MFD issues on '04/'05 Prius

If its the solder joints failing I'd sure like to get a shot at one because I'm an Electronic's Engineer by trade and do micro soldering just about everyday. Most new equipment failure is either bad solder quality and or capacitors.
Living here in Florida its easy to see the heat punishment that MFD must get too protruding from the dash like that. I keep mine covered in flight by a nice fitting hood I bought on eBay and a dashcover and make sure I use the excellent Heatshield Window Shade I bought here on the accessories section when parked. That window shade is excellent and is really heavy duty and fits perfect. Excellent deal at $30.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Sep 18 2007, 10:54 PM) [snapback]514620[/snapback]</div>

Meeting up with Hobbit to give him my old one on Friday..

So hopefully we will have an answer soon..

Scott

 

and if I can't find it, I can bring it south in December and maybe
Drifty's and I can noodle over it together...
.
_H*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(westofrome @ Sep 15 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]513172[/snapback]</div>

For what it's worth, our now-defunct-thanks-to-an-accident-04 also had its MFD replaced. I don't recall what the mileage was at replacement, but it was under the 3 year/36k (it only had 45k miles on it at its demise).

We were on the highway, switched on the A/C, and the radio would change stations. The screen was pretty much unresponsive, and we also had no data for mileage/consumption, just as described above. Car DROVE just fine, but it was a little disconcerting.

Toyota was decent about the whole thing, but I think the warranty had a lot to do with it. It took a good 3-4 days to replace, though, as it wasn't a part they had handy. It did have our techs scratching their heads, as they hadn't seen it before.

Didn't realize that so many people had an issue with it. Interesting.

shoe

 

Hey shoe -- which shop?
.
_H*

 

I'm wondering if the MFD failures are due to the same leaking capacitors that came out of Taiwan at around those years. Lots of computer companies and motherboard manufacturers were stung by this, Dell probably got tens of thousands of mobo's returned due to this. I bought my sister a dvd player from around that time period and it quit working around a year later. I took off the cover and looked at the power supply and guess what? Leaking caps. More info... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(p626808 @ Aug 23 2007, 08:36 AM) [snapback]500979[/snapback]</div>

I am VERY interested in finding the root cause behind this, as I'm pretty good with a soldering iron, and have a malfunctioning MFD on my 2004 Prius with about 87K miles on it. Got the stiff arm from my local Toyota dealer, and don't want to spend $2000 (their quote) on a refurbed unit. Anyone who has a used one, I'm interested.

 

I'm afraid I've just joined the legions of failed-MFDers, at 60K miles. I have the Platinum Extra Care warranty in effect, but the dealer is saying it is not covered and quoting the usual prices. We'll see about that.

But I, too, am interested in the cause of this issue for preventive reasons. Will this happen again on the ones we are all getting replaced? Would it be helpful to leave the MFD off most of the time? Is it helpful to protect the MFD from the sun? This inquiring mind wants to know! Kudos to those working on it!

John

 

I just experienced the malfunctioning MFD in my 2004 Prius. I also have a DICE. I unplugged the DICE and it does seem to have solved the problem. Interestingly, I have had the DICE for about a year without any such problem. The weather just changed, btw. Perhaps the dramatic drop in temperature did something?

 

eep, I've still got the failed one from p626808 here but have had
utterly *no* time to swap it in and test it yet... maybe I should at
least get it open for a looksee.
.
_H*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 23 2007, 08:58 AM) [snapback]529235[/snapback]</div>

Thanks for the thoughts! They have actually agreed now that it is covered -- it had better be, since the Platinum contract says everything is covered except a few little items. BUT it's only the refurbished unit that they have agreed to. I guess that it is "functionally equivalent" -- especially if it quits in 60K miles like this one? :-P Has anyone had any success insisting on a new one? Not worth trying?

John

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 24 2007, 08:57 PM) [snapback]529996[/snapback]</div>

:angry: Add our '04 Prius to the failed MFD list at 60 something thousand miles.

John, if you had someone agree to replace it, can you tell me who, so I can give the info to our Toyota Dealer.

Whether it is pertinent, or not I don't know, but approximately 3 weeks before this failure, my Voice Nav system locked up and kept repeating itself. I was coming upon an accident with Firetrucks and police vehicles, so I turned off the main street and the system unlocked. I thought maybe there was an EMF interference from all the radios that caused the problem.

Now our MFD performs only sporadically and the CD player not at all.
Yesterday, turning the display off and on again, revived it, but it is much worse today:

The steering wheel info toggle doesn't work at all.

If I try to access the map, I get a message that says "external system not connected."

The arrows on the directional energy flow are blank. The MPG calculator doesn't work.

The outside temperature reading doesn't read.

 

Starting the process of dealing with Toyota now.

First Call to Dealer:

He won't know if it is covered until he runs the diagnostics and checks with the Platinum Care people. He's had it happen twice before. Once was caused by rats chewing wires, and once by someone hitting the display too hard. Neither of those was covered.

Second Call to Platinum Care:
It's covered if it's not rat-caused.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Oct 23 2007, 01:04 PM) [snapback]529337[/snapback]</div>

Was wondering what happened to it?

Let me know what you find...

Scott

 

I'm gonna resurrect this thread again and keep it going, although
I expect the final resolution will become a "teardown" webpage. I'm
getting pix but haven't waded through them yet. But I finally
rigged my own MFD for easy unpluggability and started testing the
bad one.
.
All the internal functions work, i.e. the seekrit diagnostics, the
screen controls themselves, etc. The issue seems to be all network,
i.e. it can't talk to or hear the car. But today when experimenting
and wiggling things around I actually *did* get it to talk to the
car for a while, and see the fact that I turned on the stereo and
fooled with the volume, and read the MPG average from the meter ECU,
and made beeps. But at the same time I was getting lots of false
button presses, which is interesting because I didn't even have the
little cable to the button assembly plugged in. [Maybe it doesn't
like floating inputs..] But so far it really seems like a physical
flakiness problem, particularly tickled by wiggling a little short
cable that goes between two main circuit boards.
.
I've pulled all the boards off and cruised all over them with the 30x
binocular microscope, and see nothing amiss in the soldering or board
integrity. Pretty dense stuff in there. The only suspicious thing
is a little bit of spot corrosion or wear or something on some of
the connector pins, which I'll take DeOxIt or the like to and see
if that improves things.
.
An interesting symptom is that with the stereo powered up and at very
low volume, I hear a little bit of the periodic chirping that the
AVCLAN emits, and don't hear it with the good MFD in place. This
might imply that the network wires aren't terminated, or something,
if in fact this type of network even needs it. Can someone remind
me of the more commonplace "industrial" name for what the AVCLAN is,
and describe [if you know] its bus characteristics? I2C comes to
mind but I don't remember.
.
Have yet to take a scope to anything, but it should be pretty easy
to backprobe the network leads of the plug and compare waveforms.
.
_H*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Nov 13 2007, 05:30 PM) [snapback]539161[/snapback]</div>

This page:
http://www.softservice.com.pl/corolla/avc/avclan.php
says that it's the "IEBus", and links to:
http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_IEbus.html
and Wikipedia agrees:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEBus

(I think I have one of the "later" 2005 models, since my steering-wheel INFO button toggles consumption vs. energy screens...)