Had my SSC-40A work done

Regarding having the SSC-40A work done without an official notice.

When I was at the dealer's waiting for them to kill one of my car's computers (please see my post above) I discussed this issue with another Prius owner who had his car a little over a month and who had not received a notice.

I told him to call Toyota and read the VIN number and they would tell him whether or not his car was subject to the recall.

One of the "service advisors" at the dealership overheard me, and told the man that they could not do the work without the paperwork he would receive from Toyota informing him of the recall.

Sort of strange, in my opinion. This fellow is planning on going on a rather long trip in 5 weeks.

 

About the creaking dashboard... I *thought* mine creaked and I later discovered that it was my rear view mirror assembly. Some squeezing stopped it but I believe it will return.

 

Took my car in at 8:00am. They did the recall programming and I was out of there at 9:10am. Was successful and I went with the mechanic when he drove it out for testing. Work was done at Adams Toyota in Lee's Summit, MO.

 

Evan: There was a recent post desribing a horror story about the update being done with an older version of the patch that had fatal errors in the computer code. The name of the infected version and a later good version were the same. Only the date had changed and the dealer didn't choose the correct file to install.
I want to find and print out that story so I can show it to my service department before they start. They have never done one and I will probably be the first victim since no one else here has a low VIN number.

Can you send me a copy or direct me to it?

[email protected]

 

Evan: As far as I know, I have got the phonebook transferred and didn't lose anything when they did the recall programming. regarding reset of the maintenance, the technician said it was not on their list of things to do but he did it anyway. Regarding bladder. He said (I think) the bleed from the charcoal cannister was very small and if you refuel too fast, it can't let the fumes excape which turns off the hose. He also said to fuel very slowly.
The salesman that put Bluetooth on my screen was not in when I was there and did not have an opportunity to test to see if the phonebook transferred properly. I saw it go through steps, transferring 21 of 24, 23 of 24 and 24 of 24, but I only see numbers in the phone book. No names. I hate to doi it but guess I'll have to read the book more. :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

I called the number that somebody listed to check to see if my car needed the update and was told that even though it didn't have the sticker it didn't need the update. I was glad to hear that since I had read that some people were having problems after the update was done.

 

-Toyoto firmware flash software is very simplistic, and the firmware is simply blown away, the bios chip is reformatted and the new firmware is dumped on to the prius as if it just rolled off the assembly line.


Based on all what you have told us about your settings, your fuel information, and past posts from people that had failed firmware flashes, I think it is safe to say my last guess is the correct one. If that is the case, then we can assume that everyone that requires this work is going to lose their setup in full.
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Perhaps I can offer a little insight. While I am not specifically sure what Toyota is using in this application, most in industry are using flash memory for program memory. Most also use an additional EEPROM area for calibrations, diagnostic codes (some use volatile memory for current diagnostic codes, but almost all use EEPROM for history codes), and vehicle specific settings, some learned by communication with other onboard devices, others by "learning" per a procedure. When the ECU is reflashed, in general, all flash ROM is erased and reprogrammed. This is done as part of a bootstrap processor program, a download and execute so to speak. At the end of programming, if not done at the start of programming, EEPROM is cleared, RAM is cleared, and a master reset is done, really a full reboot, reinitializing all RAM, flashROM, and EEPROM. This allows for full diagnostic integrity checks to be performed, ensuring all memory locations are accurate after the download (program and memory integrity checks) and initialized to default known valid values. The end user must unfortunately help the ECU relearn settings other than default, where user preferences are other than the default.

Hope that helps!

This is a pretty generic process, used by all automotive ECU's I have worked with, be they cluster, PCM, ECM, ABS, etc ECU's.