5th pLock Malfunction failure

Good were:

• I had just dropped off my recycles and trash.
  
• Middle of the day.
• It was just across from the street from selling dealer and I walked over there.
• I reminded them of my lifetime power train warranty.
  
• No frozen foods.
• No one else in the car.
• Beautiful day.
• I had another car at home.
• Home is only 4 miles away.
• Dealer gave me a ride home.

Bad were:

• 5th failure with same error message. Random with sometimes months in between and sometimes days, sometimes thousands of miles and sometimes 10,
  
• On flat surface which per the error message is perfect parking spot
• Maybe 4-5 month from pLock actuator replacement advised by regional expert and I know they did it because I took a picture of the removed part.
• Battery 6 months old that I paid for as part of prior diagnostic efforts..
• Dealer sent mechanic and service advisor. They couldn't get it un-pLocked.
  
• Have AAA, called AAA and their contractor was there within an hour.
• The responding tow truck did not have the right equipment to tow the car to the dealer despite my describing to the AAA call center how the car was situated and what kind of tow was needed.
• The car was in the middle of a Walmart parking lot with a busy Saturday buzzing all around.
• The tow truck did not have a jumper pack when he wanted to try to jump the car and in the process I had to show him the way to jump a Prius.
• Back home called AAA, they escalated and we discovered that the best towing time was 3 AM because of fewer cars around.
  
• So dropped the key off at the unstaffed tow truck office rather than leave the car unlocked.
• They say they will have the right truck and will keep going by until they see cars moved and they can get access. They are two blocks from the car.

And will go by the dealers and see if it is there tomorrow. Rail for the next few days.
They were going to

 

As I understand it when you press the P button to put the car in park, the actuator presses down a pawl which fits into a spline in the transaxle. So there must be a sensor, the actuator, the pawl and the shaft involved. The actuator is a motor about 4" in diameter and maybe 2" in height.

It is a really rare fault as a search here will confirm. Neither of the other 2 family Prii have had the problem. It is made more difficult because the manual isn't helpful in describing the problem or meaning of the error message and Toyota help line likewise is no help. By now I understand it.

 

Battery 6 months old as it was replaced as part of the diagnostic approach to the first incident.

I'm going to guess that the first incident and the towing etc involved caused damage to the splines and when the pawl just happens to get wedged in the right way under the right forces the actuator cant pull the pawl away because of friction. Guess only.

 

Went by the dealers today to retrieve one of the two sets of keys they had for the car and they had the car. Of course, after towing, the car started normally with no pLock malfunction. I had hoped the actuator replacement had fixed things for good. With these random failures and no user solution, I'm not safe to do serious trips, grandkids involved, bad weather etc trips. Time for a new car. But what to get that provides reasonable eco, reasonable wagon like utility, local dealer (Toyota, Ford, GM, Nissan, Honda are only new car dealers within 12 miles and next set are 50 miles away), etc? That last criteria eliminates Kia, Hyundai, Subaru, VW, Lexus, Mazda, Jaguar, Porsche, Audi, Acura, Infinity, etc. I was hoping to wait for the 2019 Rav4.

 

The dealer's tech is guessing that the problem is an intermittent short and they are calling in the regional tech expert. I had a detailed discussion about how the system works and a review of the problem history across 5 occurrences with the service manager. No shouting, expressed sympathy for them diagnosing a problem that their equipment can't see until it fails (they have observed 3 of the 5 failures). I talked to a salesman, no v's even used on the lot. Didn't see anything above 30MPG that appealed to me. New gen Rav4h is due to be announced late this month but that will be a first year build with the service issues associated with such. My history with those (Plymouth, Porsche, Nissan, Toyota) haven't been that good (understatement).

 

If I wanted a CRV (and I don't after reading their equivalent of priuschat called crvownersclub) it wouldn't be hybridized yet so 32/26.

 

Car won't start and dashboard lit up like a Xmas tree. Every light on and a pLock errer message displayed to the right of the screen.

 

Call today, they are now speculating inverter or inverter control circuitry. Keeping car till they can get it to fail. Based on the historical time between failures, it may be sometime this summer I get it back.

 

On the 10th day they rested....

Last week they said they would get back to me by today. So late afternoon I stopped by.

Was told that a Prius expert happened to be in the shop today to inspect another Prius and they asked him about the problem. He had no expertise but called up the chain and they were going to open up a case number and do some research.

I'm more than disappointed that the dealer didn't call in an expert on my car long before the 10th day they have had the car in the shop. Their approach is they can't do anything until they see the failure in their shop even if they did see it when it was parked across the street. The tech did say that it had been possible for him to have taken their diagnostic computer over to the car as it sat disabled but they didn't think to do that.

 

13 days later they replaced a relay and the Park switch per the service advisor.

Come and get it in 20 minutes. Not ready on arrival. Left the trunk all askew, clock not reset, traction battery about 1/4 charged, no paperwork yet. Discussed with service manager.

If it was so simple, why wasn't it done yesterday or the day before. No confidence. Have to make a 250 mile one way trip with a 6 year old in a week and the problem could reoccur any time. Or not. I'll take the V-6 conventional car instead at half the MPG,

I did get the service manager to agree to come to the car with their diagnostic computer if it happened again locally.