FORTUNER FUEL-GAUGE PROBLEM

One Friday evening, my wife and I headed off to Stellenbosch from Somerset West for supper. Travelling the R44 just past the strawberry farm, going up the hill, my trusty 2012 Fortuner 3,0 D-4D came to a shuddering halt. Despite the fuel gauge reading a quarter and the range indicator showing 110 km, the car was dead and

would not start (no low-fuel warning, either).

The vehicle was towed to the dealer, which informed me the next day that I had run out of fuel and the instrument cluster needed to be replaced. Doing some Internet research, it became apparent this is a common problem on Fortuners and Hiluxes of that era. To me, this is a critical safety concern. JEROME GARDNER Somerset West We have heard about this problem and asked Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) for a response. The manager of product communications and marketing fleet, Riaan Esterhuysen, responded:

“We have identified that the numbers are low in the field for this particular matter. The failure rate for this window period is less than 0,01%. These figures are obtained by calculating the processed warranty claims against the sold units. Despite this, TSAM has reported an increase in cases to technical principals in Japan and await further guidance.

“TSAM has released a technical bulletin to the dealer network and technical departments, making them aware of the matter and providing them with detailed repair instructions and the necessary counter-measure parts.

“Furthermore, our field technical team has access to contingency funds specifically allocated for the resolution of this problem to ensure that these problems are addressed at our expense.”