Safety Recall Rear Doors

There is an issue with water management in the rear doors...

 

Not related - the switch isn't even really "in" the door - it's mounted on the outside.

 

Exactly. Stopping production for any significant length of time seems like a huge overreaction.

The issue would only occur during or after a heavy rain and only then if the car is being driven with the rear doors unlocked. The default is that the doors are locked unless the car is in Park. And, as a double safety measure, the child locking feature, which prevents someone in the rear seat from unlocking and opening the doors, can be set.

 

I doubt production will be stopped for long - I imagine they can get fixed parts to the factory relatively fast. The problem will be getting them everywhere else. (And swapping the handles doesn't seem that easy looking at the manual - have to dismantle most of the doors...)

I guess unwanted door opening is a significant safety problem to merit this sort of reaction. The legal liability if they sold a car knowing they had this problem, and something did happen wouldn't be pretty.

The automatic door locking function isn't present in Europe - hence them apparently wanting to remove the fuses in the interim (there are 2 dedicated fuses, 10A labelled E-LATCH, in the engine compartment fuse box).

And the child lock wouldn't affect it - that only stops unlocking from the inside.

 

Does anyone have a feel for the security implications of this? Is it possible that someone might inject water into the door handle and gain access to the car when it's parked?

 

There is now an NHTSA recall number and web page for the recall. There are several links to documents. The most interesting one is a detailed report giving notes on cars affected, a description of the defect, a chronology summarizing the incident in Japan that triggered the investigation, and a summary of that investigation including a nice description of how Toyota believes water gets into the switch and may cause a short circuit. The report is also attached to this note.

 

The way safety investigations work is that someone would need to calculate the probability of a fatal event happening due to these door locks, over time. This does not have to be because someone already died (!), but because they learned something about the locks that makes them fear that eventually this will happen. Maybe as the switches get a little worn, corroded, whatever.

It's a prediction, not a reaction. That's the way safety should be handled, and kudos to Toyota for taking a painful financial hit right now rather than waiting until after someone gets hurt.

 

Note that another attached document is the stop sales order to dealers. Once a safety recall notice is issued, cars with that defect cannot be sold by dealers. So, the decision to stop sales is automatic once Toyota determines there is a safety defect, even if it is easy for owners to mitigate it until there is a fix.

 

I am disappointed that the notice to owners does not discuss the easy steps required to mitigate the issue until a replacement switch is installed. All one must do is ensure that the rear doors are electronically locked while the car is moving. This can be done automatically through the door locking control settings on the multimedia screen (set to lock when shifted out of Park or when speed exceeds 12mph), the all-car door lock switch on both front doors, or by setting the door to the locked position on each rear door. Note that the child-protector lock that prevents rear doors from being opened using the controls on the inside of the door is not enough to mitigate the issue, as the mechanism that unlatched the door can be triggered if the electronic locks are not set.

 

Confirmed that Toyota used waterproof switches. In the notice by Toyota to the NHTSA(linked to above), Toyota traced the problem to the sealant used on the switch. While the switches were watertight during initial testing, Toyota discovered the thermal expansion coefficients of the sealant and the plastic housings were different. This means they expand/contract at different rates during temperature fluctuations. Toyota theorized that was the reason for the failure of the sealant and the water infiltration. They tested the theory by subjecting switches to thermal cycles and then retesting with the water. The new test results showed the sealant could fail under those conditions. This all took place over about a month and a half from the original case report, to examination, to theorizing, to testing. (early March to mid April)

The good news is it shouldn't take overly long to solve the problem. The switch design itself wasn't faulty, just the choice of sealant. If there's a sealant available with a thermal coefficient that matches the case material, all the supplier will need to do is swap sealants, adjust the manufacturing if necessary(say it has a different setting time or needs temp management while setting), and then Toyota will want to do a battery of tests to make sure the fix works. Worst case is the casing material will need to be changed along with/instead of the sealant. Then the supplier needs to quickly make enough to get Prius production restarted, followed by another 55k sets to supply the recall.

 

No. It's just a faulty handle.

Well, okay, technically yes, someone could do that if it was unlocked, but it would be easier to just pull the handle

 

-deleted-

I screwed up and misread the report.

 

Did you actually read that somewhere or are you guessing? Can't see anything pointing that way. The report above says it opened while driving.

 

Shoot. My bad. I was tired and misread/misremembered the report. I remembered reading about the spray wand(that's how Toyota must have recreated the water intrusion during testing) and the car wash(which was an example Toyota gave of how the water could intrude in real life) and conflated all that with Incident Zero. I need to remember not to write complicated posts at midnight just before going to bed.

 

The report says that the circuit board had water damage iirc, so it's not that the door opens *when wet* but that there's a chance the seal breaks then water intrudes when it hits the seal just right with the right pressure then it makes it decide to start opening. over time the seal will be worse and worse, due to thermal issues, so the likelihood of water intrusion likely goes up over time

 

According to an article in USA today, 55,000 cars (all Priuses) are being recalled -- according to the stats I've seen, that is pretty much all of them. According to USA Today, Toyota is recommending that you enable the auto locks on the car (mine came that way, but it is in the settings area I think) to prevent anything from happening. Shoot. Does anyone know if they are talking about the hatch back or the back doors?

 

Read post 46. All the information can be downloaded from the NHTSA web page on the recall.

 

Covered the two door switches with 2" wide, ~3" long Scotchrap protection tape until the fix comes along. Switch operates normally with the tape flex. Suppose any wide electrical tape would work. Made a small longitudinal bend to begin the seal from the switch cavity interior onto the outside.
Appreciate this forum and user comments on a variety of topics. Very helpful and thanks.

 

Thank you. I somehow missed the attachment last night.