Hang in there Charles! And thanks for keeping us posted.

 

Dale,

Good post. Yes, there are no guarantees with the Lemon Law. But Charles should keep complete and detailed records so that he has the best chance of succeeding in the (hopefully unlikely) event he needs to file a claim.

Let's all hope that this issue will be resolved quickly and successfully. After all, I am driving the same model!

 

Having been in the business for 40+ years, things like this really upset me, high tec machines and low tec training spells shotgunning parts til it gets fixed. A lot of high tec items on this car and needs to be dealt with the sharpest tool in the tool shed. not the lub tec.

 

Well I got a call from the service tech this morning. He said they still were not sure what caused this but that they were "re-calibrating" the computer. This sounds to me like they have no idea what is going on and are going to reset the system and see what happens. In addition he asked me to recount the events leading up the "check hybrid system" message appearing. The technician doing the work wanted to know. This makes sense, I guess I would want to know the exact details leading up the problem too if I were the technician. All I can do is just wait at this point - he said they should have it ready today. Next time I speak with him I'm going to mention the situation norb went thru with the bad dc converters.

 

They want YOU to recount the events? Don't they have the ability to look at the data generated by the Big Bro, er, Black Box? That should have all kinds of info on the last few minutes before the meltdown. Of course, I'm just guessing at what it contains, but if it's good enough to get you convicted in an accident, it should be good enough for troubleshooting!

 

Sure sounds like the old three-fingered salute! (Ctl-Alt-Del).. Are we sure Windows isn't involved somewhere here?.. I can just hear them saying 'Beats me' let's re-boot and see what happens. Sorry for your pain.. I would be pi%##$@ but I guess they are working on it.
:-{

 

I think they just wanted to hear my perspective of the events.

I just got another call from the dealer. They re-calibrated everything and have driven the car for 50 miles without any problems. He said when the vehicle arrived at the dealership yesterday the main hybrid battery was dead. This is really weird. Just before this all started I had drove 40 min from above 3000ft in the mountains to my house on the coast at sea level. Whenever I make this trip my battery is always almost completely charged along with mpg gains from going down the grade. The mpg/nav display showed the battery as being charged before this happened. I don't know, I hope it isn't a problem like norb had and this is going to take multiple trips to the dealer to fix... He said they also called the main Toyota (TIC?) tech line to speak with the hybrid tech specialists and they didn't know what to do either.

On a side note, my left rear tail-light had water inside it. The part is arriving tomorrow so I'm leaving the car at the dealer one more night to get the new light. I've also asked them to investigate the **** squeaky center console.

I'll post something tomorrow after I get the car back.

 

I haven't had this problem with my TCH. However, my last new car, a 1996 Saturn SL2 (which my teenager will drive when she gets her license), died two months after I bought it. It restarted and we took it to the nearest Saturn dealer. The "check engine soon' light had come on and gone off a couple of times before it cut off. The Saturn tech kept trying to reset the computer, but the computer would not let him do it. Well, it took all day, and a call to the factory, for them to figure out that the computer wa telling them to replace a bad plug wire. Once they replaced it, the computer reset, and the car ran fine.

I hope I can keep this car for 10+ years, too.

I hope your problem is as "simple" as this one was. Please keep us posted.

JoAnn
Overeager in MD

 

You didn't happen to leave the car "ON", and leave it in neutral for an extended period of time, did you?

The car can't charge the battery when it is in Neutral...

Just a thought.

 

Good thought, but no. I know better than to leave it in "N". Again the message came on after driving for 40 minutes on the freeway with the cruise set at 67mph. I backed the car into my garage as usual and turned it off (in park with the brake on). And it sat there until Monday morning when I tried to start it.