Who has done their recall?

As I posted above, I've been spinning them this spring on the sand and fine gravel still left on the roads. The city is -slowly- cleaning them up.
And I say again, skidding is a better description, as the car won't allow them to "spin". Yes, as also posted above, we have traction control, or spin prevention. It's just less aggressive than it was in the GII models.
But even on clean pavement you can "chirp" the tyres.

 

Isn't this a good thing?

 

Unfortunately I believe in my case the damage has already been done. I had my recall fix done just 3 months ago, then just yesterday under acceleration my prius died and the dealer says it's the transistor. Be aware. And I'm sure Toyota know they will be sitting on a time bomb. I'm told bad luck...but I'm gonna fight it.

 

Ver detailed theories and my experience may help. Unfortunately in my case some damage the damage had already been done. I had my recall fix done just 3 months ago, then just yesterday under acceleration my prius died and the dealer says it's the transistor. I am sure that due to the fault the transistor had been under excess load at various times, resulting in partial damage, that despite there being a 'fix' done 3 months ago had already done the damage. And I'm sure Toyota know they will be sitting on a time bomb. I'm told bad luck by the dealer...but I'm gonna fight it.

I'm keen on your thoughts about what damage could have already occurred before the fix was done?

Cheers

 

Unfortunately not always.
In my case the damage has already been done. I had my recall fix done just 3 months ago, then just yesterday under acceleration my prius died and the dealer says it's the transistor. Be aware. And I'm sure Toyota know they will be sitting on a time bomb. I'm told bad luck...but I'm gonna fight it.

 

Unfortunately in my case some damage the damage had already been done. I had my recall fix done just 3 months ago, then just yesterday under acceleration my prius died and the dealer says it's the transistor. I am sure that due to the fault the transistor had been under excess load at various times, resulting in partial damage, that despite there being a 'fix' done 3 months ago had already done the damage. And I'm sure Toyota know they will be sitting on a time bomb. I'm told bad luck by the dealer...but I'm gonna fight it.

 

Great explanation. What are your thoughts on damage occurring before the fix aka recall being done and eventual failure of the transistor? Mine just failed today only 3 months after the fix and it's done about 80,000km.

 

A sad experience I hope no one else has.
Unfortunately in my case some damage the damage had already been done. I had my recall fix done just 3 months ago with the 6 year old car having done 75000km (sorry for metric but I'm an Aussie ) then just yesterday under acceleration my prius died and the dealer says it's the transistor. I am sure that due to the fault that was 'fixed' the transistor had been under excess load at various times, resulting in partial damage, that despite there being a 'fix' done 3 months ago had already done the damage. And I'm sure Toyota know they will be sitting on a time bomb. I'm told bad luck by the dealer...but I'm gonna fight it.

 

Alex, sorry to hear that. The good news is that you will get a brand new inverter. Hang in there.

 

The danger of being an engineer is that sometimes one thinks one can explain everything. For this kind of question, the proper answer is, "I do not know." But that never stopped me before, so what the heck.

The document from Toyota describing all this in hazy detail said that they had had a number of these failures, with multiple attempts on their part to figure out What The Heck Was Going On. There was some breakthrough, probably a combination of what the driver was doing immediately before the fault, plus breaking the inverter down to tiny parts, along with some X-Ray investigations of the transistor mounting, and who knows what else.

I'm a EE: I do practically everything on a part time basis it seems, which makes me a jack of EE trades, not a master of a particular thing, and there's plenty of things, and real masters. In your case you've made the guess, and I'm inclined to go with it, that there was some kind of weakening under one transistor or another before the fix went in; then, after the fix, cracked metal eventually asserted itself and off the transistor came.

I can argue any electronic failure that's not directly in front of me and dissected like a clam after a good meal from at least three different directions: More, if I got coffee in me. It's possible that this fault was unrelated to the heat sink; transistors, no matter how spiffy, can up and die for what appears to be no reason, just like light bulbs. Transistors do have wear-out mechanisms, especially the high power variants. They wear out faster when they're hot, too, so your failure may be unrelated to the recall; just sayin'. Just like across all the cars in the US that appear to be good, but then one of them goes and throws a rod for no good reason. (Yeah, manufacturing defect, but such is life.)

My read of the various public documents that have come this way about the change mentioned, "Testing". A WAG says that might have included some kind of test of the resistance between the transistor die and the heatsink, with an increase potentially indicating cracks. Tests like that have boundaries; measurements are noisy, and cracks might be sneaky. A slightly uncalibrated voltmeter can take a red-area transistor and move it into green. More to the point, there's green areas, red areas, and gray areas. A transistor in the gray area might have been in the green last week, gray now, and is on the verge of snapping over to the red. But another might have been in green, sslloowwllly moved into gray over time, and stopped; in which case, it's never going to fail. So, why take out a transistor in a population where 95% of them are never going to fail? Does that mean that one starts repairing, say, 10% of the inverters that have trannies in the gray area, where less than a percent of inverters in that state are likely to actually fail? And, in a case like this, how the heck does one actually get statistics so one can actually predict costs?

And all of the above doesn't help if the dealer, say, decided not to actually make a fix but charge Toyota for the time, or something similarly evil. Or sheer incompetence not getting the change into the car in the first place.

All of the above is massive handwaving. Unless one is sitting in the Toyota Project Manager spot, with all the paperwork and analyses at hand, it's really hard to make any prediction based upon the public documents. And even said PM may end up in a guessing game from time to time, assuming that the PM even gets involved at this stage of the game.

Be glad you're getting a new inverter; it looks like the one you had managed to escape the kill-the-problem-before-it-multiplies process, hopefully an unusual event.

KBeck

 

Any reason why we have to be told so many times? Your transistor failed.

You might want to update your profile to reflect your location as Australia as the hybrid system warranty varies around the world as does the normal warranty.

In most places the age of your vehicle should allow it to fall within warranty unless you have significant miles. If it's the latter, then the failure could have occurred due to general wear and tear. In the US the warranty extends to 10 years 150,000 miles in some states. In the UK the warranty is 8 years/100,000 miles unless you have the car serviced by Toyota where it is 10 years/unlimited miles (see their hybrid health check).

I'm in the UK and had my inverter fail over a year ago (one of the first I think). I was outside the warranty at 70,000 miles as early gen3's were only 60,000 miles warranty. As my car had been serviced by Toyota all its life my dealer contacted HQ about the issue and they replaced the inverter for free with me paying the labour and investigation fee; a result I was happy with.

So do you have a full Toyota service history? If so, they may be likely to consider helping outside of warranty - within reason. If the car has been taken elsewhere to cut costs, then chances are Toyota will draw the line at the warranty limit. This is the reason I always use the main dealer for service until at least a few services past warranty. Worth every extra penny paid. Also, you can usually get the Toyota dealers to price match cheaper quotes = having your cake and eating it.

Would appreciate a little extra info on what happened to you, the service details and mileage of your vehicle etc. Then we can see what options 'may' be available to you.

 

Where does it say he's getting a new inverter? I've looked and just can't see that.

 

Hill holder? Please explain. I was unaware that the Prius had that. How do you engage it?

 

When you're stopped facing up a steep hill, worried about rolling back, if press significantly harder on the brake pedal, you'll hear a beep and an icon lights on the dash. When you then lift off the brake the system will continue to hold the car for about 3 seconds, and/or until you step on the gas.

 

Post recall, I notice that the battery gets filled faster on downgrades and doesn't seem to be drained as much. Mpg seems as good or slightly lower. My guess is it doesn't use the battery as aggressively as before.

 

I put myself in a situation the other day where I either had to accelerate quickly to change lanes to avoid a turning vehicle or hit the brakes. I chose to hit the accelerator. This was in a 45 mph zone.

I was really surprised when there was a split second of hesitation where nothing happened. In the past the electric motor would have accelerated immediately. Now with the ramp rate on the Boost Converter there was a dead time until the ICE finally began to pick up as could be heard with the sound of the engine.

It is like Toyota modified the ramp rate of the Boost Converter but did nothing for the ICE acceleration to make up the difference.

So I will certainly be aware of not being able to accelerate quickly when needed any more.

 

What mode were you in? Normal? Eco? Power? With the original programming, it felt to me as though this affected response time. I haven't driven enough after the change to know if it feels the same.

 

Normal mode. The software recall reduced the response time of the electric motor.

It is hard to tell much difference until you need to accelerate quickly.

 

Try Power mode..it is instant go. I use Eco and it has a lag/smoothing to it that I enjoy for my daily driving. If I see I will have to do an evasive or aggressive move I set it to Power.

 

Good point.

In my situation I did not have time to think about the Power button though. It was one of those split second decisions, either accelerate or brake.