Recall

Woo hoo! No 2010-2012 on the list.

 

sounds like another reduction in mpg's

 

This recall is showing on the Toyota owners site for my 2015 gen 3

 

Planned obsolescence.

 

I just called Toyota and my car is affected. I guess that's a trip to the dealership for me.

 

Have my recall scheduled for July 6th. We'll see what happens. Will also have the dealer rotate my tires so I can be lazier

 

If you have little bit of time before then and you're interested in helping the PriusChat community learn stuff, you might consider gathering and posting some 'before' information here before the fact.

Candidates would be, well, as much pertinent information as possible, but certainly anything you're planning to compare. MPGs if you'll be looking at those ... what's your current figure, over what period of time, how many miles, etc. If you track your MPGs over multiple short periods, say tank to tank or whatever, then a bunch of those with mileage, time, and conditions, would be useful. Not necessary to calculate the normal variation between them, as others can do that, as long as there's data.

There was a poster GG707 who recently claimed to have spotted an actual, OBD-II readable change in one or two parameters (charge current limit and discharge current limit) computed by the battery ECU, but reported this only after the fact. If it's possible to gather a bit of a profile of those parameters before the recall work, that would help a lot. They normally change anyway based on battery temperature and state-of-charge, so what would be most useful would be a datalog of a bunch of simultaneous readings of ccl/dcl/state of charge/battery temps.

I should emphasize that I don't know GG707 and I certainly don't have any personal reason to doubt GG707's report, but I still do have some impersonal reasons for wishing there were better data (such as ccl/dcl being computed, as I understand it, by the battery ECU, which is not one of the ECUs reflashed in this update).

Maybe it's worth posting the 'before' calibration IDs read from the various ECUs also, just so afterward it will be plain to see which firmware got updated.

 

Any word on a recall for the 2018 and later models?

 

Lookup Safety Recalls & Service Campaigns

 

It's unfortunate that Toyota doesn't indicate how common a real-world occurrence of this fault is.

 

I'm a part of this recall. Service is closed today, so I will call tomorrow morning to schedule appointment. I'm not in the mood for any new car "sales pitch" when I go there. I'm consolidating my debt and the Prius car loan is one I plan to eliminate. Mileage is around 53k and I am enjoying an average of 49mpg per tank. Just changed my oil two days ago. If they offer to do ANYTHING outside of the recall fix, I will flat out decline. No complimentary tire rotation (which means if you said no to an oil change or the fictious "149 Point Inspection", they over tighten the tire rotation). Just do the recall and give me my car back, thank you.

 

In case it matters, reflashes like these go faster if you have the back of the car kind of cleared out, because their procedures require them to get down to the 12 volt battery and clamp a power supply sustainer on it before they reflash anything.

You should also let them know if you've added any big non-stock electrical loads that might unexpectedly come on during the procedure ... or disable/disconnect them in advance.

 

Thanks for the heads up. So far, the only none stock electrical item I have is a power inverter plugged into the socket inside the arm rest compartment. I will pull all this out when I go in.

 

Took car in 5 hours ago. On hold right now while they "run out to the technician" and find out the status. Ever reminding me why I avoid Dealerships.

 

After being on hold for 30 minutes, they came back with the "throttle body full of carbon and AC needs to be recharged line".
I told them to please give me my car. 6 hours later. I better get the certification slip showing recall was done so I can sell car if needed.

 

That's irritating.

Strangely, I've had none of that experience with the dealer here. They are used to seeing me at the parts counter, but they've pretty much only ever seen me in service when there was a recall, a warranty extension I was claiming (steering rack on my 2001), or a reflash I asked for (and paid for) because of a TSB.

On each of those occasions, they pretty much did exactly what I asked for and nothing I didn't. They've probably figured out I'm weird that way.

 

My experience with dealerships hasn't been steller. Its usually the service manager that gets under my skin.

 

I'm assuming that this is the problem concerning which the owner of two SoCal Toyota dealerships was suing Toyota and claiming that he had Priuses he had taken as trade-ins but refused to resell because they were potentially dangerous -- except that, as I recall, he did not claim that 2015 models were affected.

 

Called this morning and have my appointment for this afternoon. They say they need it for half a day so they can do a thorough check of the vehicle. I've never been to this dealer except to buy a few little parts, so i have no idea how much of a hard sell they put on customers to get them to spend more money. They'll probably tell me I'm overdue for an oil and filter change because I've done my own, and therefore they're not recorded by Toyota (but are at CarFax).