Adaptive Cruise Control Messed up after deer collision

This is very neat tech, and is the beginning of cars that drive themselves. Accidents will become increasingly less frequent, and one day the saying that flying is safer than driving will no longer hold true. Initially I thought I was in the market for only a Five with AT, but it's such a high premium and includes other things I don't want such as 17" wheels, headlight washer (why, just, why), and power seats. For me, the sweet spot would be a Three with AT. You can't please everyone though, so now I'm just looking for a 2010 Three.

Quick question though; do the power seats have memory for other drivers? As far as I'm concerned, memory is the only reason to ever get power seats. It's very annoying to wait an eternity for power seats to creep into position rather than yank a handle and immediately adjust the seat.

 

The power seats in mine don't have memory.

 

Yeah, I totally wanted a Three with AT too. But I'm a sucker for technology, and part of the reason why they don't offer it on lower models - some of us will pay for a whole lot of other extra crap just to get a couple cool new features...

Oh well, I won't buy another car for quite a while, most likely. And the next one will probably be very different - maybe a limited-range EV or something for around-town usage, so I probably won't need any gee-whiz features.

 

I'm a tech geek too, and it's hard to take the Five AT off my list. My dream stable would be a Prius and a Leaf, along with my truck that my dad drives. Of course, there would have to be motorcycles, ATVs, jetskis, snowmobiles, ultralights, etc in there too.

 

I submit a post on Dec 8, 2012 about problem with Toyota not able to get the Dynamic cruise to work properly after a collision with a deer. It took a total of 4 times and about 23 hours of their time (insurance paid for 6 and they had to eat the rest) to solve the problem. Toyota dealer assured me they were using the correct aiming procedure and following the manual. The dealership had never worked on a car with Dynamic Cruise Control in the past. Well the problem was that they were trying to aim the Dynamic Cruise by using the Lane Keep Assist camera which is mounted by the rear view mirror. It appears they really did not read the manuals directions carefully as they had a special technician come from Portland to help and he figured out what they were doing wrong. The car works great now but I wasted my time and had to drive 200 miles extra for their incompetence.

 

Wow! these mechanics really don't (or can't) read directions, they were working on the wrong system! If we had the Techstream software I'm sure a lot of us could do a better job of aiming the DRCC than the average Toyota dealer's shop.

I'm glad you finally got it fixed right. Adaptive cruise control systems may be "the future" but that future won't get here unless we have technicians that can repair and align the systems.

 

I agree with this step! I talk to the technicians at toyota and escalate it to the top technicians if possible.

 

Two things in defense of the techs.
First, they are often under pressure from "management" to meet or beat "book time". A bad idea, but it's done all too often. In this case they tried to use a "short cut" to get the job done quicker.
Second, manuals? Read? That's for wimps! Real men don't read manuals! And read and comprehend are always two different things.

 

My experience with 2010 Gen 3: Last summer I noted I would get intermittent BRAKE alarms when using Adaptive Cruise Control. However, the car did not brake and kept track of the vehicle in front of me. Next service visit, mentioned to Dealer who checked out the system, no fault found.
Continued to receive these faults until one day I nearly rear-ended the car in front of me when using ACC and it did NOT give any warning that it was not working right. Found that the distance sensing just wasn't sensing but can use cruise control like a "regular" car. So, I got used to doing that again. Put it on the work order next service visit. Dealer found no faults. Said they drove it for miles (yup, they did).
I got in the car and called them from a mile away informing Service Manager that it didn't work. Drove it right back. This time, with the Master Tech driving the car and myself in the right seat, he saw the symptom I've been reporting. Back at the dealership he got out and saw that the emblem was hazed over. "That's what it is" he said. I ordered another. $600 later (I installed the emblem myself) it still had the same issue. Took it back to Dealer same day as I installed the emblem. Master Tech verified that the problem remained. Did a half day of troubleshooting with it and said that the distance sensor, or the millimeter wave sensor is on the fritz.
This Dealer wants to charge me $2,600 for the sensor and $450 for replacing it. Nope. Not gonna happen. Service Manager called Toyota for help. Maybe they would take on some of the burden of the cost for this 3 Toyota family that has all their servicing done at this Dealer where we bought all 3 of them? Service Manager spent days working on this. Response was no.
So … I found some on line for $1,300. I found ONE at a junk yard in New York state for $550. After 3 months, I found 2 on eBay and purchased the one from the UK (the other one is in Germany). Do you know how much it is to ship from the UK? Holy crap! Without shipping I got this one (with a 6 week warranty!) for about $275. Shipping, however, was $60. But still, $335 for this unit is in my price range and hopefully will work.
I'll likely install this myself and at the next service visit have the Dealer perform the adjustment. They don't like doing that kind of stuff but then again, they wouldn't take back that $600 emblem either because I drove with it installed to the dealer. And I am thinking about a replacement Prius for the 2010. There was about 20 miles on that emblem and not a scratch on it. (Using the 3M Lens Cleaning system I was able to clean up the old one real good. Need one? Let me know - I'll let it go at a good deal!) And, I continue to take our other vehicles in for service.
Not part of this thread, but hope that the '15 Tacoma touch screen issue I have will go smoother with this Dealer. In the mean time, awaiting arrival of replacement sensor and will update later.