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Vehicle

Daihatsu Copen

A two-seat folding-hardtop roadster built to Japan's kei-car regulations, which is the fact that shapes everything about it: a 660 cc engine, tiny dimensions and a body designed around a legal class rather than a market. The original L880K uses the JB-DET turbocharged four-cylinder — a genuinely small turbo engine whose boost-control solenoid and intercooler plumbing are the usual sources of a power complaint. The later LA400K moves to a three-cylinder KF-VET and adds removable body panels. Both carry an electrohydraulic folding roof with its own control unit, pump and microswitches, which is the model's characteristic fault and reports as a position rather than a component code.

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Daihatsu Copen, front view
Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0 (external)

Generations

  • L880K 2002–2012

    The original, with the JB-DET turbocharged four-cylinder — a genuinely small turbo engine whose boost-control solenoid is the usual power complaint.

    Body styles
    Roadster
    Platform
    Daihatsu kei platform
    Engines
    • 0.66 turbo four-cylinder — petrol · JB-DET
    • 1.3 four-cylinder — petrol · K3-VE, export
    • 0.7 turbo — petrol
    Transmissions
    5-speed manual · 4-speed automatic
    Drivetrain
    Front-wheel drive
  • LA400K 2014–present

    A three-cylinder KF-VET on a new frame with removable body panels; the folding roof and its microswitches carry over as the characteristic fault.

    Body styles
    Roadster
    Platform
    Daihatsu D-Frame
    Engines
    • 0.66 turbo three-cylinder — petrol · KF-VET
    • 0.7 turbo — petrol
    Transmissions
    5-speed manual · CVT · 7-speed Super Active Shift CVT
    Drivetrain
    Front-wheel drive

Information, not instruction

CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.

Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.

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