Failed inverter. 25 Days and counting.... Waiting for the part

I am sorry about your rental car issues.

Toyota has a Safety Recall in affect that deals with problems with power components in the Inverter/Converter module that have the potential to overheat in high power usage. They are in the process of updating software that reduces the potential of overheating by limiting power output of the Inverter module. Your post would tend to want to make me believe that Toyota may be developing a new Inverter module that addresses this overheating component issue.

I think this would be good news for you that your module has failed and will be replaced under warranty, except for your rental car situation and the length of time you are without your vehicle. You may even be receiving a "new and improved" version of the Inverter module.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Call some other dealers and check availability on the part as if you wanted to buy one. See what they tell you. If it is available, tell your dealer that you located one and have them get it.

 

Have you escalated the issue to Toyota?

 

this is the second story on here regarding the long wait. it is distressing that toyota isn't taking a more proactive stance to resolve this issue. i'm not sure what 'hand building an inverter' implies, other than it would take longer than usual, but they should be working 3 shifts if necessary to get it done on a timely basis. this is not acceptable.

 

Complete contrast to my experience last year. I waited about 7 days from the car being dropped off non running, to having the inverter diagnosed, delivered, fitted, agreed with Toyota to pay for the part out of warranty and handed back all working.

Maybe I was one of the lucky ones? Maybe Toyota have been hit with significant numbers of failures - hence the recall? I know they wanted to see my inverter and it was sent to HQ.

Maybe this is the tip of an iceberg? Lot's of maybe's and few answers.

 

Apparently, the 2010 inverter cannot be replaced with one from current production. Otherwise, they would replace it with one.

Parts are often "superseded" by ones of different design.

You are fortunate that it is being replaced under warranty and that Toyota is providing a rental car.

The rental car company is "restricted" from allowing your young daughter to drive their rental.

If you drove a Lamborghini Aventador, it would NOT be reasonable for the Lamborghini dealership to provide you with another Aventador as a loaner.

Anything above a basic loaner is usually your responsibility. It's like winning 100 million in the lottery and complaining about why you didn't win 200 million.

 

I think it works along the lines of "you play fair with them, they play fair with you". Start getting greedy or unrealistic and the shutters drop and you end up with minimal service.

It's how it worked in the taxi job. You're nice with me, I'm nice with you. You want to play funny, I'll play funny back. Simple.

 

I'm under the mindset of if your daughter drove the rental, then so what? Does Enterprise have someone in an unmarked panel van tailing your car to ensure that you are the only driver? When the battery failed on my Civic hybrid, I drove the shit out of the Rogue loaner car they gave me and brought it back with 3000 hard miles on it.

 

Why?

You hammered it just because it wasn't yours?

 

Those who do not respect others and their property have NO respect for themselves!

 

It's not like I beat it with a bat or slammed it through pot holes. I tried to hyper mile it and barely hit 20 mpg, so I figured I'd drive it like a sporty SUV and didn't worry about how many miles I put on it.

 

My guess is that your inverter was replaced with another just like it out of stock. It sounds like from what the OP was told by the dealership that they may be coming out with a new redesign. It would make sense from a reliability standpoint to not just replace them with current units that have a failure history, even with the software update.

Maybe that is wishful thinking on my part. If my unit fails I would like to think that it would be replaced by a "new improved unit" and not just another just like it.

 

It sounds like the software updates were made so they wouldn't have to redesign the inverter. I just don't see them doing that when the next gen is coming out so soon. I am pretty sure even the newest 2014 models just have the software tweaks standard and nothing new done to the inverters

 

You may be right. My car, for example, will have close to 80k miles by the time I have the software update. That is 80k miles of driving on the Inverter prior to the update.

If Toyota continues to see Inverter failures after the software update they may be forced to come out with a redesign and may be preparing for this contingency.

 

i don't know if it's a representative sample, but we don't see a ton of inverter complaints here.

 

True. There must have been enough failures for Toyota to come out with the Safety Recall though.

 

agreed. maybe they were able to diagnose the cause from a returned unit and implement the recall solution.

 

A lot of wishful thinking. It could be that there is a shortage of the inverters available due to the recall, as there is supposed to be a testing component to the recall. Any inverter that fails the test is replaced.

Several references have been made that the inverters are on backorder.

SCH-I535