J0D - Prius Special Service Campaign

So if the brakes go off, I wonder what kind of scenario might happen. it'd great if Toyota did OTA updates. wonder what the overall cost per car would be to get 4g banwidth - so that process could happen.
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First they would have to fire all their software engineers

 

Great...just had the wire harness TSB done a couple of weeks ago. This is getting rediculous.

 

It’s toyota, get used to it

 

This isn't at all unusual.

When I worked in an office with an attached workshop for our extensive fleet of vehicles - we were a District Office - every Monday Morning's mail included an envelope with TSBs from the Department's Central Office's Mechanical Branch - Technical Service Bulletins (TSB). Initially when I got there in '73, we had Jeep (or Willys?), LandRover, GM, FORD, Dodge and Chrysler vehicles - and later TOYOTA and NISSAN 4WDs too.

From memory, there were 4 general categories - depending on the brand:

• Some were marked with something like "For immediate implementation";
• others were to be done "At Next Service";
• others were only if a particular issue surfaced;
• and - others were addendums to the Workshop Repair Manuals.

I found some of them interesting reading.

 

Wonder if this will affect European models also. I've taken my ICS equipment model thought a pull along car wash in neutral a few times with no ill effects.

 

As pointed out in the J0R, you can turn off the ICS system. See chapter 4-5, page 352 of the Owner's Manual. This could be a temporary fix before going through a car wash until the dealer work is done. Just remember to turn it back on after the car wash is done.

 

Thanks for posting this. I'll ask for it to be done at my next scheduled maintenance. Before this, I had used the Carista app to enable the setting to automatically disable ICS in neutral.

As for OTA updates, Tesla seems to be the only car company doing it right. The legacy car makers just don't get it. Imagine how much money Tesla saves by not having to do recalls for software fixable issues. While the issue is partially infrastructure for pushing out the update, Toyota also has an extremely janky process for deploying ECU updates that has risk of failing and bricking the ECU. Tesla has a software company mindset, not a car maker mindset, so building a reliable ECU update method is obvious to them.

 

I don't think that's it - TESLA have only 300,000+ cars. I suspect the "OTA" hasn't got capacity to update the rest of the 1.1 billion vehicles. TESLA can only do software updates (like this latest update) OTA anyway.

The 2 recalls I've had so far on PRIUS - you can't install tape on a cable, or a brake modification OTA.

 

I think that Tesla's OTA update system could be scaled up to support billions of cars. Smartphone OTA updates go out every month and there are billions of those in use. The bandwidth problem has been solved with things like staged rollouts and CDNs.

You're right about the tape and the brake fixes. Tesla has had way too many of those types of problems too. While they don't struggle with OTA, they do have serious difficulties with service and repair. I want Tesla software with Toyota hardware!

 

I just had this recall done at my 20,000 mile service. The only difference I noticed is that the the beeps are back when going though the car wash, even though I had previously used Carista to disable ICS beeps while in neutral. That setting probably got reverted by the update. The simple workaround is to just disable ICS in the MFD settings before going through the wash.

 

so, who says you have to OTA flash/update a billion, or even a million cars simultaneously. For that matter, who says that Tesla does that. Fact is, Tesla does a batch approach - thousands at a time. Then - a ½hr later - the next batch, & so on. It's way quicker than bringing the entire fleet into a service Bay, that may at most be open only 10 hours a day.

oh? the fact is, when (i believe it was) Consumer Reports gave a tepid review of the model 3's ability to stop extra fast, Tesla did just that .... an OTA update - & the next thing you know, the model 3 was stopping quicker.
EDIT:
found it

Tesla’s Braking System Gets an Over-the-Air Update | WIRED

i wouldn't say Tesla is the ONLY manufacturer doing OTA flash/updates to their cars. We bought a plug-in minivan just a few days ago, & iirc, on day 3 of ownership, a screen comes up & says something like "update deployed - set timer for install"
cool !! was not expecting that kind of tech.



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More of the same info...

 

Time for my prius’ 35K service, and my vehicle is part of the JOR campaign. I made an appointment with my local dealer, and they want to keep the car for 4-5 hours. Ughhg. I really want to just get in and out express service - my question is can the customer decide to NOT have the update performed?

 

I suspect they might get you to certify that you're willing to take all the risks on board of not having it done. But - TOYOTA mightn't be willing to even let you take that risk - for fear that they'd be liable and have to face the Coroner after your inquest.

 

Yes, of course, though I suppose a dealer could then—in principle—decline to do business with you, except to make needed warranty repairs, for which they are obligated by agreement with Toyota.

In practice, I’d be surprised if a dealer in the U.S. would do anything other than print “Customer declines J0R campaign at this time,” or words to that effect, on the repair order. It’s hardly worth losing a valued service customer over the 0.6 hours of labor reimbursement that Toyota would pay for doing the campaign.