Front page headline in today's LA Times, about an up-to-now undisclosed lawsuit against Toyota by one of its own dealers, against inverter failure in 2010-2014 models, that they say has not been fixed. Toyota failed to fix defect that can cause Prius to overheat and lose power, dealer claims in lawsuit Please note, I don't really read this area, as the first (and only) Prius I've ever had is my current Prime plugin. But thought some of you might be interested in this.
this is so unlike a car dealer, am i missing something. maybe i'm too cynical, and the guys a saint. as for toyota, no saints there, for sure.
LA times getting sold therefore they better dish out news like this before their contents become fully regulated.
"Has the inverter on your 2010-14 Prius overheated on you since the 2016 recall fix? Email [email protected] to tell us your story. »"
The part quoted below is buried pretty deep in the story. Recall repairs are a huge cash cow for dealers and a huge financial burden for manufacturers. Hogan has an idea that puts Toyota's money in his (and other dealers) pockets. Needless to say, Toyota doesn't like the idea. Apparently, push has come to shove.
I'm a little unclear as to what the lawsuit is about. Toyota pays for each and every inverter failure. The dealers get paid, the customer gets their car fixed. No charge. What's up? The only purpose of a lawsuit is to recover lost money from my understanding. I see no lost money in this case.
I believe they are claiming that some cars would only get a software fix from Toyota that did not solve the problem. The hardware would fail later and not be covered by Toyota. The dealer then decided to stockpile rather than resell vehicles they determined would fail.
But Toyota has said it will cover inverter failure for years to come. So how much later? Still confused.
the dealer is claiming (rightly) that the software fix is a patch that only allows the vehicle to enter failsafe mode if the inverter overheats, as opposed to just dying on the spot. they want all new inverters installed so it will not happen at all. the money being lost, is in the cars they are taking in trade, and refusing to sell. toyota is not disagreeing, but saying the software fix is enough, and they will replace the inverter in cars that enter failsafe mode for free. the dealer is claiming (rightly i think) that failsafe mode is not enough to prevent a disaster at high speed on a busy highway.
Will be really interesting to see where it goes. My understanding of the software patch is that it was very much about lowering max current thru the inverter to a level which won't cook the IPM. I've stated before, Toyota could just recall all the IPM's from that time frame, perhaps we will see that in a settlement.