2010 Prius XW30 inverter failure (P3004 800)

Been reading along in this forum for a while. Never had anything to post since my car was running fine. Until now.

2 weeks ago, the Prius wouldn’t start. After a short drive at noon, the wife needed to go somewhere but the thing didn’t move. The ready light came on but immediately disappeared, throwing in a “Check Hybrid System” error. Car was towed to the workshop where they diagnosed a P3004 detailcode 800 error. It means the inverter is toast. All testing procedures were followed and the onverter can apparently be repaired but must be opened. The kit costs roughly 800€ (about $1,000) without work. Total estimate 1.800€ ($2,200).

A few things cross my mind now:
- since the inverter fails rather rarely, I’d consider fitting a second hand one. Apparently the are are many serials around from 2010 inverters so the garage wasn’t too enthousiastic. Any experiences with this?
- to those that experienced it before and decided to repair the inverter: was the car completely functional again, or did any of you have the same or other related problems later on?

Thx for sharing. Seriously disappointed Toyota lover.

 

Warranty is 5 years or 150.000km on a Gen III (XW30). On the earlier models it was 8 years. There is an 8 year warranty on the battery (extendable until 12y if yearly maintained at Toyota dealer), but that is not the issue. Inverter is not covered.

I did. They informed me that there is a repair kit available, for which I was quoted. They consider that goodwill since I don’t need to replace the entire inverter. Not my idea of goodwill.
Mine has 110.000km (~70,000miles). We bought it in May 2016 ago as a TopCar select second hand car from the Toyota dealer. It was at that time 6 years and 2 months old and we had 12months TopCar warranty on it (bumper to bumper). The car failed when it was 10 months out of this warranty, now 8y and 3 months old.

That is exactly what the Toyota dealer troubleshooted. This code means in my case the inverter fails.

Update from today: troubleshooting by the book with Toyota tech service already learned there was a fix for my inverter model G92A0-47030. New today was that for this the inverter needs to be opened and a pretty big repair is needed, after which it needs to be resealed. So in addition to the repair kit, the labour is significant. I’m now on the lookout for a second hand inverter. Failures seem to be so rare there are plenty available for low prices (plus the inverter swap is a lot quicker in manhours). Any tips for reputed salvage yards or parts distributors are welcome... in Europe.