New GenIII brake recall affects 87,000 cars

Toyota recall includes 242,000 Prius, Lexus cars with braking problems - CSMonitor.com

 

It doesn't cause increased stopping distance, as stated in the article, it causes a softer pedal.

 

Semantics.

Actually, people who reported the brake problem said they had to pump brake pedal hard to get any braking action and avoid accidents. Toyota worded it in such way that doesn't sound scary.

 

Hi Feri
I had the car inspected in Monday 29 July, the parts were at Toyota Belconnen on 31 July and they will be fitted on Wednesday 7 August.
Your local dealer might be answering based on prior experience with parts rather than this particular recall.
Have you had the car inspected and have they established that it is affected?

 

Hi folks,

Would you be able to post the letter(s) about the problem to the forum?

I would ask the Czchoslovakian but that letter might not be in English. This problem has been known since June and it is the first of August. I'm starting to get a little impatient.

Bob Wilson

 

...Note..
Bob, Czechoslovakia split in two new countries back in '93...
Checks and Slovaks speak different languages (both funny, of course )

 

LOL!!!

 

Bob, I have a 2003 corolla with air bag recall announced in April 2013 and the replacement part is not available yet as of now. You are an impatient man endeed.

 

Suddenly I had this thought!

1) Grab an existing 'official' Toyota letter head
2) Use Photoshop to make a 'clean copy'
3) Find a disgruntled Japanese translator to make a fake letter that in Japanese says . . .
4) Send the fake letter to Toyota USA and ask "What does this mean?"

Of course everything has to be sent so it arrives April 1st. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

Bob wait, I have to write this down. I've got a pen, but I'm not made of paper; I'm not a Czech!

 

Hi Braddles,

Yes mine is one that's effected but it's also a small country dealership. Having said that our district has more Prius per capita than any other area in Australia.

 

I'll see if I can dig it out.

 

I went to Beaver Toyota in Santa Fe, NM yesterday. They had to scramble to understand the recall to which I referred. Their semi-final statement was along the lines of "We have to take an hour to see if your 2010 Prius falls under the Brake Booster Pump Assembly replacement criterion. If so, we have to order the kit and install it when it arrives." I was dubious, but agreed to bring the car in today. Later yesterday they called and said that they had the kit in stock after all and, after inspection, they will do the recall work (4-5 more hours) today.

OK. Thanks to Mr. Wilson, I had the Toyota --> NHTSA 5-page letter detailing just what VINs were in the part replacement category (included my vehicle). Today they still insisted that an inspection was necessary, and of course they found out that they needed to do the recall work. I left and awaited the call that they had finished the work, which never came. I called them, and the car was ready (manual erroneous transcription of my phone number had annoyed some unfortunate lady, the service guy reported).

Checking out, the service guy said something along the lines of "We did some major work on your car today. $1K parts plus lots of labor, that we will be billing to Toyota." I agreed that this is exactly how recalls work. Bottom line, they performed.

They also included their "multi-point vehicle inspection." This is good, but generic and lame (all of my nonexistent belts are fine). I am planning a road trip and do not wish to be stranded in Corncob Corner, Nebraska for something that could have been obviously prevented.

Now, if I can just get each and every employee of Beaver Toyota to stop responding with "Awesome!" to just about everything I say. That is not generational, just stupid.

What is still not clear to me:

* Why is the inspection phase necessary when the NHTSA letter details just which vehicles need to be fixed? That is unlike other recalls I've been through. I assume that Toyota would have exact records about the sources of parts that go into their car builds.

* Not to be paranoiac, but how do I determine that this work has actually been done? These are the same people who promulgate the "mouse nest in the air filter" scam, to which I unknowingly succumbed, but a local friend exposed them as frauds and they backed right off. Yeah, this is paranoia.

 

You have rights to be suspicious. Once I had a TSB warranty work done on a corolla that required to reflash ECU and replace cat converter. They skipped the converter part.

If you have the official paperwork generated by their information system that states what parts were replaced (including part numbers), it a safe bet it was actually done. There are other ways to make sure, including a discrete mark on the old part, but that requires planning ahead.

 

Taking a clue from another poster, I went by the local service center Friday afternoon and they had enough parts to do the recall on our 2010. The service writer told me the service centers are waiting on 'allotments' of replacement parts to come in but my local shop had '10 in stock'. So we agreed to do it Monday morning.

At 6:50AM, I joined the line of cars, three lines, waiting for the bays to open. After the normal paper work, by 7:30 AM, I was in their shuttle van on the way to work.

About 1:00PM, they called and the job was done. The parts and procedure:

• 3530EF INSPECT ADN REPLACE BRAKE BOOSTER PUMP AND MASTER CYLINDER 675 WT93 5.20
• 04002-20247 PUMP ASSY, BRAKE BOO
• 00475-1BF03 BRAKE FLUID
• R.O. OPENED: 07:08 12AUG13
• READY: 11:42 12AUG13
• PLEASE PAY THIS AMOUNT: $0.00

I haven't checked the tires to see if they let the air escape. However, the clock was off so they must have disconnected the 12V battery.

Otherwise, the car drives fine although when I was backing into my parking place, I thought I heard a little more brake pad, clamp noise than I remember from before. We're not talking 'hair on fire,' just it seems different.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,

Your repair order matches mine as to the part numbers replaced and brake fluid used, except it appears your master cylinder was also replaced. My brakes work better after the recall.

I forgot this thread existed, since I don't frequent this particular forum, or I would have just added to it rather than start a new thread. The details of my recall experience at the dealer are located here: &quot;DOH&quot; Recall - Brake Booster Pump Assembly (Accumulator) | PriusChat

 

It requires two trips ,one for inspection and one to order part due to dealer only allowed to carry one at a time

 

That must depend on your dealer. Bob Wilson and Den49 above both had their's completed in one trip. My dealer quoted me one trip and 4 hours, one hour for inspection and 3 hours to repair.

 

I noticed it doesn't take long to charge up the brakes when walking up to the door like it used to now

 

I found our Toyota recall letter in the mailbox today . . . too late . . . already done. <GRINS>

We had one of the earliest Prius sold in North America. Anyone else get their letter?

Bob Wilson