DETROIT - Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday it will notify about 75,000 Prius owners in the United States about a potential software glitch that may cause the popular hybrid cars to suddenly stall or shut down. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9686049/
Sales of the '04-'05 model reached 75,000 in early February '05, so - unless it is a package-specific issue - people who purchased a Prius later than, say, Feb. 10 are probably in the clear. We got our Prius on Feb. 9 ... so we'll be looking at the mail more closely than usual for the next few days. :blink:
This is ridiculous. Toyota should send a Campaign now before the media gets a hold of this. They have an update they won't give you unless your car stalls! Excellent. Nate
The article says no recall notice will be sent out because Toyota calls it a TSB, and is doing it voluntarily, not being forced to by the government. It sounds like Toyota will be sending out notices of the TSB to owners of cars that might be affected. My car (2004) had the stalling problem last summer. I bought it in 11/2003 and had 50,000 miles on it when the problem occured. Like the article says, the electric moter had enough power in it to let me drive to a safe place to pull over. I was beginning to think it would not happen to my car.
Read the Toyota Press release that amped (I think) posted under Care/maintainence/troubleshooting (link in previous post). It states that all owners of those 75k affected vehicles will be sent out a notice and that this is a Service Campaign, not a TSB (though there has been a TSB out on this for a while. You don't have to wait until you stall to have it done. I'm not even sure I will have it done due to the techs here reporting decreased fuel economy b/c the fix works by delaying ICE shut off.
This is where people will find out if their car was exempt or just lucky so far. I'm thinking 'lucky so far'...
This is the fourth article I've seen about this. It doesn't appear to be a big deal, and the media apparently doesn't care.
Heck, I joked about 'just ignore the lights like people do', and that's what the fix should consist of. Anything else is just silly...
do not know about that. I think the press might be beginning to spin this as a recall. Google news is beginning to pickup stories like this one from the LA Times (recall emphasis mine). Lots of michigan papers are using the recall term too. "Software Glitch Triggers Toyota Prius Recall By James F. Peltz, Times Staff Writer In what's believed to be the first recall of hybrid cars for engine-related problems, Toyota Motor Corp. said today that it is notifying about 75,000 owners of its hot-selling Prius about a potential software glitch that could cause the car to stall or shut down...."
In the common vernacular this is a recall. In a technical sense it is not--that is it was not ordered by the government.
