My 2012 Plug-in Prius was serviced last week by the local Toyota Dealer. The power control unit reservoir was at the "L" line when they "completed" the service. They said, "Its a sealed system we do not top it off". It's clear in the manual that it should be filled and it states the type of coolant. Perhaps there has been some directive from Toyota that overrides the manual statement.
not sure what that is, inverter reservoir? i would never take a dealers word, sometimes they are right, sometimes wrong. what does the manual say about it? what does 'should be filled' mean? topped up to the full mark? cold? hot? any instructions?
By the time our 2010 was around 3~4 years old, both the engine and inverter coolant reservoirs had got down to the low lines. I got 4 liter container of the Toyota coolant and topped them both up. Neither has budged since, so I'd speculate it's a new car thing, there's some "give" in the components. Anyway: total BS from the dealership. And yeah, I'd second Bisco: this is inverter coolant reservoir you're talking about? Might be good to edit the title: "inverter" is the common term I think.
The 2012 Toyota Prius PHV Owners Manual, page 464, clearly states it is the "Power control unit coolant reservoir" and says "The coolant level is satisfactory between "F" and "L". On another page, it says what type of coolant to use. The level is just at the "L" so one could imagine it doesn't "need" be filled but the reason they gave makes no sense at all. It says the same thing in the 2013 Owners Manual.
Yeah you got me there, on the Toyota terminology. And even the Owner's Manual says to top the reservoirs up. Maybe they didn't want to crack open another bottle? Some more arcane Toyota terms: "Engine Room" (In colloquial English: engine compartment. Engine "room" brings up some absurd pictures, a big ship, oilers running around, tending big diesels, steam blowing, messages piped down from the bridge.) "No. 2 Cylinder Head Cover" (The plastic show piece atop the valve cover. This one puzzled the heck out of me; thought it was something to do with cylinder #2... Someday I hope to discover what No. 1 cylinder head cover is.)
I'd imagine both of those are just bad translation. "Engine room" is the standard term for an engine compartment of any vehicle in Japanese, including cars. It's an example of "wasei-eigo", Japanese-made English - where English gets adopted into Japanese which may not necessarily be correct English elsewhere. With cars especially they use a variety of English-derived terms which are a mishmash of British and US English, got contracted or re-appropriated in odd ways, or became archaic elsewhere, for example: Bonnet = British English for "hood" Trunk = American English for "boot" Number plate = British English for "license plate" Handle = steering wheel(!) Winker = turn signal/indicator Meter = instrument cluster/gauges - Gen 2 owners will be familiar with the part name "combination meter" as they often fail
Summa gun! The manual does call it a power control unit reservoir. I looked it up in my 2013 PiP manual. Then I looked in my 2017 Prime manual and they used the same term there. I wonder if you can order a power control unit and they would know what you want at the dealership.
I had a meeting with the Service Manager on Friday. He agreed his employee was wrong and personally added some coolant.
