RECALL GONE BAD!!!!

I have an '05 white as well. In what month was yours built? Mine was build in July. Just wondering if mine might be in the same recall group.

Sorry to hear about one thing leading to another. I bet that's not what you envisioned happening when you drove to the dealership.

 

Yep, I think you are in the recent '04 and early '05 campaign.

 

i imagine that "glitch" was a tech "screwing up", as efusco just mentioned.

they don't like to use the words "we screwed up" on a regular basis so they fed you that line. sorry to hear about that.

 

Hey can somebody repost that link where you type in your vin number to see if this recall applies to you. I haven't heartd anything from Toyota and my car was built in Aug.05 so I think I'm safe.

Thanks!

 

no worries, paprius. mine was built in feb 05 and i escaped the recall.

 

Thats why i will wait ,as well. Seeing how my 04 was builtJuly of 2004, ( the VIN says i need it, but i have not heard a word, nor received any letter of "recall"...i will wait ...after 33000miles and a cross country trip under my belt...i will see...

 

I am scheduled for a 20,000 mile service this coming Friday. I spoke with the service writer about completing the recall at the same time, but think I will speak to the tech doing the work before I proceed. The techs have been pretty good where I take the car, but I hope mine is not the first recall they have done.

 

The same sort of thing happened to others with an early ECU flash recall. The first people to do this had their ECU's fried. There were a number of reports. Several of the dealers were more forthcoming on why the problem happened. Once they get the procedure down it is easy, but some people need to learn the hard way to follow directions. If I recall correctly one of the problems was they needed to put a charger on the battery to supply power through and they skipped that step and the loss of power scrambles the ECU so it can not be reprogrammed. I think of it like unplugging your computer during a defragmentation of a hard drive or maybe a OS install. They should be providing you with a car to use. I am going to wait a bit. I have not gotten my letter yet and the car has worked well with out problems. I can wait.

 

NOT GOOD NEWS, sleeping_doc


Sorry to hear of your problem. That might make me consider "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.!" My Prius IS within the VIN range listed as needing the ECM flash.

Did the Dealer provide you a Prius to drive while they're correcting their F.U.?? ... or at least adequate transportation.??

 

<_< I did get my letter - SSC 50P ECM update.

I'm with Evan and will defer having the reflash done until my Dealer has successfully done half a dozen or more. I will also have the brake light switch replacement done at the same time.

**SIGH** I suppose it's the Prius Owner's lot to be essentially a "beta tester" in some ways by driving such a technically advanced car.

 

I sure hope somebody else goes first at my dealer...

 

You should be all right. One link is http://50preflash.imagespm.info/fra_home.cfm
I don't know how well it works. I get a message saying I need to enter a valid VIN, while others says it shows them what they need to do. It's possible that the site is designed to assume you are part of the recall and tells you what needs to be done. If your VIN isn't part of the database it tells you to put in a correct one, rather than saying you're not part of the recall. Give it a shot and see how it works.

 

i disagree on your analogy. its more like flashing the bios in a computer. if you lose power during a reflash, the program used that accepts the flash in the prius is damaged (along with the rest of the software on that chip). thus, cannot be reflashed. this risk was reduced in some computers by having redundant flash chips. if the update fails, the backup can 'fix' your screwup so you can try again.

 

Dual Bios motherboards

 

I stand corrected you are absolutely right. It was something I have never done so it was not on my radar.

 

I bought a dual-bios motherboard... then the power regulator fried (as in actually turned in a black, smoking mass) on the board.

There's just no winning sometimes...

Dave

 

hahaha, well thats an entirely different problem

kind of odd that they made the prius flash upgradeable, and didnt make a redundancy. its not exactly difficult to do, and the technology for it has been around for quite a while. (and much cheaper than replacing the whole ECU) - not to mention all they have to do is pull the affected chip and put in one with intact software. (which is what you can do for a few dollars for a motherboard)