All this talk about the Prius recall and stalling problems has me interested in what percentage of Prius owners on GH have had issues, any at all, which have left you stranded and/or required a tow. Anyone?

Let's get the responses coming, I need to use this data to settle an argument on another website....

 

I would like to see the results of this poll (since I am in the market for a Prius), but not having one, I can't really vote (don't want to skew the results!). Is there any way I can see the results without voting? Or could you maybe add a choice for "I don't have a Prius"?

 

Nope, 2004 with 45,000 miles and no problems (had the ECU updates almost a month ago).

JeffD

 

Click "View Poll Results"

 

Let's get crackin now Prius owners - I need your poll results.... Thanks much in advance....

 

Thank you! (duh!)

 

Mine has stalled twice. Both times because I ran out of gas. Since that wasn't an option, I chose never.

56k miles, purchased in Jan 04. Never had any of the ECU updates. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

I have never had a stall. In fact the vehicles with the stalling problem were predominantly 04s and most of them were early production. Toyota has continually evaluated the programming and logic on the vehicle and has made mid-production tweaks to the software through the entire production process. As such, the software available now is a different version than early 05 production, and that is different than the software in early 04 production.

The car has the unique ability to accept new programming via the Toyota Hand Held Tester (THHT). In theory, any Prius with this logic system on board could continue to get software updates from Toyota as they make adjustments to the drive logic. How many other cars out there can accept significant reprogramming from the manufacturer. Sure, you can tweak some settings on many modern vehicle computers, but you can't install new code in those computers. Toyota can do that with this car.

As such SSC50p, aside from being an inconvenience to have to take the car to the dealer, isn't a huge deal because it is a software upgrade. No nuts and bolts, under the hood work at all.

 

My 2003 has. I know it's not exactly what you're asking (gen 2 etc) but I want to tell someone. The car had about 52k mi and I went to start it cold in the driveway and the red exclaimation mark of death came on. It would not start but rather made a wierd mechanical whirring sound. The final upshot is that It ended with the dealer covering all costs (including towing) for the replacement (they claim) of some on board computer. I've read on some blogs that they reset these things but the dealer specifically said "replaced and upgraded". The scarry part of the ordeal was that it gave absolutely no warning or indication of impending problem on the previous drive. Tom

 

Gen 1 Prii do not have any software update capability. As such, if Toyota has to update the software on Gen 1 Prii they have to actually replace the computer or ECU in question. Not particularly efficient and not at all cost effective, especially if you end up in a situation where you do a voluntary recall of quite a few thousand units. It is less expensive to use dealer labor and reimburse them for that work than it is to go out and manufacture huge numbers of ECUs to replace the "faulty" ones and reimburse for dealer labor.

I doubt that you will have any troubles with the replacement ECU you received from the dealer.