Learn More About Toyota Alphard

Before I write more on the features available on my giant, I do get a few private queries from interested buyers on where can they get more information about this car, specifically from local used car dealer.

Since Toyota Alphard is a product of the Land of the Rising Sun, almost all information on this car is in Japanese. Most non-Japanese speaker will find it hard to extract the relevant information from the Toyota official website. Also, most enthusiasts of this car in Japan will be blogging about their beloved giant in (naturally) Japanese so a non-Japanese speaking reader will find it hard to understand what has been blogged.

So where do one find out more about this car if they are interested to buy one unit?

A typical buyer would like to start with the official Toyota Japan website. However it is in Japanese and even if you do read Japanese, they only publish information about the current model (May 2008, aka 2nd generation Alphard). As of the writing of this blog, most of the Toyota Alphard we get in here are year 2007 or below. Fortunately the official Toyota website do kept the catalogs of the 1st generation Alphard.

I managed to find these catalogs during one of my search on that website and you car get them from the links below.

Alphard-G
Pre-facelift - manufactured 2003/7 onward - http://web-cache.stream.ne.jp/www09/toyota-catalog/pdf/alphardg-1/alphardg-1_200307.pdf
Minor facelift - manufactured 2005/5 onward- http://web-cache.stream.ne.jp/www09/toyota-catalog/pdf/alphardg-1/alphardg-1_200504.pdf
NFL model - manufactured 2007/6 onward - http://web-cache.stream.ne.jp/www09/toyota-catalog/pdf/alphardg-1/alphardg-1_200706.pdf

Alphard-V
Pre-facelift - manufactured 2003/7 onward - http://web-cache.stream.ne.jp/www09/toyota-catalog/pdf/alphardv-1/alphardv-1_200307.pdf
Minor facelift - manufactureed 2005/5 onward- http://web-cache.stream.ne.jp/www09/toyota-catalog/pdf/alphardv-1/alphardv-1_200504.pdf
NFL model - manufactured 2007/6 onward - http://web-cache.stream.ne.jp/www09/toyota-catalog/pdf/alphardv-1/alphardv-1_200706.pdf

Note: I intend to blog about the difference between the G and V model in future post.

By downloading these catalogs, you can compare the various features between the pre-facelifted and facelifted model. Again, these catalogs are all in Japanese so you might not understands all the wordings. However, they do have a lot of pictures that highlights most of the important features.

Now that you have an understanding what features are available in which model, you want to know which dealers carry these cars. There are several local sources of advertisement for these cars. The most popular one is The Star Classified section of The Star Newspaper. The other is the weekly Motor Trader magazine. Both also has the equivalent online version of the classified ad. I prefer to use The Star Classified online because it is much easier to search than the online version of the Motor Trader . The advantage of the Motor Trader online search that you can do more granular search (by year etc) and each of the ad normally comes with a photo of the car.

So you took down the details of the ad and visited the dealer on the model you are interested in. After you check out the car, test drive it, you brought home some further details of the cars you are interested in but you wanted a 2nd opinion. You start to look for online forum wanting to post your questions but you are not sure which forum to post because there are hardly any forums on Alphard at that time.

As of the end of last year, this car is heavily discussed in the Motor Trader forum. They have a section dedicated to discussion on Toyota MPV . Prior to end of last year, most of the enthusiasts or owners of this car will gathered at that forum. Topics on Toyota Alphard is very active so there is lot to learn from some of the more experienced owners/enthusiasts. However since that forum is on Toyota MPVs many other threads on other Toyota model will also be discussed so one has to constantly follow the Alphard thread to read the up-to-date discussions. Also, once a thread has gone beyond certain (I think 24/25) pages, a new thread will be created so it is not easy to keep track of the active topics. Fortunately the old threads are archived so whoever new to the topic can always refer to the archived thread. You can still post your questions to that forum but most of the active Alphard members have already move on to another forum so your questions might not be answered. The other issue with the Motor Trader forum is that it doesn't support photo attachment.

I used to frequent that forum and learn a lot from there. Toward the end of last years, a bunch of very active members decided to create a dedicated forum for Alphard. Through the initiative of one of the member, a group of Alphard owners from KL as well as some owners from JB come up to KL during the 1st week of Jan'09 to have a mini TT (TT stands for Teh Tarik - the unofficial slang for group gathering, drinking tea [the the teh tarik part] while chit-chatting). After that mini-TT, the group decided to create a dedicated forum for Malaysia Alphard owners. Through the generosity of one of the forum member who hosted a website, the forum called "Alphard Asia Owner Club" (AOC) was born. A lot of the Alphard owners/enthusiasts who used to frequent the Motor Trader Toyota MPV forum now have moved over to AOC forum. I now frequent that forum to share what I have learned so far about my giant.

If anyone is interested to learn more about Alphard, do visit AOC, registered as a member and joined in the discussions. You don't have to own an Alphard to be a member.

Hopefully after you join AOC and gotten all your answers you can made your final decision and become an Alphard owner. Congratulation and welcome to the club.