Combo Meter Extended Warranty and Brake Actuator Warranty

Yesterday morning I got the warning lights for what seems to be the brake actuator issue. We checked this morning with our usual mechanic. he is a great guy who knows a lot about Prius. He also teaches at the technical high school. He checked the diagnostics for us and got a C 1300 code. He urged us to take it to the local Toyota dealership which is where we bought the car. It is a 2008 model. The dealership is Atlantic Toyota in Lynn, MA.

I have all of the extended warranty notices. The one for the brake actuator is good until the end of this December or ten years from when we first bought the car which will be next March. The warranty extension for the combo meter problem which is the one where your dashboard goes black and you cannot turn the car off ended last March for our car. The service gentleman who checked us in said it was up in 2013 but I assured him that the secondary coverage extended to nine years after you first drove the car. He told us that we would have to pay for that repair at a cost of $800. My husband asked him where we might express our dismay to a higher level person. He gave us a card with the information for contacting Toyota in California. We live in MA.Our usual mechanic felt that the combo meter was going. I had an issue with it a few days ago but managed to reset it by pressing the power button the several seconds and then being able to shut the car off. Then in a bit it started up and worked properly. I had this happen maybe a couple of years ago but it resolved itself and did not happen again until now. Unfortunately we did not document with Toyota at that time. I actually thought that maybe I had done something a little too quickly when I was doing the starting sequence and Had caused the problem myself. I read here to keep up on what is happening with Prius and am very grateful for the solid advice I have received here in the past.

Our mechanic feels that they are good guys at Atlantic and that they will fix our combo meter under extended warranty as well as our brake actuator. If I have to pay for the combo meter I will likely have our guy do it as he is cheaper than the dealership and way beyond that we have a lot of faith in him. It certainly is a safety issue if you are unable to turn off a car. It is not our fault if the car has not really displayed the problem until just recently. The dashboard worked to day to get the car to our mechanic and worked once more to get it to the dealership.

We hung out a bit at the dealership as I wanted to see the latest Prius models. A very nice salesman showed us all around the Prius Prime. He took us on a test drive in an Advance which is very impressive. I was not crazy about the interior color but the safety features are impressive. As we the the salesman we usually take a year or even two to research a new vehicle.

We have been very happy overall with our 2008 Prius. It only has 75,000 miles on it and I was not looking for a new car. I have seen the ads about the new safety features like the blind spot warning and the collision warning.
I am excited to see a review offered for the Prime here on Prius Chat and will be reading it with interest.

Will let you all know how we make out with the warranty work. We are thinking of maybe giving the car to our niece after it is fixed as her car is quite old now with lots of miles on it. We usually sell our cars ourselves instead of trading them in on the new car. If any of you have any advice about how we might pursue getting our combo meter repaired under warranty please let us know. We will be very grateful.

Michele and Mark

Many thanks to any of you who might be able to offer us advice about getting the combo meter fixed under the now defunct extended warranty.

 

Interesting development with the dealership. They called to say that what is wrong with the car is that our 12 volt battery is shot. It is causing codes to come up all over the place apparently. Now our mechanic put in a new 12 volt battery for us in the spring of 2015. We have a travel trailer and leave for a couple of months at a time. We were gone for two moths last spring and another two months this fall. When we are away I turn off the smart key function and we put the battery on a trickle charger. We are going off to see our mechanic in a few minutes to get his take on this situation. We will be picking up our car at the dealership and will be paying the $112 diagnostic fee. We would rather our guy replace the battery if we have harmed it in some way by its being on the trickle charger. The service guy says that it is only at 10 volts.
Just curious whether any of you have experience with a situation like this. I have read here in the past about the issue of letting your car sit without being run for long periods of time. If the battery is the issue then perhaps in the future we will remove the battery from the car when we go away or will that cause even more problems?

Michele and Mark

 

Thanks for your advice. We were reading some past info here about Smart Charge this afternoon.

Michele and Mark

 

I went to the Texas site and noticed that in getting a rebuilt or new combo meter you are to send them your "core". What is the core and why would they want it? It is true that paying our guy to repair our combo meter is not a big expense. Over the many vehicles we have driven during our lives we have had several far more expensive repairs. I think it is just that we dislike dealing with dealerships. I never really trust what they tell me. I have caught a couple of them them in outright lies in the past. We have been with our current mechanic around 25 years now. he has only made one error which he quickly corrected for free. He is always learning new things about the various models as they come along and maintains good relationships with the various dealer parts departments and the technical bulletins. I will be crying big tears the day he retires.

Michele and Mark

 

No problem with starting. It started right up when left for the dealer and when took it home from the dealer yesterday.

Michele and Mark

 

We have the Deltran battery charger plus. It is listed on the e bay page link Exstudent posted for us.
It does not specifically say that it is a "smart" charger. We read the specs though and it seems to work properly for the situation.
It cost $44.

Michele and Mark

 

It is true that I have not driven the car all that much since we came home. We were having work done on the house and needed to be home to make decisions as they came up and to watch our dog as the men had to open the doors and gates quite a bit. I will keep better track of how often we use it in the future and be sure to take it out more often.

Michele and Mark

 

Thanks, exstudent, I was not thinking that our guy would repair the part. I do not think he has any interest in doing that.
He would install it for us. I really appreciate knowing about Texas hybrid Batteries.

Michele Dougherty