RECALL GONE BAD!!!!

Howdy smackoww

Now... would you *REALLY* want a Dealership "technician" to replace a single chip on the ECU board.?? Sounds like a very risky thought to me.

 

I took my prius in last tuesday 11/01 and the car is still in the dealership and I was told that some part (ECU) won't come in until this friday.

I find it really annoying since I called and was told that it would only take a couple of hours and now it's taking more than a week to fix this supposedly simple problem. I always feel like these guys aren't telling me the whole scoop and that they are trying to hide something.

I would hate for anybody else to go through this so make sure when you call that they have the %^$&$ part in stock!!!!!!

Anybody else have this same problem in the bay area (san francisco)?

 

Good tip on asking if the dealer had the parts in stock. I just got off the phone with my dealer, and they do have the parts, and have done plenty of the recalls. That makes me feel much better. I will post on Friday afternoon and let the Priuschatters know how the service went.

 

Bah. They come in sockets, if they're designed to be swappable. A simple little tool pulls them out and you just push the new one in. I'd trust someone w/ a HS diploma and a bit of training to be able to do it, easy. But from the sound of things, they're not in replacable sockets and instead are permanently attached to the board. Shucks.

 

If they are not surface mounted instead of socketed.

 

Nobody uses sockets anymore. The socket itself has 100x the failure rate of the chip in it. Think of the vibration, thermal cycling, etc. that socket is subjected to!

In the early days of computers, in the long ago time... (about 20 years ago) I had a computer with static RAM chips. They got warm every time you turned on the computer. Imagine my surpirse after opening the case to see what's wrong after it quit one day --- about 20 of my RAM chips had thermal cycled themselves right out of their sockets and were on the floor of the computer!

 

CPUs, bios chips still come in sockets. They just made sockets work differently and more safely now.

20 years ago, I used to just pull out the ram board the dram chips were on, banged it on the desk, sat on the memchips with my hands to push them back in, and reseated the board. You're supposed to do that regularly dummy.

 

So I just went to the website to tell me if my 2005 Prius was recalled, and now I'm thoroughly confused. I typed in my vin and it said that it was not a valid vin number. Does my car exist?
Has anyone else had this problem?
Thanks!!

Danie

 

Me too. The people that have success say it tells them what needs to be done. That could mean that the site's database only contains VINs that are part of the recall. If yours isn't there that could mean you're safe. Nobody has reported that their response was "Your VIN is not part of the recall" or something like that.

 

Frankly, it's idiotic to have an embedded system that doesn't have
a basic flash loader in *ROM*, so that if a reflash does get
screwed up you can maybe ground a magic pin on the thing to put it
in a special mode where all it can do is accept a reflash on the
serial port. But apparently Toyota's reflash depends on some piece
of the *prior* flash-load to handle overwriting itself. Duh.
.
Maybe they decided that a ROM boot-loader couldn't be made smart
enough to handle the CANbus or something and they have to load the
first one in via a different physical port? Seems silly, regardless.
.
_H*

 

I brought my car in for the recall early this morning. The whole process took a little over an hour including an oil change.

Re the recall, I was told, "no parts, just grease and reprogramming". I just happened to see a separate invoice on which, apparently, the dealer was charging Toyota $194 for labor.

Haven't noticed any change whatsoever in terms of the car's operation.......FWIW

 

the only part they'd need is the ECU which needs to be replaced if they used the bugged scantool software.

those are on serious backorder- they did NOT expect this to happen and barely have enough to keep up with new production.

 

Boy electronics have come a LONG way. I still remember when I was a kid my father taking the TV's tube's(now I can't think exactly what they were called) to the machine at the grocery store that tested the tubes to see if they were still good.

 

I had my recall done today along with the 20,000 service. No problems at all. Everything seemed fine with the car. The computer acted normally, and the car drove just like it always does. I'm pleased and relieved.

For those of you in the L.A. area, especially the Valley, I have my service work done at Keyes Toyota in Van Nuys.

 

I had the same bad experience this week that many are reporting with this recall. The dealership called to say "the reprogramming didn't take" and the part needed was on backorder. Meantime, I get to drive a Mercury Sable, a rental which the dealership provided. It is EPA rated at 23mpg overall. I'll track gas usage and ask for reimbursement for the difference from what my Prius would have used. We'll see.
My suggestion, folks, would be to ask your the service manager if s/he can assure you that the technician who'll do the work has already done it successfully. If not, wait or go someplace else.
And does anybody know - I'm just curious - who'll get to pay for the new ECU, the dealership whose technician screwed up the reprogramming or Toyota?

 

I met Jeff as we were buying touch up paint after we had our respective service orders written.

I had my ECM Update performed, yesterday, along with the 15,000 miles service.

I am not quite so sure that there is no change in the way that the car drives. Under certain conditions, the ICE seems to start earlier and more often. In other conditions, it stays in stealth mode a lot longer. The Energy screen, on the MFD, seems to show a higher average state of charge than I am accustomed to see.

It is too early to see if there is any effect on fuel economy. The Consumption screen showed ~22 MPG when I picked the car up. It had only one mile on the tank when I dropped it off and three when I picked it up (after my best fill up ever, 57.4 MFD, 57.1 calc, 524.7 miles, 9.189 gallons - I would have broken my range record had I not been concerned that the dealer would bring my MPG average way down, which they did). I am currently at about 47 MPG with about 50 miles since the fill up.

 

Allow me to reiterate

this is not the tech's fault... this is a software bug in the scantool.

Toyota is responsible for the software bug being released, so I imagine they're footing the bill.

 

IsrAmeriPrius,

You might want to check you tire pressure and what oil was put in your car. Both were wrong on mine. I asked for 42/40 and they were at 33/35. I called and spoke to Paul, the service manager, and had him check the oil that was used as well. I specifically told them to use 5/30 and they put in 10/40. Strike two. I also asked for the front wiper inserts to be replaced, and the back was replaced as well. When I spoke to the service writer about this, he said I was only charged for two. Turns out he lied. Strike three.

I am going back on Monday to have the oil drained and the correct oil put in. I guess I have to amend what I said earlier about the service department at Keyes. They certainly did blow it on this one. At least the didn't screw up the ECU.