Prius c fried my iPod?

So I've been having this issue the last few days with the messages about power consumption being too high on my USB port. I've had no more than 1 simple USB cable and an iPod classic attached to it. First of all, this is BS. There is no way anybody is going to convince me that I can leave my headlights on, interior electronics, speakers, etc. when the car is powered off, but 1 little USB device while the car is running is too much???

However, I seem to have developed a new issue. As a result of my car flickering back and forth with the power on this USB port, it seems to have done something to my iPod. My device itself is no longer recognized by the car, nor my PC. The iPod knows a USB cable is connected because when I connect it to the car, the iPod lights up, but the device does not start playing. Now I just tried to connect the iPod to my PC and I'm getting errors about being unable to recognize the USB device. Has anybody else had similar issues? It seems with the USB mode going on and off constantly the one night in my car it has essentially created a power surge and destroyed my iPod. The iPod itself still works when connected to headphones or speakers, but the USB functionality itself seems to have been broken. I know the car is at fault, but Toyota will never admit to it. The cable I previously used had an LED light string through it, so I could see the lights flickering on and off which is how I can tell the car was doing what it was doing, but even a classic iPod cable is not working either. Neither cable will successfully connect it to my PC any longer either.

 

I've tried that as well as trying to go into disk mode by holding down select and play when resetting it. Not even in disk mode does it connect to my PC successfully. All USB functionality seems to have disappeared. It doesn't even look like it might be charging.

 

I would believe that if not for the fact that my PC nor my laptop recognize my iPod anymore either using either cable. One is Win7 and the other Win8. I find it hard to believe that all my PC's decided to break at the same time my car did, but it was definitely while connected to my car that the iPod stopped working.

 

I have my Entune USB stick if nothing else for a test. Being as the cable with lights works and the iPod itself activates when plugged in, it seems to be an issue with the iPod now and not the cables or car. My thoughts have shifted from 'Wth is my car doing' to instead 'Wth has happened to my iPod and am I alone with this issue'.

As for the iPod itself, I have had a few issues in the past with it randomly resetting in the car when switching songs, but never anything this bad. I'll leave my rant about Apple for another day. Suffice to say the ONLY reason I even own this thing is for the touchscreen connectivity. The fact that they expect me to authorize a $20 service fee to live chat with somebody online is not helping in my opinion of them.

 

I value storage space over any touch features the more expensive models have. The 120GB model is very much needed by me. I've only owned this device for less than a year. Why I considered it "fried" is because of the way the power in the USB port flickered on and off, like a small kid playing with a light switch. Turning the lights on and off as quick as that is bound to have consequences. This was a time I was glad my USB cable had that LED light function. It was very useful in order to see when the power was going through the port. While the player can play music, the inability to sync to my PC or take a charge through the USB connection means it will be slowly losing power and eventually shut down sooner than later. As I mentioned in the previous posts, I have 2 separate cables that produce the same results of being unable to sync to the car or the PC whereas both cables were functional no more than 2 days ago. Only 1 of them was in my car at any given time until I just tried the stock iPod cable in my car yesterday to no avail.

Maybe you have lower expectations than I do, but I expect something I buy new from a store to work for more than a year. The previous MP3 player I had from Creative was still working just fine 8 years later when I opted to switch to the iPod for the car's touchscreen. The earliest opportunity I have to take it to an Apple store is Thursday, so I will likely have to wait until then to find out what the issue is.

 

So after taking a look at it, the Apple "genius" (their name, not mine) came to the conclusion that there was a short in the connector. I left out the part about the car and the power fluctuations. They wanted to charge me $129 to replace it to which I cringed. He came back 1-2 minutes later and said I was 18 days outside my warranty and they would replace it for free. Not sure if that was actually true or not, but it was about a year ago I think I got it. So, props to my Apple tech for doing the right thing and replacing their hardware. Boo to my car's USB port likely being the cause of this short by shutting the device down or otherwise going completely haywire that night. I think from here on in, I will be using only the stock iPod cable in the car.