Should I wait to have the recall done?

I had the recall done last Saturday when it was in for another thing. It does seem like the engine's a little louder, trying harder, but I've always considered the car a slug so don't really notice much difference. As long as the mpg stays respectable, I'm happy.
I haven't gotten any letters or calls but the service manager offered it when I made the appointment so I said "sure".


iPhone ?

 

No recall letter yet either. I'll wait until much warmer weather since the trans and transaxle fluids also need service and when it is as cold as its been, I want them to drain and flush those those completely and I believe (perhaps wrongly) that a better job might be performed when the metal isn't at 30 degrees F.

 

Letter arrived in our mailbox on Thursday. 2013 Prius Persona that was built around December 2012 (arrived at dealer in January 2013) and then leased by us in September 2013. I will be waiting as long as possible to get this work done since it seems to make the car worse.

I'm hoping that someone will soon do detailed testing to compare acceleration, max charge/discharge rates and other parameters before & after the recall update.

 

I guess you can worry about making the car "worse" or worry about it stopping in the middle of a snow storm and leaving you stranded.

 

I've been abroad for a couple of months, but my wife has not received any letter yet. Since we got our 2011 III from a second hand dealer, I wonder if Toyota will even send us a letter? This is the first I have heard of this recall. I wonder if they will send us one?

 

You need to register it on toyotaowners.com and you will get the notice (done by VIN).

 

The letter says their records are mainly based on state registration and title data. So as long as it's registered, they'll probably find you. Plenty of people haven't gotten the letters yet - I think they started being received en masse within the last 2 weeks or so.

 

A letter is not needed, unless of course you want one; both of our cars were done without them. Still don't have the letters. Also a bit puzzled by those who don't want to get it done for fear of changes in function of the vehicle...

 

When the recalled was first announced I had mine done and without a letter. I don't see why people are hesitating to have it done either. Nothing to worry about. Might be something to worry about if you don't have it done.

 

It has nothing to do with fear but the desire to fully understand the impact to performance before having it done.

 

I drove over the Andrade Grade this evening from Sunol back into Fremont. This is a very steep grade, at least a mile long.

I started off on the grade about 67 MPH and let the speed drop to 57 MPH in the very steepest part.

Honestly, I don't detect any difference in performance or car behavior going over this (type) of grade. You won't catch me driving around flooring the accelerator. I just don't do that, never have needed to. ...

Maybe the performance is lessened when WOT, pedal to the metal or whatever, but for the way I drive, the car seems the same as before the recall software upgrade. And it's getting great MPGs, mid 50's tanks consistently.

 

Doubt that's an issue on a brand new leased car. The issues causing the recall have been high mileage examples. Ours will never be high mileage in our possession of it so there's no need to be concerned.

 

Guess mine won't have a problem then

Mike

wanderin around on my phone

 

Why would you be puzzled? My take is that the software change takes some of the strain off of the inverter in favor of using the ICE. I have 120k miles on my 2010 and have driven it from -10F to +110F. My take is that my driving habits don't justify a change.

 

Since this problem relates to long use you have some way of knowing that the problem won't occur in the next 10K miles. Its good to know that

 

Here's my post in the other recall thread:

I'm not so sure the update has created a placebo effect. The car definitely seems to be sharing less battery power when accelerating in the top half of the power bar. I have to drive EXTRA cautiously to come even close to the mpg I was getting with casual driving before. It was nearly impossible for me to get under 42 mpg even with really poor throttle management. Now for the first time ever I'm seeing numbers below 40 with poor driving and it's a real struggle to keep 50 even with semi decent management. It used to be easy, now it's much harder (though still doable, but with much slower driving speeds)

With accelerating in general, with slow acceleration, (about 75% of the bar) I see the mpg meter drop to 25 or way less now, when normally it would easily stay 25 or above. It appears to be using much more gas than it used to be. I can definitely see power management changes here. It simply appears to not be using the electric drive nearly as much as it used to to aid with acceleration. Was this their fix to keep the inverter from overheating?​

 

Is yours one of those that had the battery disconnected for the update? If so, your Prius might still be in the learning stage. You may want to give it a tank or so and then see how it behaves. Also, sometimes dealerships set the tires back to 32PSI on all four tires. So you might want to check the basics as well.

 

I got the letter and had that done today along with the E-Tune 3.2.0 done at the same time. It fixed the problem of (the etune flash update) every time I started the car and my Bluetooth connected it changed the audio to my mp3,s on my phone. It was like 10x a day hit audio, change it back to the satellite then the next stop and start the same drill. Doesn't seem like that big of deal but it was a PIA. I am not sure how the recall changed my car if any I drove it home 2 mile from the dealer and into my garage. My mileage all winter has not been great, down about 10mpg from summer but can't expect great mileage with most trips 3-7 miles and shut it off. The dash says 42-43 but really 40 when you figure and was 50 summer for basically the same trips.