Ugh. In an accident.

My son rear-ended somebody and smooshed the front end. The repair is up to $7500 so far (thankfully covered by insurance), but they disconnected the battery etc. and now they can't get it to start. They had to tow it to Toyota, where I assume it will sit until the regional tech guy can come over and even then who knows. Last year when they replaced the heater etc. they couldn't get it restarted for over a month until someone accidentally did something that made it start, so I am worried. I saw the post about baking the car not to exceed 145 degrees, so I guess I will have to tell the body shop about that.

Anyway, wish me luck and send any advice my way.

If I had to guess what was wrong with your vehicle, it is that when they reinstalled the main traction battery disconnect wrong.

It was to be put in the proper way. This is very common for people who are not familiar with it and there is a specific technique involved.

If you tell me the dealer name I will be happy to contact them and instruct them on the correct way to do it.

Thanks Tony! The dealer is Boulder Toyota, and the guy I'm working with is named Chris at 303-415-3355. This is a Colorado dealer, so they are not allowed to do anything other than diagnostics. They have sent the diagnostics to Toyota, and now are waiting for the Denver regional tech to come work on the car. I do not have his number or contact info as they clearly want to have a buffer between the customer and the tech. I think if you told Chris the info, he could pass it on. I'm not sure how else to approach it. The body shop obviously messed around with stuff, but I don't think Boulder Toyota will step out of bounds, but who knows; if it's easy, maybe they'll try it!

BTW, my not ad hoc street side charging station using the Jesla and the 40 ft extension has been working great. I just curl it up on a hose caddy on my porch, and when I need to charge, I plug it into the outlet and snake it across the sidewalk to my car. I put a heavy rubber mat over the cord at the sidewalk to prevent a tripping hazard. Question: is the Jesla safe to leave outside in winter, or should I store it inside? It can get below 0 degrees F occasionally.

Ramona Boersma

Like Tony said.

That or they did the battery disconnect (under the passenger's seat) and forgot to reconnect it.

Sorry about your accident...took a long time for insurance to agree to all the repairs on mine. I'm out of CA and had to have the battery disconnected during my repairs. The local dealer had never done it before. I printed instructions from Tony and left them with service...not sure they used them but his instructions are very clear.

Mike

JESLA is safe outdoors, but don't let the connectors or "brick" sit in standing water.

I'd recommend a simple plastic cover over the brick in heavy rain.

Just a follow-up. Supposedly, they had to fly someone in from California (not sure what happened to the Denver tech from last year). All that had happened was the starter battery died/was disconnected, which caused a number of error codes that needed to be cleared before it would start. Altogether, the smooshed front end cost over $8000 to repair!!! Parts were super expensive. They repaired the hood, but otherwise replaced everything else in the front (bumper, headlights, ev logo, some coolant lines, etc). It took 1 1/2 months, but I'm glad to have it back.

You're lucky you didn't have to replace the windshield as well. A rock popped up and cracked mine mid August. It took 3 months to get a new one installed (they had to have it shipped from Japan!).

Glad yours is fixed up.

USAA Auto Insurance will repair rock chips for free.

You have to fix it prior to a crack.