Feds Investigate Hot-Selling Toyota Hybrid

I particulary like these Reuters quotes...


"Regulators said that in more than 85 percent of the complaints it was said the Prius stalled between 35 and 65 mph."

They seem to be implying or jumping to the conclusion that speed somehow has an influence. I certainly don't debug software (which is what I do professionally) that way. And why are they giving attention to such a wide speed-range in the first place? More info is clearly needed... like, what about that other 15 percent?


"Some drivers were able to operate the vehicle in electric mode for a time."

The free advertising for this "full" hybrid ability is an obvious plus.

 

It has been rightly said that any publicity is good publicity.

john1701: I thought this had been taken care of with a TSB some time back. Is that not true?

 

Between that added seal for the hood and the ECU updates, it is likely completely taken care of already.

I certainly haven't had any problems.

 

Much agreed that this is yet another example of the typically worthless reporting the media has done with regard to the Prius. Personally, I'd venture a guess that around 85% of all driving (with the ICE) is done between 35 and 65 mph, hence voiding any meaning to this "fact".

 

Throwing in worthless facts is great. After all, 4 out of 5 dentists is 80 percent.

 

note: the truck hauling nails spilled a keg of nails on the road, 85% of the cars following the truck had at least 1 flat tire.

 

Remember the report of that "big race" back in the 50's?

The Russian car lost.

The American car came in next to last.

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There were actually only 2 cars in the race. But when printed in the Russian newspapers, they didn't want to make it too obvious what happened. In other words, the American car won.

 

I got a call from my Dad just tonight saying he had this same stall problem happen to his early 2005 (Oct. 2004) model Prius today. He has 3000 miles on his car and has never had any problems until today.

He was coming down a mountain on the 101 freeway in Southern California. This is a big long downhill folks, so he was just coasting all the way down, gas engine not needed, doing 70 MPH or so. Everything was fine until he got to the bottom and he pressed on the accellerator to maintain speed. The car started slowing down instead of maintaining speed. And it kept slowing down. He tried to get to the side of the freeway but because of the heavy traffic and high speed (they were at the bottom of the hill where everyone was doing 80 MPH) he couldn't get off the freeway. Now here they were stalled in the middle lane of the freeway with cars whizzing past them at high speed. Finally, somehow my Dad got the car going again, but he said it was very sluggish (probably running on electric only). Then after 20 seconds or so he said the gas engine started up and everything acted normally again.

They got all the way back home after that just fine. My Dad called Toyota about it and they asked him a lot of questions, even calling back twice. Then they told him to take it to Ventura Toyota (a nearby dealer). And that is where the car sits right now, being analyzed to see what went wrong.

By the way, my brother-in-law has a 2004 Prius with 36,000 miles on it and he drives down that same hill on the 101 freeway every day and he said he has never had a stall problem on his Prius, there or any where.

 

So my husband just told me this is what they do where he works. He didn't know why until he discussed the news with the Prius Tech at his work.

Anytime a Pri comes in for any work, the top Prius Tech runs the VIN to see if it's in the range of possible affected VINs. If it is, he flashes the computer while the other work is being performed. It prevents the problem in the first place it seems, because they haven't had any stalled Prii that my husband knows of.

I suggest if your car is an 04 or early 05, next time you're in for an oil change, have the dealer check your VIN and run the flash. It doesn't seem to hurt anything and may even prevent this from happening.

 

Is there any way I can find out over the Internet when our Prius was produced, from the VIN number? (We didn't get the window sticker, if it was on that.) We bought ours in February of 2005.

 

I think that info is printed on a label on the door frame.

20000+ miles no stall, 50+ mpg at 63 on road (the texas drivers hate it am only doing 63 in a 70.. rain on them )

lots of info in that door frame area..

later

 

I did a google search using these words

how to interprete vin number

After correcting my spelling, google found this for me:

http://www.autohausaz.com/html/vehicle_ide...on_numbers.html

It tells you what each digit stands for:
There was a better one awhile ago in a priuschat thread so you can try there as well.

On this web site, they have links to other sites that will also help with VIN interpretation. However, not all those sites are free.

 

At this point, we are all well aware of how poorly researched those published articles were... as if they were rushed out to press for some reason ...or they could have been intentionally vague?

Whatever the case, I find it highly suspicious that this just happened to hit the attention of the news right when the debut of Highlander-Hybrid was taking place, especially since the problem has been around for over a year now.

This new hybrid SUV throws a crushing blow to the dirty, gas-guzzling technology the competition is using. So them and their supporters have clear motive to draw attention away from it and at the same time tarnish the reputation of HSD.

Sorry to be the one pointing this out, but it is far from the first anti-hybrid attack we've had to endure. Unfortunately though, that does make sense in these times of massive profit loss and high gas prices.

 

The thing I find funny about the whole thing is that for the past few days I keep hearing commercials on the radio for the Ford Escape SUV Hybrid. I have never heard any other hybrid commercial, and it seems fishy that these problems surface when Ford is pushing their hybrid vehicle.

 

This is certainly a serious issue, but to help keep things in perspective...

From the Center for Auto Safety website:
http://www.autosafety.org/article.php?scid=103&did=568
...Twenty-two million Ford vehicles made from 1983 through 1995 have defective ignition modules that may cause the vehicle to stall and die on the highway at any time...
...Rather than bearing the expense of moving the TFI module to a cooler location away from the engine—a solution that Ford engineers recommended to management for years—Ford decided to employ a less costly solution: to leave the module on the distributor, but make it last long enough to function during the warranty period, thereby forcing consumers to bear the cost of post-warranty failures that Ford knew would continue to occur in large numbers. As a result, over 13 million replacement TFI modules (which are designed to last for the life of the vehicle without maintenance or repair) have been sold to consumers at a cost of nearly $2 billion...

 

Back in 1892 Fisher made wagon wheels with badly tempered spokes.

Can you find anything more topical perhaps?

 

I don't really find anything non-topical about Jay's post. The manner in which the Ford vehicles behaved is similar to the behavior of a stalling Prius. The disparity between the numbers of impacted Prii and Fords provides the necessary contrast to gain perspective on how statistically widespread the stalling Prius claims really are in comparison to similar problems in other vehicles.

I guess I'd need to read the article about the Fisher spokes in order to better understand your reasoning.

 

My point was, and I really had hoped to not have to point it out with a neon sign, it was 10 years ago. It was on the news 10 years ago. The pinto's exploding gas tank was on the news 23 years ago. Nobody talks about them now because they dont' happen now. They talked about the Exploder's tires a few years ago, because that's when it was happening.

If you think the Prius coverage was bad, it's NOTHING compared to the coverage the Exploder's tires got. That was *everywhere*. News reports, newspapers, TV, special investigations.

Get a grip people...

 

I'll definitely agree with you about the coverage of the Explorer's tires (I didn't own one and was sick of hearing about it!), but I'm not sure that the element of time really affects the point Jay was making. If anything, it also implies that bad news coverage transcends time! The point is that this "stalling Prius" thing is not as widespread - or at least no worse - than similar issues with other vehicles in the past (or at least I think that's what he was getting at).

 

I agree with Brandon and Jay. The Explorer problem amounted to hundreds if not thousands of vehicle crashes and resulted in dozens of deaths and probably dozens of permanent injuries. The Prius issue so far amounts to 35 official problems, and no injuries or deaths. The Explorer problem was quite serious and there was clearly a delay in Fords response to it. The Prius problem is trivial in comparison and Toyota seems gung ho committed to solving it, assuming that it's not one of the TSBs that they have ALREADY responded to.

And as for the timing of the problem, I thought Jay's post was way more about the numbers of vehicles involved and Fords dspicable solution. The fact that it was 10-15 years ago is irrelevant. Did this Ford problem (not the Exploer one) get the play back when it happened, that the Prius problem is getting now? I suspect not.

Personally, I think the Prius is getting so much play more because it's just so much in the news right now. However, there is also no doubt in my mind that there are corporate media handlers who are very much out to hurt the hybrid phenomenon, if for no other reason than to allow Ford and GM and others the opportunity to catch up.