Any opinions would help

My 07 Prius has developed a problem and i would like to get opinions about whether the problem could've been caused by the body work I had done a week before.

i want to know if i should take it back to the body shop and ask them to check it, or, if it's not likely to have been caused by the body work, then i'll just take it to the Toyota agency. If it wasn't the body shop, I am hoping to have it covered by the Prius Chat platinum warranty.

When presenting this to the body shop or the Toyota agency, i would like to be as informed as possible about what the possibilities are.

The problem is that some of the steering wheel controls are not working. Some of the buttons on the right side of the steering wheel are not responding. The Info button does not work, and the climate related buttons on the bottom get no response. The Map button and all the bluetooth phone buttons do work.

At first, there was a delayed response when using the Info button. The next day, it stopped responding at all.

The body damage to the car was the result of a scraping of the lower right side, along the bottom panel and doors against a curb. Although the damage isn't very extensive (see photo below) they did a lot of work, there were 3 or 4 pages of details on the estimate/bill, it cost $4400, including front door replacement.

Also, in a separate incident, i knocked the right side exterior rear view side mirror, cracking the glass and leaving the mirror loose and flopping around in the casing. The mirror was still usable (with duct tape) and the electric controls still worked. When the other work was done, the glass was replaced and also the casing.

Could these problems with some of the steering wheel controls have been caused during the body work, or is this a problem that can happen from ordinary wear and tear?

Thanks for any info or opinions about what's wrong and how serious it might be.

 

Thanks for the feedback. No, the airbag was not replaced. I just looked at the invoice from the body shop. It was a very low impact collision, just a scrape at about 2 mph max, i had been stopped and i started to pull into the alley on my right and heard the scrape and stopped. Airbags not affected.

Today, i took the car to Toyota and just talked to the service adviser, they are in the process of diagnosing it and he put me on hold, talked to the mechanic and then said that it looks like it might be airbag wire. He said they aren't sure yet, but right now they're thinking the airbag wire (drivers side) may need to be replaced. If it does, it will be covered under the airbag warranty. If not, he said whatever it is should be covered under the extended warranty--music to my ears either way, the rental car will be covered too. I sure hope this is how it turns out. You never know til it happens.

On the body shop invoice there's no mention of anything being done to the steering wheel. Is the clockspring related to the airbag?

 

Thanks for the reply. i took the car to Toyota today and it's there now being diagnosed. i guess unless the Toyota mechanics find something obvious where a wire was unplugged by human hand and not plugged back in, there'll be no way to know if it was caused during the body work. I just called the Toyota service advisor and he said they think it might be a defective airbag wire that needs to be replaced but not sure yet. So, i'm just staying tuned. thanks again

 

thanks--this was really helpful. I took it to the dealership today. When this happened, i wasn't sure where to start, i didn't know whether i could trust anyone, i was feeling really vulnerable to ending up with some huge expense and wanting to make the move that would most minimize that threat. You're right, the Toyota guys are the ones to diagnose it, and hopefully it will be covered under warranty. Service advisor seems to think so.

I had a bad experience at that dealership with the headlight problem that is so common, they charged me full price for it, i thought it should be covered under warranty because the car was only two years old, it made no sense for the light to fail that soon. I've had many cars over the years and i might have had a headlight go out at well over 100K miles once or twice. The service advisor said "i don't think they'll cover it," but he said he would check. Later when he gave me the bill, i had the impression he didn't check with them. I didn't know yet (until the following weekend when i researched it on PriusChat) that it was a common problem and that some consumers had their headlight replaced at Toyota's expense. I called Toyota and they did reimburse me, but i had the feeling that the dealer service advisor didn't want to help me out or take care of me, wanted to save Toyota money rather than me.

Ok, while i was writing this, the service advisor called (a different one, and definitely a better vibe) and said my car is fixed and that the problem was an "airbag squiv" that was replaced. I don't really understand how that could happen, he said something must've gotten shorted. Which makes me suspicious of the body work.

Anyway, hopefully this is the end of it. Thanks

 

Donee--i did post this problem first to the Maintenance forum, on 9/3.

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...-steering-wheel-controls-stopped-working.html

Patrick Wong was kind enough to reply, suggesting the wiring harness could be the cause, and asking me if the airbag had deployed during the accident i had. I replied to this message and that was the end of it, i still was hoping for some more info before going to the body shop or Toyota with the problem. After about 3 days of no more replies, i thought maybe the main forum would be better, just being busier, and it was. The replies helped me get clear about going to Toyota instead of back to the body shop.

 

Patrick and Eric, you are exactly right. On the invoice it says this:

CAUSE: SQUIB BROKEN
893991 REPLACE DRIVERS AIRBAG SQUIB
930 W
1 84306 CABLE SUB-ASSY, SPIR
FC: 95, 71
PART#: 84306-0E010
COUNT: 1
CLAIM TYPE: RG

In other words, a spiral cable. Which he calls an 'airbag squib.'

But if an airbag squib is not the spiral cable, why would he write it that way? Doesn't know what a squib is?

 

Does it seem likely that the body shop had disconnected and reconnected it incorrectly? I mean, is this something that just breaks on its own?

 

I have no evidence or reason to think that anyone ever worked on or replaced the spiral cable before yesterday when they fixed it. All previous work on this car that i know of was minimum routine maintenance, other than the body work. So it must have just worn out on its own?

Does a worn out broken shorting out spiral cable mean that if needed, the drivers side airbag would not have worked?