RAV4 Died Yesterday

Driving on De Anza Blvd. north at 2:30 pm with 23 miles on the GOM the car died accelerating from the light at Rodriguez. There was lots fo traffic so I ended up stuck in the left turn lane. Fortunately two Good Samaritans pushed the car to the Chevron station.

While in the left turn lane I activated the SOS Safety connect. They were going to tow the car to Sunnyvale Toyota. I wanted them to tow me to Stevens Creek, which is where I purchased the car. The Toyota dispatcher said they only would cover 3 miles of towing. This is wrong! The 3 year Safety Connect covers towing to the nearest dealership. Stevens Creek Toyota is 3.5 miles where the car was. Sunnyvale Toyota is ~4.7 miles.

Sunnyvale Towing showed up about 15 after the original hour ETA. The driver demanded $20 to tow the car, claiming it was 5 miles to Stevens Creek Toyota. He was very rude to my wife who was now waiting with the car. He was going to leave immediately, but she convinced him to wait 5 minutes, since she had to wait more than an hour for him. We couldn't resolve the issue and he ended up driving off.

We had to get AAA to come and tow the car, an hour later.

Got the car to Stevens Creek Toyota. The sales people asked if we needed a charge and I told them, no the car won't run. The service people were very nice. We were told their master EV tech is there this weekend and would look at the car today. Waiting to find out what is wrong.

The car has 2552 miles. Just got the HOV stickers last week so we were loving the car even more.

Coincidentally we ran into our sales person who was preparing a Scion FS-R for delivery. He explained the towing coverage. He thought it might be Sunnyvale Towing's issue, but after talking to Sunnyvale Towing and Toyota, it is clear to me that Toyota told me and them that they would only cover 3 miles of towing.

Not happy with the Toyota Safety Connect at this time. Hopefully they can fix the car quickly. I don't think this is the Gateway ECU issue.

Douglas
1554

Work has started. They tried charging the car twice. We received charging failure emails. Isn't technology great?!

Douglas
1554

Looks like this is another candidate for a NHSTA report.

Does anyone know if the Model S has been experiencing similar failures? My wife does a lot of rush hour highway driving, and I'm not excited by the prospect of the car dying in the HOV lane, or anywhere. Seems like a high number of failures out of only 900 cars, and these are just the ones we are seeing on the forum.

jspearman said:

Does anyone know if the Model S has been experiencing similar failures?
...
Seems like a high number of failures out of only 900 cars, and these are just the ones we are seeing on the forum.

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Yes. See http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=576&p=7983#p7983 for some examples. I'm quite sure there are more examples.

I haven't followed TeslaMotorsClub that closely due to lack of time and it being a firehose of info and posts.

I agree, the Rav4 EV does seem to be experiencing a very high # of failures for such a small population of cars. In comparison, I've been a Priuschat user since 2005 or so and I've been fairly active there. We don't see severe problems like these in nearly such volume, even when the Gen 3 came out (2010 model year, went on sale ~May 2009). The sales chart at http://pressroom.toyota.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2832 can give you an idea of 2009 and 2010 calendar year Prius sales. http://pressroom.toyota.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2832 can give you an idea of Rav4 EV sales.

Unreliable Toyota (well, at least one that's under 8 to 10 years old) is generally an oxymoron.

Feel free to chime in on TeslaMotorsClub to set some people straight...

Thanks for your post SneakyFast. Please let us know how this turns out.

You guys worry too much. Just get the latest updates and hope for the best. Leaf 500e and many other cars have their own share of problems

In my experience with the SOS roadside guys, remember these are just drivers. They get their marching orders from a dispatch center that's only semi-affiliated with Toyota. It's kind of like being sublet much as a AAA towtruck isn't actually owned by AAA.

You getting on the phone and insisting the car go to your dealership won't happen initially. You have to stand your ground and push for it. With Toyota, ie the 800-331-4331 #.

For these drivers, time is money. Standing around waiting vs you waiting for them isn't even in the same league in their heads... after all, they are punched in on a work clock. You aren't. So, trying to appeal to them is futile. Get it set up when you call SOS/the roadside people as to where you want your car. You cannot redirect the driver once he's there "just because" ... even if they are wrong about distance.

I have seen cars (PHEVs) come to me with shredded tires, flat tires, ... EVs out of charge... Camrys and Tundras & other models ... it's usually the same experience. Drivers take the path of least resistance: listen to their home base. You have to talk to Toyota Roadside and make the path you want happen. In the case of a Rav4 EV recently, which stopped about 30 miles away, he was able to convince the Roadside folks to bring it back here, where we know the car, rather than face the great unknown elsewhere. And, we have a Rav4 EV loaner, thank heavens.

That said, sorry for the hassle. Brave new world and all that....

Dealership called. Codes have been retrieved from the car and they are contacting Tesla tomorrow. They tried charging it 8 times per the e-mails. Not much charge put into the system as Entune reports the same range as before.

@Dianne, thanks for your input. I did arrange for the towing to the dealership I wanted before the tow truck came. They were going to take us to that dealership, but the Toyota dispatcher gave them the incorrect information that only 3 miles were being paid for by Toyota instead of the entire amount. You are correct, at that point they aren't going to do much as they are on the clock. Even though we had made all the arrangements with Toyota before hand, Toyota failed us by not authorizing the entire tow to Stevens Creek Toyota. Failures by the Toyota dispatcher at so many levels, distance of tow, nearest dealership and authorization of payment. Seems like a very alpha release of a support system.

Douglas
1554

cwerdna said:

I haven't followed TeslaMotorsClub that closely due to lack of time and it being a firehose of info and posts.

I agree, the Rav4 EV does seem to be experiencing a very high # of failures for such a small population of cars. In comparison, I've been a Priuschat user since 2005 or so and I've been fairly active there. We don't see severe problems like these in nearly such volume, even when the Gen 3 came out (2010 model year, went on sale ~May 2009). The sales chart at http://pressroom.toyota.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2832 can give you an idea of 2009 and 2010 calendar year Prius sales. http://pressroom.toyota.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2832 can give you an idea of Rav4 EV sales.

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BTW, for those who haven't looked at the links, for comparison, in the US, Toyota for all of 09 sold 139K Priuses. For 2010, it was almost 141K (includes some Gen 2s but the rest should be Gen 3).

Toyota passed 5 million hybrids sold worldwide in March 2013 (http://www.toyota-global.com/innovation/environmental_technology/hv5m/).

Prius (family) was the top selling car in California for 2012 per http://www.cncda.org/secure/GetFile.aspx?ID=2444 w/60,688 registration for that state alone.

Per the sales chart at http://pressroom.toyota.com/releases/tms+august+2013+sales+chart.htm, the Prius family sold almost 171K units YTD in 2013 and per http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2013/09/usa-30-best-selling-vehicles-august-2013-sales-figures.html, it made #19 at http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2013/09/usa-30-best-selling-vehicles-august-2013-sales-figures.html.

'12 Prius c was the most reliable car per Consumer Reports (http://green.autoblog.com/2012/11/01/consumer-reports-says-prius-c-most-reliable/) despite CR not liking it (thus not recommending it) and '12 being Prius c's first model year.

Rav4 EV for 2012 sold 192 units (only became available in September 2012) and 748 units so far in 2013.

SneakyFast1 said:

Dealership called. Codes have been retrieved from the car and they are contacting Tesla tomorrow. They tried charging it 8 times per the e-mails. Not much charge put into the system as Entune reports the same range as before.

@Dianne, thanks for your input. I did arrange for the towing to the dealership I wanted before the tow truck came. They were going to take us to that dealership, but the Toyota dispatcher gave them the incorrect information that only 3 miles were being paid for by Toyota instead of the entire amount. You are correct, at that point they aren't going to do much as they are on the clock. Even though we had made all the arrangements with Toyota before hand, Toyota failed us by not authorizing the entire tow to Stevens Creek Toyota. Failures by the Toyota dispatcher at so many levels, distance of tow, nearest dealership and authorization of payment. Seems like a very alpha release of a support system.

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Personally, I would have paid the $20 for the first tow truck to take the car to Stevens Creek, the desired and closer dealership. I then would have documented the car's location, mapped the distances to the two EV Certified Dealers, and mailed a letter to Toyota asking for reimbursement.

Per Toyota's own web site - http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/2013/rav4ev/toyota-care.html

ToyotaCare features 24-hour roadside assistance on your RAV4 EV for those days when you need a tire changed or a door unlocked. Plus, as a RAV4 EV owner, your vehicle includes an additional year of roadside assistance, for a total of three (3) years from the date of purchase. If necessary, a service provider will tow the vehicle to the closest Authorized Toyota RAV4 EV Dealer within 100 miles of the vehicle’s location. If the vehicle is located in excess of 100 miles from an Authorized Toyota RAV4 EV Dealer, then the vehicle will be towed to the nearest Toyota dealer and the customer will be responsible for additional towing charges to return the vehicle to an Authorized Toyota RAV4 EV Dealer, if necessary.

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Just got a call from the service rep at Stevens Creeks Toyota. He said they replaced a Tesla "grip service plug". Not sure what that part is or does. The rep said that Tesla said it has had this part fail before.

The car now moves. They are charging it and will do two test drives before returning it to me (I should check the tires to see if there is excessive wear from the test drives).

I'll get a part number and better explanation when I pick up the car.

I'm glad it has only been in the shop for 4 days and it is not ECU gateway. I do miss my car.

Douglas
1554

SneakyFast1 said:

Just got a call from the service rep at Stevens Creeks Toyota. He said they replaced a Tesla "grip service plug". Not sure what that part is or does.

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Toyota hybrids have a service plug that disconnect the HV battery.

https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfoPortal/staticcontent/en/techinfo/html/prelogin/docs/rav4evdisman2nd.pdf has a reference to it.

You can get to the above and the ERG via https://techinfo.toyota.com/public/main/erg.htm.

Side note: The Gen 1 Rav4 EV had some Engrish that an owner showed me. Inside the car was a label that said "service prug".

Cwerdna,

Thanks for the information. I love these points in the manual:

4. Carry the removed service plug grip in your pocket to prevent other staff from accidentally reinstalling it while you are dismantling the vehicle.
5. Make other staff aware that a high-voltage system is being dismantled by using the following sign: CAUTION: HIGH-VOLTAGE. DO NOT TOUCH (see page 19).

I also found that it is $445 retail on the web.

Douglas
1554

Here is what the service wrote:

Found Toyota code P312F INFO 448 found Tesla code BMS F080 will not charge. Ready light will not turn on. Found open service plug. Replaced service plug as needed and cleared all codes road tested 28 miles after charging vehicle. Vehicle is running properly at this time. No codes found in system after repairs.

The part number is G384-0R010 Grip. Service Plu

Drove it home 4 miles. We will see how it holds up today. Have about 40 miles of driving and I'll charge it after that.

Douglas
1554

Tony,

Thanks for the links to the NHTSA. I filed a complaint for this incident.

The car did fine yesterday. I think this issue is fixed.

Douglas
1554