T18 New owner, look help/repair shop (Niedersachsen, Hannover-Braunschweig)

Hello to everyone

I am Mikko J. a "new" Celica owner (T18, 156hp, GT-i) and new member here. I didn´t knew where to post this so went to the English section. I think one of the German sections could been a better place for quick reply but as with so many foreigners here, let´s say, I have an issue with writing in German but I can already speak pretty well. Pretty bad for a motorsport journalist living in Germany, eh?

Anyway, I recently bought a T18 Celica and as someone who´s family has been working with Toyota´s, I knew the car might have few issues. In the end, it´s old (1991) but as most of engine parts were new, had new Tüv to 2 years, technic is working very well and test drive was nice, inside of the car is very clean and body from the outside were great, given a go. In the end it didn´t costed much, previous owner shown problems, I even got a bit off from final price and as I´ve been thinking this as a longer time drive and have time for it well...

------ Anyway my question is if someone know a good repair shop from Niedersachsen, area Hannover-Braunschweig which has good prices for repairs and could work a bit with my "new" car? As I also don´t have a second car, I can leave the car to shop for a while BUT not for months. I asked from few shops already but them don´t either has a knowledge of Japenese cars or ask even in Finnish terms, way too much for works.

Repair list would include few new parts, check of a leak from engine which I find as a bit komisch due to few reasons and rust repairs.

Thanks for everyone who reply for their time,
Mikko

 

Hey there,

Well - we are a quite small community, so the response in finding people exactly from Hannover/Braunschweig knowing a fine garage will unfortunatly be limited I guess .

However, after a while I found on both my places of residence (Mainz and Siegen) some great mechanics (which won't help you too much since they are about 300 and 500 km distant from Hannover) - but it took me time and also some bad experience. Both of them can be hardly found on the internet, but are somehow known pretty well by friends and colleagues, just like a secret tip. From my experience (or at least what I can tell you from my two ares) it ain't the big ones with the known names but the very small garages doing the best jobs for fair prices.
So for finding a garage I would recommend you to ask colleagues and friends for tips, then go to the garage and get your own opinion. Well and if you get a bad feeling about a garage it probably is for reasons .
However, since your repair list ain't too exotic and the T18 is quite an old car without much electronic every good (yep, that's the keyword ) indipendent mechanic knowing his craft should be able to handle it, whether he is an expert in japanese cars or not.

 

Hello CUF

Thanks for the reply and yeah, my list aint really that big. Let´s say basic repairs in general and a check up about what is to come on future but I decided to ask here as I don´t have tools and garage to work with my car if someone would happen to know a good "specialist" in this area. In the end, it´s nothing uncommon that communities has their favourites.

What comes to Celica and where them are located, has noticed that. I have founded some from Ruhr, Berlin and especially at Bavaria but in this city is a single T23 where I am and yesterday at Braunschweig, one T23 was with me at lights but I am still yet to see any other T18´s or even T20´s. I checked a T20 here through before I bought my T18 but it would been too much work and T18 what was recommended to me by the same dealer had so many KM´s and it´s history was unknown so I passed and actually picked my Celica from quite far (driven it 300km to here during same day).

Also thanks about a tip from the small repair shops. Has noticed the same here in Germany. Will see what them offers but if anyone knows a good shop in this area still, I am still open to recommendations.

 

Yes, the Celica, no matter what gen, is a rare car on german roads . We got some statistics from the "Kraftfahrbundesamt" here that says there are 5612 T23 Celicas in Germany in 2014. Can't tell you about the T20 or T18, but it's for sure even less (same experience here as you described - I have barely seen any T20 or T18 on the road) - compared to about 40.000.000 cars in Germany you'll understand why you can hardly see any other Celicadrivers.

Well as I said, ask for tips from colleagues and friends and get your own opinion by visiting them. That'd be the easiest way in my opinion.
Another idea would be to take a look at our Usermap ( http://celica.pride-it.net ) and ask people via private message in your area for tips. But can't tell you how accurate that User map is since I'm pretty sure not everyone signed up and neither every user updated old data.

 

Hello again....

...and thanks once more. It´s great to hear from another Celica owners and hear about the cars and so on. Also I taken a look to the map and it´s not a wonder that I havent seen too many but I find all this info as very useful and maybe I can use it later on. So big thanks for sharing.

Also the amount of registered cars is very interesting. I mean, I wouldn´t had ever been thinking that in a country like Germany aint so many Celica´s. Example on Finland and where I came from, T20´s wasn´t so rare and you also see T23´s quite much. On the other hand, I am not surprised neither as a typical German is driving a German sedan, German hot hatch or a kleinwagen of any manufacturer. Then again thanks to rarity, I also save on insurance costs etc. so I couldn´t be happier.

Also people can still contact me if someone from the area pops up and happens to read this but I got a few recommendations from a close by friend of motorsports, from a guy who works with oldtimers and also from my wife´s family.

 

Like you already said, the problem here in Germany is, that most people here of course drive a german car, like BMW, Audi, VW etc. (as of January 2015, over 65% of all registered cars in this country are from german manufactures) and it's generally not Toyotas strongest market here. They also don't really advertise their "sportier" cars here all that much, they've got a good thing going with the Yaris, Aygo and, to some extend, the Auris and so i think that these are their focus for advertising. I don't know why it is that way, because the audience for sports cars is clearly there, but oh well. Also, the german car magazines like Auto Bild are really, REALLY biased towards german manufactures and therefore almost always win against their foreign competitors when they compare them, so that doesn't help either.

For example, it's quite common that somebody walks towards me and my T23 on a parking lot or gas station and ask me about it because they've never even seen one before. But at least i drive a special, uncommon car and people are curios.

 

Sorry about a late reply and long reply, chr1sche but thats exactly so. I have been passing few times Toyota at Köln as I have friends on both side of the Toyota Allee but example at Goodwood FOS, most people were after the Aego as it´s a great start up car but so many would love to own GT86. Them also remember Celica,MR2 or Supra but haven´t ever been considering of getting one or consider of finding one on good condition as too tricky. Too many anyway are at age, were due to family, you leave sporty cars or sell them and get a family wagon instead.

Also over the years, Toyota has changed. When you look 70´s to early 90´s, Toyota had cars for everyone but also sporty cars with good price to those who wanted one. Most of the 70´s to early 90´s sportscars has also became legends. On Japan example, it´s amazing how many old legends you see there because compared to Europe, even sporty cars are cheap there... especially some years ago before JPN import business became so popular, the prices were really low and due to market for cars like for Supra´s or Celica´s, it´s easy to find parts (of course).

Of course also these days, Toyota has their own sporty cars but it´s nothing it used to be. Most of sporty models come out anyway as a Lexus. Toyota also focus for motorsports on it´s own and street cars are often for a starting driver OR for a family man. Example on Finland is a saying that only regular dudes or oldies drive Toyota´s, mostly a Corolla or Avensis.

Oh and returning for German´s and German car magazine´s, it´s exactly so. German car always win and people buys a German cars as best in the world. I admit that German cars are well finished and all cars have their problems but just as you do, I find it as a bit komisch. Then again world´s most known car program or let´s say, was, Top Gear ranks English cars as the best so I guess it´s the same everywhere.

Also just as you, few guys has already asked about my Celica what it is. It´s kinda cool (previously in Finland I had a Citroen Xsara WRC replica so I am kinda used to getting noticed). Also what comes to cars, I´ve been pretty amazed to see that people here don´t really care about their cars. People steps out from their cars, slams the doors to another cars and walks away, you see just few year old family cars with oil leaks, broken suspension, very old brakes etc. Also some cars are so rusty that it looks them will broke any minute, some cars has huge bumps on doors or like someone would have used an axe to body panels (like one yellow Audi A4 in this city) . In Finland if police would see some cars like that, them would be stopped as dangerous and plates would be removed. In here, nothing.

------------->BTW I taken my Celica to the repair center today and it looks like I have pretty cheap fix, typical Celica issues. Should get a call tomorrow as them starts the work and see if them has founded out even more. THANKS TO CUF and CHR1SCHE for answers and I look forward to speak in here more at the future.