Toyota Will Pay For HID Repairs, I got the Letter!

also got the letter... never had anything done on the dealership with regards with the lights. When the problem started on my 08, I replaced my bulbs with bulbs that I bought from Japan(Philips) .. so I don't think they would be reimbursing that to me....

 

It is barely a stop gap!

See my other thread RE: HID recall,, sort of. Toyota wants us to "use the lights only when necessary!" Personally, it pisses me of. They ought to bight the bullet and do it right!

 

Well, I think it's supposed to address the issue of people using HIDs as daytime running lights, which is a bad idea.

Luckily (?), we don't have this habit that the Japanese do of turning off their headlights at stop lights and then turning them back on once the light turns green. That'd be murder on HIDs. Maybe that's the reason why some Toyotas like the 2010 Prius and Lexus HS 250h only have two choices: halogens or LEDs. No point in enginering an HID system if Japanese drivers are going to go through HIDs like crazy.

(Side note: My Nissans have this funny remark in the owner's manual about not cycling HIDs unnecessarily, like by turning them off at trafifc lights. It's probably due to the above and being carried over in translated/localized manuals.)

 

I have a different problem- and don't know where else to post this- My front left head lamp is fogging up- thought it was due to the left rear side body work and rear bumper replacement- even though the two body parts don't actually touch, but the body shop said that they were not responsible for the coinsidental issue. Anybody ever hear of this? Toyota repair technicians say that the whole head lamp needs replacing- is this true for a fogging issue?
thanks for any help-
Jeri

 

It may be a bad idea for the headlights, but it is a damn good one for safety. My personal opinion is that lights should be on all the time! There is a reason that Greyhound figured it out years ago, and why motorcycles are required to have lights on. It just makes it easier to see an oncoming car!

If every other car company can make decent headlights that will last being burned all the time, Toyota ought to be able to as well! Not only that, but the lights are not that great! Even "aimed within spec" they are too low, the auto angle system is prone to failure. I would much rather be in my Subaru with it's stock lights any time the sun is down, and it's bulbs are ~$10! I also have some Hella driving lights that, while technically illegal, make the northern bush roads I drive with that car much safer. To be able to see the Moose and the deer sooner is much safer with them on, damn the law!

Toyota ought to make this right!

 

Gentlefolk,

I have a 2008 Prius and now have 303xx miles on it. This notice states that the offer is only good till 3/31/2010. If I haven't had problems with my headlights before 3/31 then I won't get any reimbursement if the lights go bad in the future, am I right? If I purchase the extended warranty now, it won't help either, right?

 

You are correct.

 

Does the letter mean they will no longer decide whether to reimburse on a case by case basis under their consumer support policy?

I've noticed that the replaced headlight on my car is brighter and whiter than the other one which is a bit yellower, subtle but there isn a difference which I see in reflections and looking directly. I don't know if this is a sign of potential trouble or if I should try to get it replaced before the deadline.

 

I got the letter too and was excited for about 5 minutes until I realized this was not a recall letter, this was Toyota saying that they will reduce the price of a bulb from $300 a piece to $150 a piece.

It also states that they will reimburse customers who had their electrical relay systems replaced by mistake...since of course it appears as an electrical issue (or computer issue) with the intermittent off and on, sometimes left light, sometimes right light, sometimes both at the same time go off (scary on dark roads) any self-respecting technician would make the assumption=electrical.

My opinion is: if it's just a bulb issue, it has to be a very strange bulb that takes forever to die...since both of mine have been flashing on and off for nearly a year now and neither bulb has completely died yet. I even took a 5 hour trip at night with one bulb only going out once. Sometimes I drive 5 blocks and have to turn them off and on 3 times.

I am saving money to get the new bulbs put in (it will be $500 with labor because of Toyota's incredibly poor design....$200 to replace a bulb!) but I don't have $500. My family actually likes to eat food.

So, in response to your ecstacy, I am happy for you that you get some of your $1,000 back, but my argument is that you shouldn't have had to spend it in the first place, and no one is taking responsibility for that.

 

sorry to ask this somewhat extraneous question but, i am subscribed to this thread, or i was. I got the second to last post on my iPhone. The print is a little small on the iphone to put it mildly. i wanted to click on the link in the email to take me to this thread, but i accidentally clicked on a link that took me to a page that said "you are now unsubscribed from this thread." small print, i didn't see i was clicking on the wrong link. Now, i can't find anything to click on here on the thread to resubscribe to it. Am i blind? i have looked from top to bottom several times. How can i resubscribe to this thread? thanks for any guidance.

 

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Click up top on "Thread Tools" to have a drop-down menu appear. Then click on "Subcribe to This Thread".

 

With all this press surrounding Toyota right now, please email your Congressmen as well as your local newspapers to start asking Toyota why they are not replacing obviously defective bulbs.

 

I own an '06 Prius with 45,000 miles that has started "winking". I agree that Toyota needs to address this SAFETY issue and have contacted several news agencies to alert them about the issues. In addition, I filed a safety complaint with NHTSA.

 

I got the letter several months ago, and one of my headlights went out yesterday. The dealer wants $150 x 2 for bulbs plus $300 labor for a total of $600. The Toyota letter offers me nothing as they don't cover labor and the dealer has "only" charged me the $150 limit Toyota puts on the bulbs. Tomorrow I try the toyota National headquarters number 800-331-4331

 

Toyota is paying for nothing. They are admitting to nothing. They lowered the price bulb from $300 to $150, plus at least $100 each to install. They have not said that this will solve the problem. They have not said why these bulbs did not last an acceptable amount of time. They have not said how long they expect the new bulbs to last.
Have they really isolated the problem to the bulbs?

 

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Re: HID Bulbs - Toyota vs Aftermarket

I recently had the passenger side HID go out intermittantly on my 2007 Prius with 60k miles. Rather than buy the $150 each bulb from Toyota. I got a pair online for $105. When I installed them, they worked great for about 15 seconds and then one went out. A few seconds later, the other went out. I put the old bulbs back in and they were OK for a couple of days, then winked again. I broke down and bought a pair of the Toyota bulbs. They are "Harison" brand -- the originals were "Phillips". The new ones are working fine, and are brighter and more blue then the originals. I noticed a contact on both sets of the genuine Toyota bulbs which is missing on the aftermarket bulbs. Check out the photos. Might be on to something.... On the plus side, I can now replace both HID bulbs in less than an hour, thanks to some "practice".

 

grmccloskey -

Thanks for photos. They are very helpful. Can you tell us which online bulbs you had purchased - just so that we know which source to avoid?

Thanks.