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In 2008, Toyota Egypt advertised its new Corolla as an automatic vehicle with a 140hp in local newspapers. My father booked a Corolla in 2009, after a chat with one of the salesmen in its dealership in Centre Town (and not a distributor), who neglected to mention that the makes and models from 2008 are equipped with MMT gearboxes. He was also handed a specs sheet which clearly state that the cars are equipped with an automatic transmission - there was no mention of MMT (which is a manual gear), and the book of the sale also indicated it was an automatic. Little did he know at the time of the horror stories this new transmission comes with.
Being one of around 6000 new owners of the corollas equipped with MMT gearboxes, he was baffled as to the symptoms he experienced with his new automatic car. Complaints were filed against Toyota by many owners to consumers protection in Egypt, the only action that was taken was to oblige the dealer to fix the problem. The fix (loosely speaking) was an update to the computer that controls shifting, to make it quicker in order not to mask the shift-shrugging, now the gear shifts from first to 4th before the speed even exceeds 60km/hr, leaving the driver vulnerable to hazards incase of slowly making a u-turn or any turn and trying to accelerate to join traffic and avoid getting bumped from behind. Needless to say that the updates to the gearbox made the car even worse, the resale value of the vehicle is next to nil.
In late 2010, the dealer abandoned this magnificent gearbox, and stated importing newer models with a full automatic gearbox, leaving the 6000 doped hopeless owners stranded.
I had posted inquiries in other sites in the past as to the possibility of changing the gearbox completely to an automatic one, to date I had received no response. Having been shopping for a car myself nowadays, I had scratched Toyota off my list due to the case above, and the indifferent attitude I had witnessed first hand when talking to a service manager and a sales person about the problem.
Sherif Zakaria ([protected]@yahoo.com)
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
I have read this and other reviews, as I am thinking of getting a Auris with this MMT gearbox. Having taken on the facts I am now convinced to stay clear of the Toyota's MMT gearbox. My choices were, Peugeot 307, Mazda3 and Toyota Auris, the latter is ruled out.
I shall continue investigating the other make/models.
Thank you all for your comments.
Alan Kempthorne (East Sussex)
Absolutely gutted bought an Auris under the pretense it was an automatic seemed alright on test drive round industrial site but now roundabouts junctions almost every form of driving leaves u wondering when ur going to be left without power, girlfriend who I mainly bought it for loves it I however have learned to hate it within a day, hate myself for not reading reviews before purchase they all hit the nail on the head, I feel like I'm driving round like a granny :'(
I own a 1.3 petrol 2006 Toyota Yaris with the MMT (semi-auto) transmission fitted. The car has done 40, 000miles now and the transmission just gets worse unfortunately which is a shame as it spoils an otherwise solid car. I wish I had shopped around and bought a manual Yaris now. I have looked into it and have heard that the system needs to be reprogrammed to improve gear change as the parts wear in/out, this is done via an ECU reset followed by a drive out in order for it to learn your driving style! hmm. The other fix I have heard is to replace ECU and Actuator which can cost £900- £1, 500! This is supposed to correct the problem for a time but some have reported reoccurring problems. Not great news and hard to believe Toyota are so set on pushing these MMT transmissions forward instead of switching back to full auto and standard manual options. (West Yorkshire)
I bought a Toyota Auris with an MMt gearbox in November 2009 and under the impression that it was an automatic from the salesman, which it is not.! .!At the onset there was a worldwide recall with parts of the software and the brakes had to be replaced Four and a half years later, problems with the MMT surfaced whereby it would slip of the drive position into neutral without warning, causing me all manner of problems on the road, especially with safety and reliability.
Toyota have never replied to my letters of concern, These MMT gearboxes have been historically problematic and hugely expensive to repair. My car had to be repaired recently and cost me £2, 150.00.It was less than 5 years old with 54, 000 miles on the clock.The replacement parts are only guaranteed for one year.! My advice therefore is to avoid these MMt gearboxes at any costs. It was/is a bad engine design for which Toyota will not accept any responsibility and my only recourse is now to take legal action.(Essex)
Even if you have had the repair done please could you report to DVSA. I have posted on a different forum my current state of play with Toyota (below) which may be of some help.
I have just joined this forum to gather information that I am presenting to the DVSA regarding the MMT Gearbox fault.
I am the owner of a Toyota Verso Corolla 54 reg. Back in May this year I was driving my car home when I was turning into a new road my car had popped into and remained stuck in neutral, with the car being positioned halfway into the road. I tried and tried again to get the car going, including restarting the engine several times until after a few minutes the car managed to get in gear. Within a minute or two at the next junction the same thing happened again and AGAIN whilst I was moving along the road. Luckily for me it was just before the school run so the roads were not so busy.
Anyway, this issue has been documented in other posts on the forum so I am definitely not the only person to experience this. I also believe it affects several vehicles, not just the Corolla Verso.
The next day I took the car to a Toyota garage to see if they could diagnose and resolve the issue. They charged me £95 for diagnostics and came back with the following fault:
"CO full diag and found P0810 recorded in system. Followed diag process and concluded reqs mechanical repair. New clutch, actuator and ECU. 7.2hours"
I will try and be brief with what followed on from here so I can get onto the main purpose of my post:
I looked up this issue on the forum and found that there was a Customer Satisfaction Survrey for this very fault as well as subsequent technical bulletins. It seems like there CSC was a soft recall that I believe should have been a hard recall on the fault. What happened to me was dangerous and there have been cases I have read on the forums/internet of this even happening whilst driving on the motorway.
I contacted Toyota Customer Relations to ascertain whether the CSC was carried out on the vehicle as well as the technical bulletin. Indeed the CSC was carried out on my vehicle to resolve this very issue yet a mere 30, 000 miles later the fault appears, perhaps for the first time on this vehicle.
Toyota refused to rectify the situation free of charge...no surprises. Basically they said the Customer Service Campaign was done way back in 2009 and they would only provide a warrenty on the work till 2012.
I then decided to pursue this further by reporting what I consider to be a dangerous fault to DVSA who have so far been most sympathetic. In normal circumstances vehicle age would be an issue but thier concern is that this particular fault has nothing to do with the age of the vehicle, especially as the parts involved were replaced back in 2009. Toyota responded to the DVSAs enquiries by stating that I "may" have had warnings that this issue would occur and that I would have had time to take it the garage to resolve and as such cannot be classed as a sudden dangerous issue. There was no warning lights and I am not sure how you could be warned that your gearbox will pop in and get stuck in neutral all of a sudden.
Unsatisfied with Toyota's response, the DVSA have sent in followup questions which has now lead to Toyota making contact with me to get my vehicle in for inspection. This has yet to be arranged. I rang the DVSA and they confirmed that I should agree to this being done.
Now to the purpose of my post. This MMT issue has been going on for many years now and there are significant number of people affected by it, many of whom will have since had their car either repaired, sold on or scrapped, etc. If anybody has experienced this issue could I encourage you to contact DVSA as it seems like they are finally taking this issue very seriously. The more genuine evidence we have on this the more likely it will be that Toyota will be forced to do what they should have morally done along time ago.
The fact the vehicle has had the Customer Satisfaction Campaign carried out and still experience the same issue is of concern.
Please feel free to post your experiences here too and I will pass them onto the gentleman I am in contact with at the DVSA.
If you are reading this line, I thank you for your time.
Simon
DVSA website to report serious safety defect: https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-recalls-and-faults/report-a-serious-safety-defect
PS I have attached the relevant Customer Satisfaction Survey and Technical Bulletins here. These documents I have obtained through other postings on this forum
Thank you so much for the time you've taken to put this together. My vehicle is at the mechanic from yesterday and it's a different mechanic because earlier on this year I replaced my clutch at a different gearbox specialist. I took the cat to the specialist yesterday and he refused to work on the car and says it's an electrical problem. My car slips into neutral while driving and stays there for a while and you have to switch it off and maybe after 30 minutes it will start driving again. I'm in south Africa and my email address is kgomotsojmolefe@gmail.com please keep me posted if Toyota decides to recall these mmt transmissions. Thanks.
Stay away from Toyota and especially MMT ( sold as automatic transmission. They are total garbage. These "automatic transmissions are not automatic. They are actual manual transmission with a clucth, like any manual trnasmission, which wears. Replacing this clutch is an expense that automatic transmission do not have. The "automatic" part, which they use to mislead buyers are actually actuactors that do the shift and clucth jobs that normally a drive would do. Adding on parts that fail to a manual transmission. So, I would say all or nearly 95% of all MMT owners have problems, worldwide.
I believe that out of good faith toyota should replace these transmission with true automatic transmissions.
Thank you for the info on Toyota with mmtgearbox.i have been having problems with my Toyota corolla verso 2005 I bought for my wife. The main problem is on the clustered brake when the car entered neutral.please kindly help me with more information.thank you
Thank you for your information concerning the Toyota MMT gearbox. I purchased a Toyota Aygo MMT for my wife in 2006. Endless problems since, mainly concerning ingress of water and other issues. All satisfactorily sorted so no problems there. I have just put the vehicle in for it's annual service and have been informed that the clutch assembly needs replacing. By the time this is sorted it will cost me well in excess of £800. I appreciate the car is now 10 years old so I would expect additional expenses BUT my wife drives only about 700 miles (1000 km) per annum. A new clutch assembly after 12000 miles! Realy? Apparently according to the dealer it is my wife's fault for not driving the car "like a manual" so I have no redress other than to pay up and never touch Toyota again. IF the car should be driven as if a manual and not as a fully automatic, this fact should have been made very clear to me when it was sold. I would then have purchased a conventional drive Aygo or have made sure that my wife adopted a different driving style. To say that I am hacked off with my local dealership and Toyota in general would be an understatement right now, particularly as my research backs up the fact that MMT gearboxes are not a good choice of drive.