Rust on rear hatch handle

I'm sorta screwed. I have nearly 46,000 miles on my car, so I'm out of the 3 Year/36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. And according to the 2 phone calls I just had with nearby dealers, the 60 month body warranty seems to only cover body panels that rust through. Both of them asked me to bring the car by so they could see it though.

I might just take a wire wheel to it and re-paint it with some rust-inhibiting black paint. Does POR-15 still work like it used to?

 

Rust-Oleum, cold galvanizing spray?

Addendum: that paint you linked sounds interesting.

 

It does. I just used it a couple years ago on some stuff under the hood of the PiP I got that used to live in New Hampshire. Still nice and shiny black!

 

From the warranty manual,
WHAT IS NOT COVERED
This warranty does not cover damage or failures resulting directly or indirectly from any of the following:

• Fire, accidents or theft

• Abuse or negligence

• Misuse — for example, racing or

• overloading

• Improper repairs

• Alteration or tampering, including installation of non-Genuine Toyota Accessories

• Lack of or improper maintenance, including use of fluids and fuel other than those specified in the Owner’s Manual

• Installation of non-Genuine Toyota Parts

• Airborne chemicals, tree sap, road debris (including stone chips), rail dust, salt, hail, floods, wind storms, lightning and other environmental conditions

• Water contamination

Sounds like they could void the corrosion warranty for driving during a Northeast winter.

 

This is Toyota’s mistake. The part is flawed. I would be very disappointed if they didn’t make it right. Regardless of the mileage, these are still quite new cars.

 

The beauty of POR-15 is that you can paint it right over rust and it stops the stuff in its tracks. I once used it in the trunk of an old Chevy that had a fairly rotted floor pan and it completely stopped the rust.

Since this is really not visible at all, I don't have to be fancy about it.

 

I would be more worried that the part is rusting on both sides. Having a way to dismantle and treat/replace the part would be a far better option going forward.

 

The rusting probably started on the back or edge where a treatment isn't guaranteed to reach.

 

Does Toyota no longer make repair manuals for their cars that an owner can buy or access online? Mine isn't rusting, but if it were, I would be very anxious to remove that assembly, sand off the rust and coat it with POR 15.

 

The physical "Repair Manual" (and the pdf version of it), seems to be dying. I've found 2nd gen and 3rd gen Repair Manual pdf's, and comparing the two, the 2nd gen manual is definitely better, more paper manual centric. The 3rd gen manual seems to "mail it in" often; it's both terse and tediously repetitious, confoundingly obtuse in places. I suspect for 4th gen there is no physical manual (or an all-in-one pdf); it's all online.

Still, it should be too difficult to get that part out (he said...). Maybe you have to pop off interior panels for access. The trickiest thing I find, is to release hidden fasteners, when you can't see them, are sorta guessing as to what direction to push/pry/pull.

 

FWIW, my Prime Advanced shows a fair amount of rust in the same place as noted in this thread. Car was purchased June, 2017 and has 28k miles. I will comment on what the dealer says when I take it in for its 30k mile oil change. This will be interesting.....

 

I’ve had rust issues in several of my Toyota’s over the past 40 years.
The remediation is usually encapsulation versus parts replacement.

 

Thanks to all who are writing about this issue. When I saw the first post back in September I found that my 2017 Prime has rust as shown in the photos others provided. I brought it to the dealers attention prior to my recent service. There are very few Primes up this way and they had not seen this issue before and ordered a new assembly for it thinking it might be a fix. When I brought the car in they realized that was not the case. They did contact Toyota rep about it and said they will get back to me when they hear something.

What I found interesting listening to the discussion is that they noted that the piece of rusting metal is a reinforcing bar that is integral to the carbon fiber hatch itself. They suggested it was a maintenance item and I could put some wax on it. Meh.

Toyota might come up with solution but I am thinking about wire brushing the area and coating it with Extend rust neutralizer or some similar product that converts the rust to a stable iron phosphate, could paint it after that. But that does not address the back side of the piece. Given that all manner of salty road gunk is sucked up behind the care it is a certainty that its rusted all around. Does anyone know if the hidden side of the metal support can be reasonably accessed? Maybe from the inside of the hatch?

 

After two winters, the hatch handle plate looks like this. Compared to last year, it has gotten worse. Now it is more uniformly rusted. (see: comment #11 in this thread Rust on rear hatch handle | PriusChat)

I contacted my Toyota dealer again, and they are taking my car in for repair or restoration this week. Apparently, Toyota has not come up with a new replacement part yet. I will report what they will do to fix this problem.

 

You made me go check mine out. I bought mine 01-31-17. It's been through 2-1/2 winters. Granted our winters aren't nearly as bad as yours. Good luck with the repairs.

 

WOW! That's pristine! They must salt the road in your area, don't they? I wonder what condition causes this rust problem. I thought the road salts were the culprit. Maybe a small batch of inferior parts used in some PRIMEs. By the time I read this thread last year and looked at my car, it has gone through the first NE winter, and mine was what was shown on the comment #11. It is at such a place, you would not notice it naturally. If I didn't read this thread before my factory warranty expire, I probably would have not taken my car to a dealer. As it turns out, told from a dealer tech, taking that part of metal off from the hatch door assembly is not a trivial task. Thus difficult and costly repair or replace.

 

VERY interesting! My Prime came from NJ. It had about 1-1/2 winters there and the handle is rusted. One of these days I want to figure out how to get it out and fix it, but there's no time for that now.