TRD Aurion back on sale but engine failure remains a mystery

Toyota’s TRD Aurion is back on sale after a dealer car suffered an engine failure recently. Rather than risk further failures, Toyota removed all TRD Aurions from sale pending an investigation into the reason for the failure.

Not used to issues as catastrophic as an engine failure Toyota did the right thing in ceasing sales – unfortunately, they appear none the wiser as to the actual cause. Despite putting the failed engine through a number of tests no reason was found for the failure, in fact to the best of my knowledge Toyota have not provided any details of which part actually failed.

While Toyota are putting the engine failure down to being a one-off they are taking the precaution of resetting the fuel cut-off to kick in at 6500rpm rather than 6800rpm. The handful of Aurion’s that found homes before the engine failure spoiled the fun will have their cut-outs reset at their next dealer service.

Call me a skeptic but it is hard to swallow that the reason for an engine failure cannot be identified. We should be thankful that Toyota engineers don’t work for the police homicide division…

On a more positive note, Toyota announced at the Sydney Motor Show that Neal Bates would drive a competition prepared TRD Aurion at next years Targa Tasmania. I wonder what the rev limit is set to on the Targa car…?

Steane