Altezza Diary 5 - D.I.Y.

There was one incident where while I was driving, all of a sudden, I noticed my Toyota Altezza was starting to drive weird. When I step on the accelerator, there was a wild shaking and close to no response. It felt like my car lost 180 out of the original 200 horsepower. When the car was not moving, the exhaust sounds like a boxer engine with the bubble sound. I quickly explained the symptoms to a friend of mine who had an Altezza for 8 years. Straightaway, he was able to point out that the problem was caused by the ignition coil. I was relieved to know the cause of the problem and began to source for the ignition coils. I found a few sellers but they were either only selling in a set of fours or rather expensive. Then, the same friend helped me by selling me one of his spare ignition coils and he taught me how to swap and test which coil to replace. The steps to remove the coils were easy. First, I opened the car hood and removed the engine cover by removing 5 screws. Then, the ignition coil can be easily removed because it is held on with just one screw and connected to a socket. Next, the troublesome part is to remove the 4 ignition coils, one by one to test and see which one needs to be replaced. The testing needs the engine to be running to see the effect of the removal of the coils. I only found the faulty coil by the third try. When I removed it, the car sounds like someone having an asthma attack. So, I turned off the engine and swapped the coil with the one I bought. After that, I started the engine and the effect was immediate. The previous symptoms were gone and the Altezza sounded like how it would before this.

 

Left: The coil with OK written is the replacement. Right: Replacement on right.

I thought of cleaning the engine bay after working on the ignition coil. While wiping the engine bay and all of the plastic cover, the curiosity in me came out and I decided to study the area. One of the things that I did not check previously was the air filter. The engine bay looks stock with the original airbox and makes me wonder what is inside the box. Is it a factory paper filter or an aftermarket one? I tried to open the box and as expected, the clips were a little rusty, making it difficult to remove. When I successfully removed it, I was greeted by a K&N drop-in filter. Having a K&N filter meant a few things to me. It meant that the Altezza has one more mod and the filter is better and washable. Looking at the dirt and stones inside the air box roughly tells me the box was never opened since the K&N was bought. So, I remove the filter and took an air gun to try and remove the stones inside the box. After cleaning the box, I cleaned the filter with the air gun. Although the right way is to use the cleaning oil made by K&N since I do not want to spend extra money, I just use the air gun to clean. Then, I put everything else back to the way it was.

While on the subject of D.I.Y., I also changed the leather, handbrake cover. The Altezzas were made in the late 90s and handbrake covers were not the basic requirement nor the need. Usually, owners would go to a car accessory shop and buy an aftermarket cover to decorate their car. Only in the recent 5 to 10 years did car manufacturers start to include covers for handbrakes. The surface on my Altezza's cover is flaky due to old and there were visible holes on the cover. When I removed the cover to remove the center console, I found out that the clips were broken. It is weird to me that the previous owner can ignore that and drive normally. I went to buy a used cover that is in good condition and decided to change it myself. It was an easy job because the cover comes off easily with a gentle pull. One broken piece of the clip was stuck to the center console. The cover I bought fit perfectly and all the clips were fastened. It looks much better but I noticed something. The cover is nicely made with stitching and it looks sporty but the color of the stitching was not the same. The original cover had black stitching, while the one I bought had a golden, brown color stitching. I can only assume that when the Altezza went through a facelift, the interior had some changes where the stitching color changed. The important thing for me is that it looks newer.

Before (Left) and After (Right)

Before (Left) and After (Right)

Old

Replacement

Broken Clip