Yesterday I received a Toyota recall letter. It says the car can possibly shut off while driving. The letter also mentions they do not have a solution for it yet and that they will keep me posted. I feel disappointed since one of the reasons for buying this hybrid was due to Toyota’s years of experience with hybrids. Mine is a 2014 in case you are wondering.
join the club. 'please park your vehicle until further notice. we will not reimburse you for a rental, or compensate you in any way. you are on your own until we figure out where we screwed up.' btw, this has been happening since 2004, unbeknownst to most newbies.
With a vanishingly small rate of occurrence, why worry? There are many higher probability failure modes that have nothing to do with Toyota, unless it is another Toyota hitting you.
Would you rather they keep it a secret from you until they had a solution? A truism in computer programming is "Better is the enemy of good enough", each generation, they improve their hybrids, which allows the introduction of new bugs.
Probably the inverter recall. From what I hear the first one did not fix anything so they are issuing another one. Toyota is conducting a safety recall involving certain Prius vehicles | Toyota USA Newsroom Since Prius v 2015-17 was not issued a recall, I wonder if newer models have fixed the old inverter design. But Toyota giving out new inverters is not economical so they will power down the system to prevent it from overheating/overloading. Basically another software update.
It is the inverter/IMG issue, redux. Possibly the realization that there was damage caused by the earlier issue, that the earlier recall could obviously not repair, that is now manifesting as failures.
I agree its probably the inverter problem but just an intermittent one that does not kill the hardware. They may not want to replace a working unit unless it dies completely. I certainly would not worry about it until it happened to me. As far as computerized hardware is concerned, one could stress about a gamma particle, an alpha particle or a cosmic ray from space impacting a transistor executing code and causing a software loop and shutdown. It's called a soft error. Or I could worry about something more likely, say a lightning strike. Or a deer running out in front of me at speed. Or... Soft error - Wikipedia
This is the third recall for my 2013 Prius v for the same issue (2014, 2015, 2018). The fact that there are multiple recalls affirms that the problem is still occuring and that there is likely a hardware issue that they are trying to fix by updating the software (which could also mean changing the performance and economy characteristics of the vehicle). Obviously, the software fix is a lot cheaper, and isn't that really all that companies are worried about? The first 2 software updates have failed to address the problem and the third recall is probably just a guess as well. As several on this forum have noted it is not really that big of an issue....UNLESS IT HAPPENS TO YOU!
The issue can happen but it is an edge case. The letter said you'd get mail when to come in. Implying to me that either training in applying the fix wasn't complete or parts weren't widely available.
My direct read of the advance recall letter was they didn't yet have a solution to push to dealerships.
