MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

I'm new to the forum, but within 10 minutes, I was relieved to find that I'm not the only person with this problem. Although I'm having trouble with the terminology everyone's tossing around (DICE?). I'm assuming MFD refers to the touch display, in which case, I am also having issues. I have an early 2004 model. I started having trouble with the display in August, after a blazing hot spell, interior of the car well above 100 deg. F for extended periods of time. The display would kick off, no AC, no radio, no data. Pressing buttons yielded either no response, or some "AC is disconnected" message, I can't recall the precise text. 6 months later, all this is still happening. I took it to the dealer, who gave it back to me saying they couldn't diagnose it unless it happened while their equipment was attached (naturally, it didn't do it while I was at the dealer). They also mentioned that they'd never heard of this happening before - a common story from what I see on the boards here. Based on this message string, I'm gathering I should push back a little harder, and the sooner the better, I'm at 80,000 miles and a few months out of warrenty (at least). Good luck everyone!

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Bugga!!
It happened to me tonight!
On my way to work a song "Please don't stop the music" by Rihanna was playing on the radio and half way through the word music near the end of the song as I rounded a slight bend my radio fell silent. I laughed thinking someon at the radio station was having a laugh ...
... There was silence for too many seconds to be the station so I went to change stations and as I was reaching to hit the button on the steering wheel the sound came back on.

A short time later I glances at the power screen and notices the battery was blank and no power lines, switched to consumption and it was frozen at 5.2L/100km. I stopped on the side of the road and rebooted the car, screen back to normal and away I went. When I arrived at work I sat listening to the radio for a few seconds and noticed it seemed to crackle a bit.

After work I set off home, again there was no display of consumption. I stopped after the screen went blank. I rebooted, the screen booted up but went right off, reboot again and managed to go to diagnostic screen before it went off, it stayed on. All inputs worked it seems, tail light, dimmer, speed, park brake etc all showed up. I had Audio off even though it was on and check connection with A/C come across the screen.

Hobbit you did great work, thanks for your efforts mate. It must have taken hours just taking the photos!!!

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

I, too, joined the MFD club today. This morning I noticed that it took a few seconds for the outside temp portion of the screen to come on. It came on and the MFD worked within a few seconds.

Fast forward to me leaving work, splash screen comes on, screen goes blank, then the mpg screen comes on....no temp, no avg mpg, nada. Audio screen says the audio is turned off (hmm, well the radio was still playing and I could change it from the steering wheel), the air conditioner screen says that the a/c is disconnected (double hmmm, the heater is on, just like I wanted).

I have 140 miles to go until my 75,000 mile Toyota Platinum Extra Care warranty ends. It's at 74,840. I drive (8:30pm on V-Day night) to the dealership. I'm supposed to be going out of town for the weekend starting tomorrow morning...a 300 mile trip across the desert...and out of warranty. The Maint. sup. talks to a poor Prius tech in the maint. bay who says it probably needs a new MFD. The Maint sup. tells me to come back EARLY tomorrow morning, they'll write it up, diagnose it and probably send me on my trip to return when they get the "new" MFD in and can replace it. It will be covered under warranty so long as it doesn't take me 140 miles to get to the dealership tomorrow! Dealership is about 6 miles away.

Thanks to Evan and Hobbit for such tenacity and starting this thread!

My warranty is a 75,000 mile Platinum, so I'm assuming from what I've read here it will be covered. Does anyone know for sure? If I'm right, I feel like a cat that's down to 8 lives.

Evan, is there a place at Toyota that I should write or contact to add to the pile of MFD probs? I want to contribute to the cause.

My Prius is an early 2004. I took ownership on 2.20.04. No DICE.

Thanks again guys...you are the best!

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

I've had no problems so far. But I've read three MFD failures tonight and I'm grateful I've got the 7 year 75,000 extended warranty. My 2005 doesn't have 30,000 miles on it yet, so I'm sure I'll hit 7years before I hit 75,000 miles. If this is such a known issue, Toyota shouldn't be balking at fixing them.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

I'll be printing everything I can find about the failure and going to my local Toyota dealer Monday to see what they can do for me. As a known issue I think Toyota should have extended warranty on the MFD, if not I might write to DOTARS and see what they have to say about it. The MFD is incorperated in the heater system in that it displays the heater settings, the heater, demister is required under Australian Design Rules so I may try that for a start. No success that way I'll try consumer affairs. If that fails there is always the small claims court.

It is a little disapointing that Toyota have not replaced all MFDs in pre 06 Prius and made a claim against their supplier for shoddy design.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

What if someone with an ailing MFD were to take the car to the
dealer, pull the MFD *out* of the car and walk up to the
service desk with it, say "please repair this" and point to
the webpage for the instructions on how to go at it, and have
the toyota techs do the fix? Auto techs generally know how to
solder, they need to do it every so often...
.
Or is that first step of pulling the MFD a major roadblock
for most owners? It does involve pulling some dash panels..
.
_H*

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

I think you hit the nail on the head, when I saw your detailed instructions with the pictures I was incredibly overwhelmed at the thought of taking it out. I have to admit, I did think about asking them to solder it rather than replacing it.

I took it in, they looked at it, said they'd order a new MFD for me and call me when they get it in. I warned them that my 75,000 mile extended warranty would be gone by the time the MFD came in. They told me not to worry, that they were going to leave the ticket open and the warranty would cover it. I hope they are right!

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Evan,

I must confess, I plagiarized your letter - though I did take the initiative to tailor it to state my situation which was slightly different than yous - and sent it to Toyota's online reporting system you included as a link in your original post.

Ah, confession is good for the soul!

Connie

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Bingo! Dis- and re-assembling the dash would give me the willies. But if it would result in lower cost to me I'd be completely open to having a dealer tech pull the thing, handing it to me for repair, and then have them re-install it.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

we never had a taker on our mfd deal when we could offer it either. i think the dash disassembly is a big hang-up for folks. for us, it was probably also the driving around with a hole in your dash for the time it takes to get everything shipped.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

I had mine replaced a long time ago under the 36K warrantee.

But, what makes me sadest about this whole thing is thinking about how many people who aren't Priuschat members have likely had $4,000 Hoovered out of their pocket for a repair that probably cost the dealership $300 and that should have been free to begin with.

Toyota does have a pretty good rep for owning up to problems, but I rank this up there with the engine sludge issue for bad PR.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Just an FYI... I thought this happened to me last summer, but it turned out to be a DICE iPod integration issue.... If you have a DICE unit, power the car off, unplug the DICE unit completely for a few seconds, and then reconnect. Both the DICE and the MFD worked completely normally afterwards. It happens to me every couple of months, and the DICE unplug trick works each time.

I know some folks have posted that they have "no DICE", so it obviously doesn't apply. Even the dealership was unaware of this combo causing problems.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Weird, I posted an update here earlier and it did not show up.

It took about 2 weeks for a replacement MFD to come in. I took it in yesterday and they replaced it for the $50 deductible. They were very cool about doing it after my extended warranty ended (I took it to the dealership about 100 miles before the warranty ended), they opened a ticket and kept it open even though the mileage went up.

Anyway, the invoice said that the MFD part was $437 and labor was $17.

The thing is, the smoke colored plastic below the MFD is now scratched and slightly chipped. I'm going to call and see if they can either buff it out or fix it.

My question is....am I being too anal expecting they should fix the chip/scratch they did while repairing the MFD?

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

No.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Someone should take one of these failed MFDs and replace ALL the electrolytic caps with expensive audio grade caps from Japan or the USA. Soldering and capacitors are the weak points in many devices today. Semiconductors like chips etc. very rarely fail unless they are abused by heat, high voltages or static. High temperatures from the car standing in the sun can cause badly made caps to fail, easy. If you block the air vents on a set-top box it's usually the caps that die and make the box fail.

Check the caps. That's my gut feel after fixing modules from BMWs.

How's the reliability of the 2006 MFD by the way.....

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Hi Prius-friends,

By the helkp of Prius-Freunde from Germany I got aware of Hobbit's findings: The cause of the MFD-break-down of the 2004/05 Prius around 60.000 km's. Since 9 months I'm troubled with the very same problem, my dealer was unable to give me any help.

Now with hte knowledge of you I'll try again to get the problem fixed - but same as with most of you, warranty just had expired.

Let's see how smart Toyota in Germany deals with the problem.

Thanks very much, most of all to Hobbit, without your help I'd not know how to deal with that problem.:faint:

Greetings from old Europe

Reinhard

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

I have to ask Toyota dealer how my claim is going today. Car is 12 months out of warranty. If no luck I'll pull the MFD out and have an electronics specialist fix it using pictures from Hobbits work which is brilliant!

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Hobbit's work shows pretty convincingly that the problem was an error in the design of the solder footprint for a particular connector on one circuit board. See
Prius MFD
The circuit board was redesigned for '05 or '06, and these newer units do not have this failure.

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

Is anyone else having trouble opening this link? http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/mfd/

 

Re: MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

No.

EDIT: Obviously, I'm only speaking for myself.