Catalytic Converter, Toyota Dealers not understanding warrantly

Yes and no, with a light bulb, at least an incandesent, you have a fine wire being heated and cooled, and produced cheaply and by the millions. Where as a catalytic converter, as I understand it is really more of a stationairy thing, nothing moves, just the rare chemicals that coat the inside, when heated have a chemical reaction to the exhaust gasses. And if I looked around and found 3 people that had their cat go bad, I would dismiss it as a fluke. But when I look here and elsewhere and I see a lot of people (seemingly) reporting a problem with a part that is normally reliable and not manufactured on the same scale as a light bulb, well then, that catches my eye as is this an issue where there was a bad batch, or is there something inherent in the design or engineering specs that would cause a higher than normal failure rate? Light bulbs are generally considered a consumable item, catalitic converters are not.

 

ahhh, crap!

thanks, for alerting me
i was thinking easy peasy, go in, unscrew old ones, screw in new ones and that the biggest problem would be if one of them was rusted in....

 

By the way, there have been P0420 happy endings reported, such as http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...oting/88555-p0420-in-california-solution.html You are covered, it is just a matter of getting the right person to say so. Also, to me this is an indication that cat failures are rare, if everyone in the food chain is clueless about the warranty coverage.

Failures due to fuel injector cleanings happen when a technician blasts through a bunch of cleaner connected directly to the fuel rail, rather than the gas tank additive type.

 

I was amazed by how high a temperature cats run at. When I added the Ct1 and Ct2 XGauges (http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...77-updated-list-gen-ii-xgauges-scangauge.html), I was amazed by the values I saw. IIRC, they were above 600 C and 400 C (600 C = 1112 F and 400 C = 752 F), respectively, whereas the coolant (FWT) or etf (engine temp in F) for me, stays below 200 F.

I mentioned the Ct1 and Ct2 values to a car guy (not into Japanese cars) and he said, those temps sound about right for a cat. I then dug up Catalytic Converter. I can't vouch for its accuracy.

 

Considering the exhaust gas temperature at full throttle is typically in the 1500F range near the exhaust port those temperatures are reasonable. If you made a full throttle run you would se higher temperatures than you did.

If you are running an engine hard on a dyno you can often see the exhaust manifold running bright orange if you shut the lights off.

 

well I am back to them saying it is covered...
for now...

I don't know if that means it is rare though. Since some people may not challenge the initial decline. I did it because I believed that I was covered and I pay attention to that stuff. If it had been my wife, she just would have said "crap" and paid to have it fixed.

The fact that the dealer called the "warranty hotline" which is who they are supposed to go to with warranty issues and was told it was not covered, means that even if people get their dealer to call and check, they still may be told no.

When I called corporate this morning, I was told no, it wasn't covered. If someone hadn't told me yesterday that it was, I might have given up. Even still I might have given up if I hadn't seen this board frankly. After all, the story that the 1st guy was looking at the power converter/inverter seemed reasonable that someone could have made that mistake.

And if it wasn't sooo slow the last couple days at work, so I could keep calling and look here and the CARB website for more info. I would have had to give up, even if I didn't want to.

I figured the assertion about failure due to injection cleanings was specific to the dealer type cleanings, I only posted the Techron bit to be entirely forthcoming. All those "flush" services they offer are crap if you ask me, but man do they push them, and make a ton of $$ of them. I have overheard a couple of "consultations" that almost made me sick. And I know a lot of people just defer to the "expert's" recommendation. Paying money they don't need to, for stuff that not only probly don't help, but can occassionally hurt!

Yes cats run extremly HOT! And they only work when they are very hot, which is part, just part of the reason a cold car is dirtier. It is also why when places have parking on a grass field, there occassionally are fires from the heat emanating off the cats. Even though they are not usually touching the grass, they are so hot, the heat emanating off them can still start a grass fire. You also see it sometimes when someone breaks down and pulls onto a dry grass shoulder.

 

Thank goodness I read this thread and mine is covered! My check engine light was on and the dealer read the code indicating that the catalytic converter needed to be replaced on my 2008 Prius. The cost was going to be about $2200. I found this site and then informed them about the 15 year 150,000 mile warranty and they said that they would check with their warranty person the next day. In the meantime I called Toyota to check on my warranty. At first they could not see any such warranty, but politely escalated it to an expert who found it and called my dealer while I was on the line. I was at 147,000 miles... I think the main thing for my dealer is that this is sort of uncharted territory and these are just now coming up in many cases.

 

Took our 2007 grey Prius at 144k miles into our trusted local hybrid shop (Luscious Garage in SF) in Feb due to check engine light coming on and was told the cat converter needed replacement, it was under warranty and they sent us to the dealer.

Today I took in our 2007 green Prius at 144k miles to a different Toyota dealer (closer to home) because the check engine light was on. Same error code for cat converter came up, but they are adamant it is not under warranty! No amount of "discussion" or showing them in black and white in the warranty manual or showing them paper work from our hybrid shop and another dealer stating it was under warranty on our identical vehicle (except paint color) would get them to budge. They claimed it was not a PZEV and did not qualify.

Seems to me the only difference was having our trusted local hybrid shop diagnose our grey Prius first before we went to the dealer, so if you are having problems getting the dealer to do the work under warranty, may want to have a hybrid shop diagnose it first to save you the run around. That is what we will be doing on Monday with our green Prius.

 

Or you can just call Toyota corporate and complain about the dealer

 

As far as I know, all USA Prii are CA-certified especially back in 2007 that was true.
So my car and yours are the same. All are AT-PZEV or whatever...same sticker under the hood.

This is why Toyota has developed rather complex warranty rules (having to do with state of car registration) to differentiate who is covered by CARB extended warranty. The Toyota rules basically say your car is CARB covered if orig purchase was a CARB state, and registered there, and if car is currently registered in a CARB state. CARB coverage is 150k miles for 10-yrs

In this case, you need to check with Toyota USA or another dealer and ask if the car is CARB qualified, and if not, why not? You could be over 10-years, depending on orig purchase date. Lucious Garage did not tell you to take this green one to Toyota, maybe they could tell you though, if you ask, if you have a "leg to stand on" for the green one.

 

I did call Luscious Garage on Friday while I was at the dealership as they have serviced both our green and grey Prii in the past. They looked up the green Prius in the Toyota USA database, asked for the service code number the dealership was giving me, confirmed it is under warranty and said the dealership can see the same information they can if they just look it up in the Toyota database.

I called Toyota USA yesterday and they confirmed it is under warranty in California (where it was purchased and still resides) for 15 years/150,000 miles. Basically, I was dealing with the dealer until 5pm on Friday when they finally said, "if you don't like it, call Toyota directly," and of course Toyota USA was closed for the day at that point. I had dropped my car off at 10:30am, received the email about needing the replacement about 1pm, called them, emailed them with the warranty info, and finally drove down there at 4:30p as they were not responding to me. Toyota has opened cases with both the Folsom Toyota dealership where I went on Friday and another local Toyota dealership where I can take it to get it replaced this week as I'm not comfortable taking it to Folsom Toyota at this point.

It was literally a couple of minutes on the phone with Toyota USA looking up my vehicle in the Toyota database and saying, "yes, your vehicle under warranty by Toyota for this AND additionally covered by California hybrid emissions laws." The agent expressed surprise that the dealership was not aware of this given its a state law also. Its just crazy that the Folsom dealership was literally complaining to me that they had spent 2 hours determining it is not covered when all it took was a few minute phone call to Toyota USA. No clue why they would put up resistance to fixing something covered under warranty and they will get reimbursed for by Toyota.

 

Sounds like Folsom Toyota requires additional training

 

Yes, I did yesterday when they reopened as they were closed on Friday by the time things came to a head yesterday and the service manager was brought in on the situation and told me to call Toyota USA directly if I didn't like their answer. Toyota USA looked my vehicle up in the database and within a couple of minutes confirmed it was under warranty for the repair. Wish I had done that originally, but honestly thought the dealership would take appropriate action before taking an incorrect stance on it. Live and learn.

 

It's a stealership. Just more shady than others. I would call them out on it with Toyota corporate and then take it to another dealership .

 

Sometimes it seems to work the other way, they cover a car that is in CA from AZ or something. So the rule is always assume you could be covered and let them tell you if not, and don't take "no" for an answer unless you are convinced you have exhausted the letter of the warranty as well as the chance they could give you goodwill coverage.

Good work!
Most of us do not have Lucious Garage in our backyard. You are lucky. It is interesting she is able to look up the CARB coverage like a Toyota dealer.