How do we get Toyota to recall Gen 3 Priuses with head gaskets issues?

The magic word is "goodwill".
If you experience a unusual or just out of warranty problem often Toyota corporate may be willing cover part or all of the repair .
You can ask for this goodwill yourself at the corporate level or if you have a good relationship with your dealer they may go to bat for you if you mention this.

Below is a link to fellow prius members success with "goodwill" help with out of warranty traction batteries as well as some good contact information.


HV Battery Goodwill Warranty Listing - Toyota Prius USA | PriusChat

 

actually, you're the first. and probably the only one that will ever be. are you really whining that your engine didn't go a million miles? please link us to toyota's claim, thank you. no worries mate.

btw, there is already a class action suit in place, you might still be able to sue.

oh, not you again.

 

I saw a couple of posts about HG here. it's rare, but it certainly can happen to any car. there is always someone who gets the short stick.
OP: search for HG problems here. there was a very long and well documented thread on how to fix it DIY fairly recently.

if it's not a safety issue, you can't do a thing but whine. good luck to you.

 

let's sort this out:

1) there are a lot of toyota's with head gasket issues. a (how many is a lot?)

2) your mil's went over a million miles. is that normal?

3) you've contacted toyota after your warranty is up and you want them to, what?

4) this is your first foreign car. so, all foreign cars must be bad?

5) 'a very small amount of stream where the coolant recovery tank'.

6) 'let's rise up and get toyota to take care of business'. power to the people, power to the people right on!

 

It appears you bought a used car. Did you have it thoroughly checked out prior to purchase? It's often very difficult to determine how the previous owner drove or maintained it...

 

How many miles are on this car?

 

Prius engine can be got fairly cheap on EBay like $500 and then you have to install it (we have had a few engine replacements if that's what you need)

 

Motor Vehicle Defects and Safety Recalls: What Every Vehicle Owner Should Know | Safercar.gov | NHTSA

 

Bob, just editorial: there's two people in your avatar, and your profile says you're female, maybe fix that, it's confusing.

 

Just from the tone of the original post, I'm not going to bother too much with a battle plan offering to the OP on how to get Toyota to do a recall for a problem specific to his vehicle.

First foreign vehicle, extremely unhappy with ownership...nearly every comment is how disappointed and lousy he feels the ownership experience has been, I think the best advice would be to go back to the vehicles you are happy with.

I'm not convinced there is a "head gasket" problem with Gen 3 Prius. Some isolated issues and happenings but as has been said you are going to get a percentage of that with each and every vehicle. If I was coming into Prius Chat and seeing "Head Gasket" failure issues coming up weekly and repeatedly I might agree, and so probably would Toyota. But I don't feel there is demonstration statistically that would make head gasket issues a recall issue.

I would also speculate that the "Head Gasket" is a pretty common, utility part. In other words, pretty hard to get it wrong. I'm guessing the supplier to Toyota might not be supplying head gaskets ONLY for Prius. Unless you can define the failure of any said head gaskets as being both premature, unprovoked, and due to a specific failure in manufacturing? Then to expect a recall or past warranty coverage is ridiculous.

Further difficult if the vehicle in question is a used vehicle, when it becomes near impossible to know the past history of usage and maintenance. Doesn't take too much of a mistake or abuse to make a head gasket fail.

I had an older but great Honda Accord, and made the cardinal mistake of allowing a "Rippy Lube" type place do a coolant exchange and flush, and they did it wrong. Soon after the radiator failed and the head gasket was overheated and needed to be replaced along with the radiator. I didn't blame Honda, I blamed the oil change place, but the cost and trouble of trying to "prove" their actions prematurely made my radiator fail and lead to head gasket failure and radiator replacement?

I just chalked it up to lesson learned and had repaired what needed to be repaired.

If I was the OP, that would be my advice.....then probably move on from Prius ownership, they sound supremely unhappy with the experience.

 

i almost blew a gasket the other day. still waiting for the recall...

 

I'm sorry you're having problems with your car and are not happy. If you know how to do it right--and cheap you should offer your services to GM. Either they don't know how to fix the problem or don't want to pay to fix the problem.

General Motors is recalling 1,411,332 older vehicles with its 3.8-liter V6 yet again due to a fire risk. Specifically, there are 1,283,340 of them in the US, and the affected models are the:

• 1997-2004 Pontiac Grand Prix
• 2000-2004 Chevrolet Impala
• 1998-1999 Chevrolet Lumina
• 1998-2004 Chevrolet Monte Carlo
• 1998-1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue
• 1997- 2004 Buick Regal

The fault with these vehicles is that oil can drip onto the hot exhaust manifold during hard braking, which can potentially cause of fire. In the last six years, there have 19 reported minor injuries from this problem but no crashes or fatalities, according to the company. Spokesperson Alan Adler also told Autoblog: "GM has reports of 1,345 fires in vehicles that were repaired under two previous recalls for this issue."

At this time, GM is still developing a remedy for the problem. According to Adler, the company advised owners to park these vehicles outside for the previous recalls. "The cars can be safely driven. In cases where a customer reported an engine fire while driving, smoke was reported, which would be an indication of a malfunction," he said.

This is GM's fourth recall for this problem since 2008, according to The Detroit News. At one point it was believed that aging valve cover gaskets allowed the oil to leak out and drip onto the manifold. A campaign in 2009 covered nearly 1.5 million of these models through the 2003 model year for the same issue. At the time, dealers installed new spark plug wire retainers as a fix.

 

I wonder how much this recall has cost GM so far. I calculated that if they bought 128340 cars at $4K ea it would cost: $5,133,360.00
Maybe GM should think about what VW may do to older Diesels VWs on their scandal watch.

 

I'm not so sure about the validity of the GM ignition-spontaneously-shutting-off recall. I mean: some people are carrying an effing cinderblock worth of junk on their key ring: what do they expect?

Same for a bit of oil leak with a valve cover gasket, perfection is impossible, gaskets will start to leak over time, need replacement. One thing, sharply raked windshields and plethora of conduits routed over top of the valve are making it tougher and tougher to take them off.

 

If you had read the Valucas report all 315 pages of it you would see that there was an engineering screw up on the ignition switch design AND also another screw up in which the NEW design did not change part revision numbers as per protocol. The issue is the key tumbler is too easy to turn and was not even in spec when made and approved. No matter if you have lots of weight on the key ring any key tumbler system is made to understand those issues and designed accordingly. If it were't we would have all kinds of crashes from soccer moms all over the place.

The deal with valve covers to replace the gaskets is pretty straight forward. Remove the intake manifold and unbolt any dogbones or motor mounts or braces and rock the car forward to let the engine rock forward then put the parking brake on then put into park if automatic.
Some cars have removable cowlings as well usually on vans. In closing..different methods for different vehicles.

 

same as vdub except for the deaths.

 

Sorry to bring life back to an old thread but I am honestly interested in finding out if a recall was called

 

Up here in Canada, no recall, but we did receive a letter acknowledging that there is a problem with EGR clogging, and if you experience start up knock and/or get EGR clog code, they can do something. Might be a miles/months limit; I'd need to dig it up again.

Yeah I know that's not the head gasket, but EGR clog and head gasket failure seem hand-in-hand. I've never seen anything directly head gasket related.

My 2 cents, the Toyota EGR clogging notice is toothless and belated; if at all possible DIY cleaning before it gets too clogged is better than relying on Toyota.