Combination Meter Warranty Enhancement

My notice came today. I have never experienced the problem. Seems to affect CM's in cold weather, which we have very little of here in AZ.

 

I talk to a guy periodically on amateur radio (driving towork 4am) who never got a notice ... to this day. Then again, he never go a notice of the headlight failures either. The shame is that he's a total fan of his now 180k mile Gen II Prius. Toyota marketing really misses out when it doesn't take care of it's loyal owners.
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I remember calling Toyota 800 number and asking for a copy of a warranty letter. I was told that they couldn't send a copy but was also assured that my VIN number was covered and any Toyota dealer will honor the warranty. So I think as long as your radio friend is aware of the warranty and bring the car to a Toyota dealer for repair, the warranty should be honored. Please pass this info along to him. Thanks!

 

I remember calling the Toyota 800 number also and asking about the letter. They claimed it had already been sent and could not send another one. So they sent me a copy without my name. That was about five months ago. About a month ago they finally sent the real deal that had our name on it and the VIN. It seems that they are slowly sending them out to all owners that are involved in it. But one really does not need the letter anyway. Toyota can tell by the VIN # if the car is covered. Don't forget, Toyota will furnish a free car to you while your car is being repaired. It is all part of the warranty extension.

 

Ya think maybe Toyota has the wrong address on file for him? Maybe?

I think they're spreading out the sending of the letters over many months so that they don't flood the central repair facility with stacks of CMs all at once. This also has the effect of keeping the owners' cars sitting unavailable in the dealer lots for a shorter time since your repair is not competing with my repair at the same time. Overall it leads to better customer service.

 

Received letter from Toyota 2 weeks ago. Sent them requested documents for prior repair of CM and to process reimbursement. . Today received letter stating that they received my request for reimbursement, that it is in pending stage. They also state that the following info is required in order to continue review. A separate detailed statement written by the servicing dealer on their company letterhead stating the following:

1) reason the vehicle was brought into repair facility?
2) the repair facility diagnosis?
3) the repair performed in order to correct problem?

Has anyone else received a letter like this? Why do you think all this is being requested when it was already on the original repair order which I sent them 2 weeks ago?

 

FWIW:
My wife got her notice about 3 weeks ago (mid Aug-2013) and I was pretty excited, as my mfd isn't functioning so I patiently awaited my notice, which I never received, so I toddled down to the dealership this morning, and was told that my '04 was too old (first use date sept-03) and wasn't covered. Really?

So I came home, found a copy of POL 12-05, printed it out and took it back in, with the 'sept 30 2013 whichever is longer' bit highlighted. The service fellow said his copy didn't say that, him and his supervisor pondered it a bit, and then set an appointment for me to drop the old gal off and get'er fixed.

Very happy.

If have an '04 like I do, get and print a copy of the notice (if you haven't already received it) and bring it with you, and do it right away.

 

My combination meter didn't turn on a few mornings ago. Fortunately I had a speedometer app on my phone to get home with. I took it to the dealer yesterday to get it fixed. I was surprised when the guy helping me knew about the warranty enhancement. There was zero hassle. Now I just have to wait 3-5 days for them to get the part in, then drop off my Prius for about 4 hours for them to swap.

 

Maybe not. When they serve you with tons of advertising as well as service bulletins that pretty much shores up that speculation .
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I have noted 2 failure modes of the Combination Meter:

1) No display, but can shut off the car normally by pressing the Power button as usual.

2) No display and can NOT shut off the Prius, no way, no how. I can hold it down for 4 seconds and instead of shutting off it drops to the first level "accessory" which shows a totally blank battery indicator. The next push takes it to the second level in which most stuff is powered like the windows and all. And I can hold my foot on the brake to bring the entire hybrid system online. But am locked in these three modes, I can't totally shut off the car therefore I can't lock it. So it sits outside charging the battery periodically and unlocked. Just lovely.

Any suggestions? Fuses to pull that won't cause even more problems? I'm taking it to the dealer tomorrow (I hope!)

Thanks in advance.

 

Not sure of your year model due to lack of info in your avatar. The word from Toyota is 2004 - 2009 affected by this should shut down after three seconds. With all that said, I would do this if I were you.

Make sure the Prius has sufficient fuel, and coolant in both loops. Once that is done, if you cannot get it to shut completely off, leave it in "Ready" and lock the doors with the mechanical key. If you do not have a secure place to do this, then you will have to resort to something else. It won't hurt the car to sit in ready mode overnight as long as it has enough fuel. The only risk really is how secure the area is where the Prius is parked (garaged). Also, DO NOT under any circumstance leave the Prius in "Ready" in a enclosed area due to Carbon Monoxide.

For more info read the following attached file.

 

One thing I will add. I don't recommend you do this as I have NO idea of how the Prius will respond after you attempt this step.

If you can't get it to shut down all the way, at your own risk try getting it into accessory mode, then remove the negative cable on the battery. That should kill everything. I have no idea if you will be successful in getting it to reboot when you reconnect the battery since it usually takes two power cycles to get a Prius back into ready mode once the battery has been disconnected.

Hopefully Patrick Wong will chime in on this one, as your problem is abnormal.

Please post back what your final resolution was on how you got the Prius to shut down.

 

It's a 2007 and falls within the recall/repair window as I have received the letter from Toyota about it. This same CM failure happened briefly about a month ago, but I really needed the wheels at the time and the trouble cleared that same morning. This time it appears that it has come home to stay.

I can probably wait it out overnight. Curiously, I was out of town this weekend when the problem manifested itself and after sitting in Ready mode all night, the next morning I was able to shut it off normally so I went about my business without touching it until returning home. So it does seem to drift between the two failure modes as it sees fit.

I hope my chosen dealer is willing and able to handle it tomorrow as it does not appear that the CM is coming back to life this time around. Thanks for your advice anyway.

 

Thank you Patrick, that makes me feel more comfortable.

 

I have heard mixed reports on how fast the dealers handle this thing. Originally, poster's were reporting waiting for a long time and having rental cars given to them. Recently I have heard that some have been in and out the same day.

Please let us know how it all works out. Best of luck to you!

 

This morning I called a service adviser at Ed Morse where I bought the vehicle and he really wasn't sure about any of the details of this program, except that the CM is nationally back-ordered.

So I called the dealer much closer to my house who indicated that I bring it by, they look at it, place an order for a replacement part, and when it comes in they will install it. I think there must be some bravado at work here or else two dealerships 20 miles apart have totally different approaches to repairing the same problem.

I'll report back when I return shortly. Stay tuned.

 

They ordered the "part" whatever that might be and it is projected to be here in 3-5 days. I'll believe it when I see it.

They also performed the accelerator pedal/floor mat interference recall which I didn't even ask about and couldn't care less about. That probably took longer than the CM thing.

I'll report my final outcome when all is said and done. So far it's looking a lot less painful than some of you folks got.

 

That's what they said for me and it was pretty accurate. Just make sure you take your car in as soon as they get it, it sounds like Toyota programs your odometer in before shipping it out with the miles it had when you took it to the dealer to order it. I didn't have time to drop mine off for a couple weeks, so my odometer is a few hundred miles low now.

 

The only thing that "scares" me is that the first dealer that I called, despite not seeming to know much about this CM program, said that they are "backordered nationally". I really don't care because I still have my Prius to drive around while it ships, so 3 days or 3 weeks is fine by me, just as long as it stays working until then.

By the way, when I went out this morning to clean all my valuables and junque out of the Prius before taking it to the dealer, naturally the CM lit up and everything worked normally again. There must be a force field at my house that causes it to work OK because it was dead all weekend when I was 300 miles away. Figures.