We live Eastham on The Wirral,which is in N.W. of England,U.K.(about halfway between Liverpool and Chester on the map) I suppose its claim to fame is that we have "Eastham Old Yew"-which is mentioned in the Doomsday book- in the village church yard, and it's the point at which the Manchester Ship Canal begins its journey inland.

In 95 we decided that our car was just too small for the increasing size of our children and we needed something which would allow us to put them in seats as far apart as possible.We bought our first Toyota a 1989/90 Toyota Liteace Estate 1500cc manual with 8 seats.And the first job I had to do was to remove 2 seats and re-configure the remaining 4 rears as no one would insure a car with more than 7 seats.
The vehicle was just a van with seats and basic upholtery, no other "uprades" at all.Oh yes it was a dog!I had to replace the rear springs which broke, a front disc ,have the cylinder head done twice,I had to do the clutch, half the cooling pipes, the radiator, the engine siezed up cos the oil pump drive shaft sheared - I had to strip it down replace the pump and after having a rebore & crank regrind, rebuild the engine (yet another head gasket, I replaced a front brake assembly. I did the pads without problems but while I was ill we had the rear shoes done at a local garage,soon after the brakes started siezing up all the time, I couldn't find anything obviously wrong with it,took it back to the repair guy- no joy. took it to Toyota nothing obvious wrong with it. Then it siezed again outside a garage run by a Toyota trained mechanic and 1 1/2 hours later we had the answer - two leading shoes on one side two trailing shoes on the other side.
Back to normal I replaced the rubber coupling on the steering box, the lower steering UJ 3 times in 5 years, the exhaust the steering rack gaiters, then the steering rack,I had to rebuild the gear change cable support bracket cos I couldn't get a replacement after it broke into 3 pieces.Then a bike crashed into the rear qtr which needed the whole side of the van replacing (insurance is great when you need it) and several new windows (they wear'nt broken in the accident but by the "specialist repairer" during refitting.The timing chian broke and i had to fit new chain,tensioner and sprockets.Finally the head gsket blew again .Fed up I ordered over the internet, a guarranteed low milage engine from Japan .It arrived within days at my front door shrink wrapped to a small wooden pallet.£430 inc shipping.a week later it was purring away in the engine bay_a little beauty ,silent and perfect in operation - wow !
Durring all this time that we owned this super lemon we swore that we would never ever have another Toyota as long as we lived.However it was so practical and as every one who had a drive of the thing admitted it was just so much fun and pleasure to drive that in june last year we traded it in for the townace.