Feds Investigate Hot-Selling Toyota Hybrid

This started with 13, now it's up to 33. That's out of 88,000. (Cumulative total over 300,000)

I'm really curious about this as to what really happened. It also sounds like one of those things that is completely curable with a simple retrofit.

Unlike exploding gas tanks.

(One of the posts I read in Priuschat suggested that the retrofit has already occurred for most people.)


Also, I see the entire MSN article was copy and pasted here into Priuschat. This is generally frowned on. Proper decorum is to post a teaser in a forum and direct others to go to the parent site. Thus, the author of the parent site still gets the eyeballs looking at their ads.

And this decorum doesn't even get into the copyright issues.

 

hmmm... Ya know, conventional combustion engines stall out on the roadway all the time and don't get the attention the Prius gets. Double-standard, anyone?

 

My brother just forwarded the article to me a few minutes ago. What's the math there? 3 hundredths of one percent? Less than one out of every 2,000 cars?

Any guesses that it's operator error, such as running out of gas or inadvertently moving the shift joystick to neutral?

Reminds me of all the hysteria involving Audis that seemed to spontaneously shift themselves into Drive. How about Fords that no matter how hard you pressed on the brake (or what you thought was the brake) the damn car just kept accelerating!

There could be some real problem, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. YAWN...

 

I assure you that in my care it wasn't operartor error. And I also will assure you that zipping down route 1 and having your gas engine die is not a fun experience.

I have a feeling that if the govt starts probing, the number will probably jump into the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who had this problem. And it's about time Toyota copped up to some of the problems that they weren't admitting to before, yet fixing anyway (improperly sealed connectors anyone)...

 

Jonny,

Did your issue have anything to do with the TSB issued over a year ago?

 

this subject has been kicked around here a few times already. and yes, i think that the only reason why the Prius is getting so much press for something that is not very common is because of the ignorance level of the general populace over the new technology the Prius brings to the industry.

cars dying on the freeways have been going on for years. i had a co-worker whose brand new Dodge Caravan died on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge TWICE in 1997

 

No.. mine was an improperly sealed connector which allowed condensation to get inside and short the system out. They switched the seal they were using to a more robust type later in the 2004 production run, I was just unfortunate to get one with the lesser seal. And when my car died, it didn't come back at all. There was no way to restart the gas engine.

Anyway, it's something (both my issue and the software bug) that Toyota needs to step up and admit they f'ed up. A letter informing people about the TSB isn't enough... it should be a recall.

 

i am one of those who had the problem and didn't initially report it. i'm sure there will be many more like me as i just filled out the formal complaint form on the NHTSB site.

it wasn't operator error either. the engine died somewhere between 30 and 40 MPH while in a canyon in L.A. definitely a pretty scary experience. i'm not saying i don't love my prius, but toyota needs to fix this and admit to their mistake. the dealer saying "hmm... do not know, but it works now right?" isn't really good enough.

 

Well, I do hope your complaint was not the following, as quoted from the NHTSA website:

Now, don't get me wrong; I'm sure it was a traumatic time for this individual and they have a right to be upset, but bear in mind that this was the report they sent to the NHTSA and nothing more. All of that text does little to help NHTSA or Toyota fix the problem. So, as a message to all who post complaints to the NHTSA website, please - for the sake of our tax dollars and the administration's sanity - stick to the facts! If you don't, you're doing more harm than good!

Also note that this individual complained after it was determined that they needed to apply the 2004 TSB. This is like dialing 911 to report a crime after it has already been published in the newspaper. The only legitimate complaint that could exist here would be if the manufacturer/dealer knowingly and willingly failed to notify the owner that the TSB needed to be applied to their vehicle.

 

Yeah mine conked on me last November.

But go to NHTSA and do a search for "Ford stall" and then use different car makes, there are potentially thousands of stalling cases depending on the car make.

I like Doc's comment: Scary/Bad .... BOO!

 

Umm, I hate to ask dumb questions, but would most of these shutdowns relate to "ERROR CODE P3191" and whatever causes it, or is there a multi-cause shutdown problem being lumped into one issue?

Never having experienced while-driving shutdowns, I'm hoping it's all based on some issue my car is not going to experience. I thought my VIN would get the engine seal replacement, but it turned out I didn't need it. It doesn't stall ever, so no ECU reprogramming to make the engine run more. All known recalls done, and I managed to get the gas filler and gauge replaced despite initial dealer resistance. So far, so good.

Now I just hope nobody hits the darn thing when I'm not looking...

 

I haven't reported mine either... can you give me the link that you used to report yours?

 

I don't think that's a dumb question at all, and I doubt Toyota would, either. I'm not sure that anyone really knows the answer, though; at least not yet. At this point, I perceive they're still trying to gather good-quality information from the real-life problem reports. Seems to me like many of the reports aren't being backed up with documentation very well, and others still are going unreported. I'm no industry insider or anything, but that's the "vibe" I get from reading things different places.

 

i think that anyone who has experienced this should have contacted Toyota immediately.

how can we expect Toyota to address a problem they dont know about? how can they fix it if they have no data to look at?

there is a cause and undeniable effect to this problem. the only way to solve something so fleeting is to analzye as much data as possible

 

I have 2005 Prius, purchased in early May. Has the software bug been fixed in my car? and should I check with the dealer?

 

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems/complain/

 

i'm curious as to how many of the 33 are legitimate "stalls" or "shutdowns" caused by ECU failure and not only caused by running out of gas. there have been comlaints where the car died mainly because the driver was pushing the tank to it's limit.