Top 5 Problems Toyota Corolla Sedan 9th Generation 2002-08

Hey, friends. It's Len here from one 1A Auto. Today, we have a 9th Gen Toyota Corolla in the studio, and I wanna go over some of the top problems, so let's get started.

Now, for our first problem, of course, we're gonna talk about a safety issue because that's just how I roll. For these particular vehicles, what we've come to find is that there's an issue with the master cylinder. The master cylinder is located right underneath your hood on the driver's side, up against the firewall. It's this right here, has your brake fluid in it. What tends to happen with the master cylinder is either one of two things, whether it's an issue with the actual ports inside of the master cylinder getting clogged and making it so you can't have enough pressure leading to your actual breaks, or if there's another issue, it's actually probably the pushrod that goes in between the master cylinder and the brake booster itself, the brake boosters, this big old disc-looking thing in between your master cylinder and the firewall.

The second thing that has to do with the master cylinder but it isn't actually part of the master cylinder, it technically has to do with the replacement of it is there's a pushrod that's gonna be in between the brake pedal and the actual master cylinder itself, basically inside of that brake master booster right there. Essentially with that pushrod, it needs to be adjusted. If for some reason you replace your master cylinder, right, because it went effective on the inside there and you didn't adjust your pushrod that's in there, you're not gonna have proper adjustment on your brakes. And so what you might tend to find after you've done the brakes or done the master cylinder, I should say, is you're either gonna have a low brake pedal where you, kind of, just feel like you step on it, step on it before it even starts doing anything and then it finally starts doing its job. Or you're driving down the road and it feels as though the brakes are hanging up, more than likely because it's over-adjusted and it's pushing that rod up against the master cylinder plunger in there and, kind of, giving it a little bit of force already even though you're not even stepping on the brake. So fixes for this, of course, would be if you have an issue with the master cylinder, go ahead and replace the master cylinder. But when you have it off, you need to make sure that you adjust that pushrod as well.

Now, for the second problem on these engines, it comes down to the timing chain tensioner. That's gonna be located on the passenger side rear of the engine, right back here. It's a little bit hard to see from up on top, but if you have a mirror-like what I do, you can see that there's a plate that has two studs and two nuts holding it on there. It's not actually a physical plate because the tensioner is actually located inside the engine. This is just, kind of, the flat side of it on the outside. As you can tell, there's a lot of oil around this one. And this is very common. Usually it's actually worse than this. This one's in pretty good condition.

But with that said, the way that the timing chain tensioner is supposed to work on these particular vehicles is with oil pressure. If you have a leak, obviously you're gonna probably get low on oil and you're not gonna have enough pressure. If there isn't enough pressure, the tensioner can't do its job and you're more than likely gonna hear a rattle noise coming from the timing chain. Slip this up off of here, right underneath your valve cover right along here. Obviously if this is left unfixed it's gonna cause internal damage to your engine, which could be very costly. 1A Auto offers a kit that's gonna make sure that you can replace that for you. It's gonna come with a seal and everything. And aside from the kit, what I obviously would recommend to do would be an oil change as well.

Okay. So that's that one. How about a third problem, right? Let's continue on with oil pressure issues. If you were to look at the front side of the engine right on the passenger side as well, you're gonna your VVT solenoid right here. It's got some wires going into it and this can tend to be an issue. A symptom for an issue with a VVT solenoid might be something as simple as the fact that you have an issue with the idle on your vehicle. You have RPMs, right? That's the revolutions per minute of your engine idling and essentially what's gonna happen is, is the idle's gonna go up, drop down, go up, drop down, go up, drop down. Nobody wants to feel that, especially when you're sitting at a red light and you're waiting for it to turn green so you can get going. With that said, there's a couple of things that we wanna look at.

One of the first things that I would do if I was trying to diagnose this issue would be, of course, to check the oil level. You wanna check the level and, of course, the condition itself. I'm gonna lift it out. I'm gonna give it a nice little wipe real quick. This is, of course, after the vehicle's been sitting for a little while. We wanna make sure all the oil's sitting down into the pan. Lift it back up and we can take a look. As you can tell, it's a little bit high right now. It's been sitting for a period of time. Now I'm just gonna take a nice drip and put it on a piece of paper and I wanna check that condition. Essentially what I'm looking for is to see if it's a nice amber color and not necessarily a dark brown or even worse, black.

The next thing that I would wanna do is to get to this drain plug right here. It looks as though it's a bolt just coming out of your engine, but it's not. It's actually a plug. And behind that plug on the inside of your engine, there's gonna be a little screen. What tends to happen is the screen gets plugged up, especially if you don't keep up on your maintenance/your oil changes. So you need to take that out. You need to make sure oil comes out and you need to, of course, get the screen out of there and clean it up. If you see any deposits or metal debris, you know there's an issue. Hopefully, this is gonna help fix the issue for you. But if it doesn't, you would need to continue with your diagnosing.

After you've went ahead and checked that screen and you verified that it was good, next thing I wanna do is obviously close it back up and try to do an oil change, see if it runs better. If for some reason it doesn't, the next likely candidate would be this right here, which is your VVT solenoid. There are a couple of tests that you can do on it which would include adding power or ground to it to see if your engine stalls out, but that's kind of more of a diagnosis process that will be a little bit harder to get into for this particular type of video. And if that ended up testing fine, the next thing you need to do is get inside the engine and check out that camshaft.

Now, the fourth problem for these particular vehicles comes down to the starter. The starter isn't usually gonna have an issue until after 100,000 miles, but it is something that's fairly common on these. If you were to look underneath this right here, along the engine, you're gonna be able to see the starter. Also, if for some reason you do try to start your vehicle and it doesn't wanna start, you can hear a clunk, clunk, clunk all the time from your starter every time you turn the key, you could try to give this a couple loving bunks with maybe a hammer or a screwdriver of some sort. That might actually break it free to the point that you can start the vehicle and then, of course, get yourself a brand new starter. Now, I have a starter in my hand right here, and no, it's not the one for this particular vehicle, but it is something that I have so I can show you.

With that said, this area right here is your starter solenoid. Obviously if there's an issue internally there, you're not gonna be able to get power leading down to the starter, which would, of course, shoot out this Bendix gear right there and then turn over your engine. If it has an issue right here, the best thing to do, of course, would be to go ahead and replace the whole starter. Back in the good old days, they might just replace the solenoid itself and then keep this or even test it. Nowadays, you can just get yourself a whole unit as a complete assembly and it's gonna work over all the best.

What you might tend to hear before your starter actually completely goes bad is your Bendix gear overwhelmingly making noise. Essentially, you go to start it up, the vehicle's gonna start but you're gonna hear like a roar afterward. That's because this right here, the Bendix gear gets shot out because it's trying to start up the vehicle, it goes up against either the flex plate or the flywheel, depending on if you have an automatic or manual transmission, and then as the engine's started and running, it's still in the outward position so it's making a whining noise until it finally retracts back into the starter. That noise that you're probably gonna hear is, kind of, like a precursor, letting you know that you're gonna have an issue with the starter and then it might not obviously work at all. One of the first things I would check, if I was having an issue with my starter, would be the wiring. You wanna make sure that you don't have any green corrosion or any buildup on there that could cause an issue with the electrical current.

Okay, friends. So let's try to wrap this up. Let's go for a fifth problem, right? With that said, we're gonna talk about an EVAP system leak. The only symptom that I would probably find for an EVAP system leak would be a check engine light. What that said, we obviously have to pull the code. So if you have a nice scanner or something like that, that's gonna help lead you in the direction you need to go. The most common places that I would go, if I was trying to diagnose that code, would probably be the gas cap right here. I'm gonna start right there, pop it open, and I'm gonna take a look at this seal. This is the most common issue. If you happen to look at the seal and you see that it's dry, rotted, and cracked in any way, this one actually looks pretty decent, you'd obviously want to replace this cap right here. Other than that, obviously, I would put this back on, you're gonna have a charcoal canister. And that's perfect because I'm standing right where it is, except it's underneath the vehicle. So let's take a nice little get down on the ground here.

Okay. So when looking underneath the left rear, we can see our EVAP canister right here. This is our charcoal canister. It's got stuff inside there that's supposed to help with emissions. There's a couple other things that go on with it. You've got plenty of hoses that go to it. If any of those are damaged or cracked in any way, that's gonna be an issue. Of course, there's gonna be a little air filter that's attached to it as well. It's, kind of, harder to find and usually, I believe it's up behind the fender. If that's dirty and clogged, then, of course, it's not gonna be able to breathe properly and you're gonna have an emissions problem. Check all your hoses and lines that go to this. If you wanted to disconnect them and take a peek, make sure you don't see any moisture, or debris, or anything like that fall out of it. Obviously that's gonna be a good thing to do. Essentially, start with the gas cap, come down here, check all this out. If you do continue to have an issue, more than likely it does have to do with this charcoal canister. Now, I know it seems like a lot of the problems that we went over in this involved the engine. But with that said, as long as you keep up with your maintenance, the engine should last hundreds of thousands of miles.

Okay, friends. So that's what I've got for you for top five problems on this particular vehicle. But since I'm standing in front of the vehicle for this, let's talk about these headlamp assemblies. This is super common, especially on the older Corollas like this, and essentially pretty much every vehicle that has plastic lamp assemblies. It's very common to happen. It's something that you can actually service if you want it to, but usually, it's, kind of, a temporary fix. Overall, the best fix for this would be to, of course, replace both headlamp assemblies. With that said, I hope you liked the video. If you learned a little something along the way, smash on the Like button for me and leave me a comment because I always love to hear from you. Subscribe and ring the bell that way there you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.