Clicking Sound on Regen Braking

I've got the same noise - I started reporting it when the car had less than 20k miles and has been documented on at least three other work orders - all times I was told that either they couldn't duplicate the sound or that there was nothing wrong. Now I have 64k miles and just found this thread. I'm planning on printing out this thread and maybe even make a recording. I don't trust the Toyota dealers here in the central valley of California (Visalia, Fresno, Clovis) . Does anyone think that they will give me a hard time about the car having over 60k even if it is well-documented that I've complained about this noise from under 20k? Also, is anyone else from this area and can recommend a delaer in the central valley here in California (Visalia, Fresno, Clovis, Selma)? thanks for this thread and any advice...

 

I definitely think they will give you a hard time. They gave me a hard time even though my car only had 35k miles on it. The best thing to do it get it on video, show them the video before the drive, and then take them on the drive with you driving. Drive in an empty parking lot with a building to your left and windows down. Break and the noise will reflect off the window. Switch to neutral, and then the noise instantly goes away.

Now that their is a TSB, it will be substantially easier. Look through this thread for the TSB number and mention that this noise specifically is what you are talking about.

 

Hello,
First, I want to thank everyone who contributed to this thread, and for the service documents that were posted. I think it made all the difference (well, and the TSB).

I went down to the dreaded dealer, and asked to speak to the Service Manager (SM) directly. He wasn't in his office, and, as I was walking around, a guy asked me if I needed help. I explained the situation to him, and it turns out he was the general manager of the dealership. He took a copy of my paperwork and told me that he would have the SM call me when he got back. A few hours later I got a call, and the SM. I figured that I needed this guy on my side since my Prius has over 60k on it. I asked if I could take the tech for a ride with me to demonstrate the problem. First he said they were going to charge me a diagnostic fee to check it out, but then he agreed to just have the technician ride with me. I told him about the TSB, and he poo-pooed it as being nothing more than an email to the service centers. I knew that wasn't true, but I didn't say anything.

I went today with all my paperwork and a recording I made of the clicking sound upon braking in drive and in neutral. I saw a service person and they got the "shop foreman" to go for a test drive. Before we got going, I played the recording and he said he heard the clicking sound. We drove and he said he heard it right away. We went into the repair area and he pulled up the TSB (I've attached a copy of it here - I didn't see that anyone else had done so). He heard the noise right away, and didn't even ask to have me demo it in neutral. I asked if the fact that my vehicle had 64k on it and it was out of warranty - if that made a difference. He said that the TSB only came out Dec 2018, so there's likely a lot of vehicles out-of-warranty that will need repair. He met me up at the service counter, he went to talk to the SM, and I followed up with the service person at the counter. She seemed pretty certain that it would be covered by Toyota under warranty. She said she needed to submit all the information to them, and keep me updated of the progress.

I was very anxious when I went there, as I was expecting a big fight about it- "we can't hear it", "it's not under warranty", etc, It *looks* like it will be repaired under warranty even though I have 64k on the vehicle. As previously noted by other posters, (if you are reading this and in the same boat as me), it helped tremendously that I had them document the issue from as early as 19k that there is a clicking sound, and I had proof that on at least three other occasions, I reported the same issue, even if the tech noted that he couldn't reproduce it, or they say it's functioning normally. If I hadn't had that (and known about the TSB), I'm not sure if I would've gotten this far. In addition, I printed out all the files from this thread that were attached, brought copies of my service documents that stated my reported problem without resolution, and I also made a recording of the sound (as previous posters recommended) to play for the tech to listen to. If there are any other additional issues, I'll post back afterwards.

Good luck to all of you.

 

it appears that my attached pdf's are not viewable. let's try jpgs...

 

Is it normal for a dealer to charge a $180 diagnostics fee to look into this even though it is under warranty?

 

Nope

 

When I first approached the Service manager, he stated that they would have to do a "diagnostic" which would include a charge. I asked if we could start by having the tech ride in my car with me first - he agreed. (no diagnostic was necessary)

I was informed today that Toyota is going to repair my vehicle (with over 60k on it) at no cost to me. So, I'm glad it worked out and they are taking responsibility for it. The only thing that irked me a bit was that she said it was a "goodwill" repair - like they were doing me favor. But, that's just incidental...

 

Potato pototo. Its the outcome that matters. They could have called it a pink elephant in the end its meaningless

 

hello,
bringing my 2016 Prius in for the axle repair on Monday. I asked about the alignment and was told that it is not part of the TSB. It was mentioned earlier in this thread. Does anyone know if the alignment is included in ths warranty repair, and, when replaced the front axle an alignment is required? thx!

 

That’s incorrect. While the bulletin itself doesn’t mention alignment, it does specify, on page two, that the drive shaft assembly is to be removed and installed according to procedures in the Repair Manual. As noted in my posting of September 18, step 13 of the installation procedure is “ADJUST FRONT WHEEL ALIGNMENT.”

When this work was done on my car, I asked the service writer to make sure that the alignment was done and to provide a copy of the report, which showed that an adjustment was needed and made, correcting the left front toe. This wasn’t surprising, since the tie rod end subassembly was disconnected and reconnected.

 

thank you! I'll bring that with me when I go on Monday.

 

Well, the dealership is refusing to do the alignment in spite of me showing them all the information posted here. I called Toyota North America and opened a claim with them and they are going to contact the dealership's Customer relations manager, and I'm supposed to get a response within one business day. It's all so stupid because they could've just done the work as required, but they have to make it difficult for me, as now I'll have to bring the car back in for service for this - and boy, do I ever love sitting at the dealership waiting for my car to be serviced. On a funny note, when the service advisor spoke to the service manager and told him that even though the alignment isn't listed in the TSB, it is listed in the repair manual as a required step. The service manager said, "tell him that we'll do the alignment for the discount price of $99". The normal price is $105 (that's a discount of $6). Sheesh...

 

Took my car in to the dealer, they inspected under Warranty for no charge (under 3yr/36K).

They found problem after 1 hr of waiting, told me to come back the next day since they needed to order part.

They got the part the next morning and I brought the car in and they fixed it in 2 hours.

Only thing that I noticed is that they replaced it with part 43420-47040 instead of 43420-47050 per the TSB...

Hope this one lasts, no alignment done.

No sound currently, but I wonder what is different between 43420-47040 and 43420-47050 because I really don't want to have to go back to have this problem fixed after my warranty of 60K expires due to them ordering and putting on a different part than what is stated on the TSB...

I've already gone through the thread but for an update, has the noise returned for anyone who had the left axle replaced with 43420-47040?

 

They put in the same old part, you will have the issue again. Dont know what the difference is, the significance is that there is a difference to the point where there was a part number change. That does not happen lightly.

 

Interesting, they did have their own print out of the TSB last time attached to my service record and so I called Toyota and they checked on it and stated that the TSB for my car is to use the old part number for repair which is interesting...

 

Doesnt make sense. I would try to get my hands in the tsb and see what it says. People can tell you anything. From my understanding two variants of the tsb did not come out.

 

I posted a copy of the TSB upthread...

 

To answer the above question regarding recurrence: My '17 Prime had the left drive axle replaced in October of 2018 at 36,000 miles, before the revised part was available. Today, at 45,500 miles, the noise is back. I have an appointment with my dealer next Monday to install windshield #5 and I guess we'll get going on axle #2 at that time as well.

Has anyone with the revised part had a recurrence of the drive axle noise, out of curiosity?

 

I have been following this for a while and it seems that out of the 12 or so people here who have replaced their axle, only 3 have come back and said the noise returned, a few came back many miles later and said it never returned, and then everyone else never came back with updates, but likely would have if the noise came back.

I believe it is very possible to get an axle that won't make the click noise with the older part number. The vast majority of Priuses on the road don't make those click noises. It is also possible for your noise to come back, but again it seems to be relatively rare as is.

My noise with the old part number has not come back yet after 30k miles since replacement, when my original one showed noise starting at around 20k.

 

Replacement drive axle #2 with the new part number is in and braking is silent once again. I'd be curious to know what the failure mode is on these axles as well as the threshold failure rate for Toyota to issue a TSB. In any case, this is the last issue I needed to get solved with my car. My hope is now I can finally settle down for a few hundred thousand miles of trouble free driving.