I blew up the inverter????

Put it on ebay and be quick before all the crazy panic merchants calm down. You will get top dollar for it.

 

You are a customer and it is not your job to diagnose your car. The lack of expertise of the service manager is demanding that you do exactly that.

Given the history of the new owner, you are wasting your time; you're not going to get anything out of him. Don't bother with an e-mail. Wait until another dealer correctly diagnoses and fixes your car. Then you can CC the original dealership owner on the letter you write to Toyota headquarters, Consumer Reports, the local TV troubleshooter, Better Business Bureau, etc.

You need to:

1. Get your car out of there and to a REPUTABLE dealer. Don't let them do any more work. Just have it towed as is. You can always sue them for the cost of the towing later on.

2. Contact Corporate over the original dealer's screwing you over regarding failure to honor warranty and inablity to diagnose problem and provide detailed description of failure and cost of repair. If the new dealership you take it to can back up anything in writing, you have leverage.

3. Contact the media. The last thing Toyota or the Dealership needs is it splashed all over the news that the Prius will require the owner to pay $5,000 to replace the inverter if they get a bad battery and end up having to jump it AND that Toyota will NOT honor their warranty.

 

That's what I was thinking. Do they hybrid tech contests and he placed second? If not....he can call himself anything he wants, the proof is in the pudding. And he's got mush.

By know someone at the dealership should be getting a clue that Ginny isn't your average mark due to the questions she's asking. Since they're still clueless....even more incentive to get the car out of their hands and to a dealership that really knows what they're doing.

 

Hi Galaxee,

I agree that a failed inverter coolant pump is a low probability event, since DTC P0A93 "Inverter Cooling System Performance" did not appear, and since an overheating problem would usually manifest itself after the car has been driven a sufficient distance for the inverter to overheat. Ginny did not complain that her car had any warning lights appear prior to having a dead 12V auxiliary battery.

Hi Ginny,

Your post #140 provided the fusible link part number of 82620-47050. If you enter that part number into the following link, you can obtain pricing and part description:
DiscountToyotaParts

 

Ginny, Please listen to this incredibly good advice, and act upon it! Incidentally you are not senile, as your post indicate. I think your dealership is senile.

 

How many pips were lighted on the gas gauge?

GinnyErns, which dealer is this? We all want to stay the hell away from that one.

 

She listed it on this thread

 

My favorite scenario, one that others have already mentioned:

Your Prius is dead. You have it towed to this dealership. The lot cleaning/urinal cleaning boy is told to jumpstart it. He hooks up jumper cables to the dead Prius, then touches the other ends together to get a big fat spark, "proving" he has a good connection. That was how his grade 3 dropout daddy taught him, by gum it has to be the right way

So he hooks up the other end to a running vehicle, and gee whiz, the Prius won't start. They push it into the shop, hook up techstream, and lo and behold: fried inverter. Nope, not *our* fault, *you* did it

This has turned into a giant cluster f*** for Ginny. I fear she will get nowhere and will have essentially a brand new dead car on her hands. If Ginny is smart - nudge nudge wink wink - she will really broadcast what has happened, and Toyota will regret not covering this incident

Or at the very least Toyota will be forced to put giant yellow warning stickers near the jump start point and on the battery itself: WARNING. IMPROPER JUMP START WILL DESTROY A $4,000 PART AND SUBJECT YOU TO HUMILIATION AND HIGHWAY ROBBERY. ARE YOU SURE YOU HAVE THE POLARITY CORRECT?

In the meantime, if my Prius ever breaks down in Idaho, I'm having it towed out of state!

 

How many potatoes would we need to connect in series and parallel to jump start a dead Prius? This is a homework problem for those of you with nothing to do and lots of time to do it in. What type of electrodes shall we use?

Tom

 

Can I just ask a simple question? Forgive me if it's been asked before.

You said the car was towed. How did they tow it? Where the front wheels off the ground and non-rotating?

If the car was towed with the front wheels on the ground, rotating, then that's a possible cause for the inverter failure....isn't it?

 

Hmm, That's very interesting. Pat, Galaxee....is that true?

 

Hi Andy,

In order for the 2G to be towed with the front wheels rotating, the gear selector would have to be in N which implies that the car is IG-ON. I don't think that the tow would cause damage to the inverter, but it might cause transaxle damage since the engine is not powering the transaxle oil pump.

 

But isn't MG1 (or is it 2) directly connected to the transmission permanently? If it was towed with the car in neutral it would still be connected...

 

MG2 is directly connected to the axleshafts via a differential. Hence MG2 would be spinning as the car is towed. The MG2 electrical output is connected to the inverter. However since the car would be in N, I understand that the inverter circuitry will isolate the MG2 output.

In any event, this is probably moot since the 12V battery was dead, hence it would not have been possible to keep the car in N for an extended tow.

 

Ah, okay then.

I did wonder

 

as has been said, you couldn't tow it in N because you couldn't get it out of P.

 

Any updates on this?

 

Yes. Charging you for towing is preposterous.

So the car is fixed now and under warranty ? If so, great work ! Last step is to get them to pay for towing. Just seems silly, like they want to "win" something here.