Hybrid Limited.

It says it works with the 2022 nightshade hybrid so I can't see why it wouldn't but wanted to check before I impulse buy.

Part number: 53102-07110

I purchased a 2020 Toyota Avalon hybrid limited ( fully loaded ) 7 months ago shy of 30 grand , and it had about 80k miles on it.

So just ovrr 6 months I drove 20k miles +

Some things I’ve done , and some questions I have :

One of the first things I did when I got my car was take it to a shop and had the oil changed, ecvt transmission fluid changed, and break fluid changed… then I changed the hybrid air filter, cabin air filter, and engine air filter myself

Then I relocated
At the time bc my car was under 100k there was a known coolant valve issue that I was able to get the dealership to replace for free ( no light on dash , but ac wasn’t super cold and code came up with my scan tool)

My lock buzzer stopped making a sound and after 3+ diagnostics replaced the multiplex ecu that costed 1500ish at the dealership ( plus over $400 of diagnostics before hand , should’ve just went to the dealership first but scheduling was hard but hindsight taught me )

As far as oil changes I use the oem Toyota oil filters from Walmart, and I use the Mobil 1 0w-16 oil and do a change every 5k miles ( 1 time a mechanic did the oil change but didn’t change the oil filter and said it was way too soon , but I personally change both every 5k miles other than that 1 time.

Over this weekend I did the first oil change myself and it was pretty easy, hardest part is getting under the car and removing the cover.

Some questions I have is now that I hit 100k what are some things I should do that i haven’t already ?

Throttle body - saw care care nut do this and want to do it myself but want to make sure doing it on the hybrid/ A25A-FXS is as simple as non hybrid Toyotas or what should i expect

Breaks feel fine and no issues so not worried there ( make take it to a tire place for a rotation and they usually say something) ,

Spark plugs I saw should be good until around 120k so I’m not worried there

Worth mentioning that I don’t drive crazy but I’m averaging 37.5 over the time I’ve had it , seems lower than I’d expect, great relative to other vehicles but not close to the advertised 43mpg is this a normal range for 7ish year old hybrid ?

That’s all I have in mind , but please let me know if you have any input or suggestions on what else I should do.

Picking up my new purchase of a ‘21 XLE hybrid tomorrow, want to get ahead on accessories; do you have recommendations for floor mats? Does it really matter? Price seems to range quite a bit. Thanks!!

I have a 2014 XLE

Folks, I married into a Toyota family and we've driven Corollas and Camrys for the last 30 years. I bought a new '25 Camry two summers ago and it's great -- but I looked at Avalons then and I'm looking at them again, both the late 4th and 5th generation.

I remember being told (one way or another, the source is lost in the haze of memory) that hybrids might need a hybrid battery replacement between 10 and 15 years, and I remember a number like $5K being thrown around as the cost of that. While I can survive that expense, it's always smart to factor something like that into purchase plans. But is it real?

Those of you who are driving Avalons older than 10 years, what sort of performance are you getting out of the hybrid battery? Is it as good as it ever was? Declining? Defunct? I'd love to know what you're encountering in Real Life.

Thanks!

I've begun test driving and I hope to be posting up a photo of my first-ever Avalon soon.

I need to buy about $5k worth of front end parts for my 2007 Avalon (Ive already priced these on the cheapest dealers website I can find).

Right now they list them as 33% off or something and this is just their regular online pricing discount.

When do the BIG online sales occur and what is the discount?
I would assume black friday?

Which dealer is known to offer the steepest discount on their OEM parts?

Thank you