ALL POSTS-No Motor Power/Power Steering, turned off on road

[Tadol]

Interesting - do you think it needs a firmware upgrade? I would hope that if you got the car that recently, it would be pretty much up to date -

I have had essentially zero problems ( as long as you disqualify a screw in one of my tires, which cost me $25 to get fixed ) and am incredibly happy with mine, just crossing the 5k mark. In fact, I just took it in for its 5k checkup, and the dealer ( Berkeley Toyota ) said they didn't do any firmware update because they had had some problems with it. Anyone else hear this? I don't have alot of confidence in them -

I still think this is the best value in an all electric car, and even contemplate getting a second for my wife. Knowing that this is a lease is some comfort, but I can't imagine not buying it at this point. There is absolutely nothing I can find out there that would suit me better or offer a better value -

 

[4min]

Apparently I'm waiting for transmission to be replaced. As far as I could understand without the dealer saying so directly, this is a Tesla part, so I'll have a few weeks to enjoy the loaner Scion FR-S. It's not a bad car actually, and I'll be out of country most of this time anyways, so the timing actually worked out pretty well. Now, if it's not fixed in a month I have enough ground for lemon law return, correct?

 

[cwerdna]

Apparently I'm waiting for transmission to be replaced. As far as I could understand without the dealer saying so directly, this is a Tesla part, so I'll have a few weeks to enjoy the loaner Scion FR-S. It's not a bad car actually, and I'll be out of country most of this time anyways, so the timing actually worked out pretty well

Re: the bolded part, do you mean drive unit? That should contain the motor, gearbox and inverter. Drive unit is definitely a Tesla part.

Wow, FR-S would be a fun loaner car. (Used to have a sports car myself.)

 

[boredcleaner]

I took my RAV in for the same replacement after only 20K miles. I got a Matrix for a loaner, so I'm a little jealous! Fortunately, they only estimate the repair to take 10 hours, so only two days with the Matrix.

 

[cwerdna]

I took my RAV in for the same replacement after only 20K miles. I got a Matrix for a loaner, so I'm a little jealous! Fortunately, they only estimate the repair to take 10 hours, so only two days with the Matrix.

Replacement of?

Eek... Matrix.. bleh. Definitely not an interesting car in my book. If it was at least a Prius or Camry Hybrid....

 

[4min]

Well the service advisor said transmission, and I got no paperwork with more specific details. The dealership also had a Rav4 EV for rent, so even though FR-S is nice I still miss the instant torque of EV. Maybe the fact that I opened a case with Toyota about not getting a loaner right away affected the outcome, as I was told I could get any car that they had for rent. Too bad no Lexuses

It's a shame that they have to replace half the car so soon, but I hope they can make it right this time. A colleague of mine says that electric drivetrain either fail right away or last forever. Given my experience, he's at least 50% right.

 

[TonyWilliams]

The "transmission" (it's just a single speed gear reduction) is replaced as a single unit with the motor and inverter.

All or none.

 

[miimura]

I wonder how much rebuilding is going on with these drive units. Tesla seems to be replacing a significant number (percentage wise) of the early ones both on the RAV and the Model S under warranty. One would think that if there were some improvements made along the way that they would rebuild them with the improvements and send those out for other warranty jobs.

 

[Dianne]

Tadol, I feel the same. Mine's crossed the 19K mile mark and other than a stuck filler door which was easily rectified, she's been perfect (knocking on wood here). I think the filler door sticking closed is something they didn't think about, as with a fuel-hungry car, you'd only open it once a week or so on average. Opening this filler door daily and sometimes 2x daily can create undue stress on certain parts and aspects of this.

 

[4min]

Got the car back - the repair papers indicate 4 calls with Toyota, and traction control unit/liquids replaced. Looks like it wasn't transmission after all. I wonder if disabling traction control would have worked around the issue - will try next time.

 

[boredcleaner]

cwerdna, motor/inverter replacement. 10 hours turns out to be 4 days and counting. I got yelled at by a little old lady yesterday for taking too long at the gas pump refilling the Matrix. I recognized she was right and avoided telling her it was because I hadn't gassed up for over a year and had forgotten the correct mannerisms for doing so. I was a little distracted watching a PiP owner over-fuel his car, spilling gas all over.

 

[cwerdna]

Got the car back - the repair papers indicate 4 calls with Toyota, and traction control unit/liquids replaced. Looks like it wasn't transmission after all. I wonder if disabling traction control would have worked around the issue - will try next time.

Re: the bolded part, really? Can you list the item on your receipt and the part number?

Seems odd they would replace liquids (I'm guessing coolant) when they'd replace a "traction control unit" which sounds like a board to me and thus isn't cooled by any coolant.

 

[boredcleaner]

Finally got the Rav back this afternoon. It is nice and silent again, and I'm sure glad to get away from the Matrix. Not much to report on the write-up that hasn't been reported already. The tech did say it took him nearly four hours to install all of the updates. That seemed odd to me, but I think this was the dealership's first Rav4 EV service.

 

[fusiondynamics]

So this morning driving to work I got the dreaded Check EV System warning on the freeway. I was driving approximately 40-50 mph and I suddenly heard a beep and looked down to see the system warning. Then the car lost all traction power. I was lucky enough to be able to pull over. I turned off and on the car after a few minutes and same error. While sitting waiting for the tow truck after about 20-25 mins I decided to try powering on the car again and found that everything looked normal again. I decided to go ahead and drive to the Berkeley Toyota dealership since it was only a few miles and I could take surface streets from where I broke down. Tow truck was gonna take another hour to get to me.

Also this is one of the few times that I did a extended charge.

So apparently they have another Rav EV in there that they could not figure out what is wrong and awaiting to change the whole traction battery (wonder who's Rav EV is in there, Member here?).

I got a call now that they showed no error logs on the system and found that there was a firmware update available and did that. So I will update this when I get my car back tomorrow.

My car has a vin # over 2000. I currently have 12k miles on it.

 

[evsurfer]

I just reported this incident at http://www.safercar.gov/.

My VIN ends with 1816, and I've been driving my Rav4 EV since July '13. I've put around 6,500 miles so far.

Yesterday 4/24/14 on the way to work, the center panel (navigation screen) started rebooting itself a few times. When I noticed the system was acting funny, I slowed down. Then I saw a warning message about brake system (don't remember the exact word) and then power steering and engine turned off. Luckily I was not on freeway or going fast. However, I was on a busy street. At that point, I was not able to restart the engine. The car just stopped in the middle of a busy 3 lane road! At that point, my pushing the Power button wasn't doing anything. After a few minutes or so, the under-the-hood battery was completely dead and I couldn't even turn on the hazard lights! Before this happened, I had driven about 12 miles from home (after a standard full charge in the previous night).

Anyway, I had to have the Police come to protect other drivers from hitting my car (The police came within 15 minutes) and had to wait around 40 minutes for the tow truck to arrive. Thanks to the police officers, no one or no car was hurt by this incident.

Today 4/25/14, the car is still at a Toyota dealer (Toyota of El Cajon), but they seem to have worked with Toyota and identified the root cause. They told me that there was something wrong with the inverter (or converter) used between the main battery and the small battery and the part would need to be shipped and replaced.

I had a similar system malfunction about two months ago. At that time, I was about to leave my garage and had a warning message about air bag and the under-the-hood small battery went dead like yesterday. When it was jumped, the car started working again. I drove it to Toyota Carlsbad, but they couldn't identified the root cause and simply updated software to the latest version.

Hope this faulty inverter thing is the root cause of the problem I've been having.

Does anyone have the same experience or know whether replacing the inverter will fix the system malfunction I've had?

I should be able to update exactly what the dealer did to fix the issue next week.

 

[miimura]

It sounds like the component you're describing is the DC/DC converter. This provides the energy to charge the 12V battery and power normal accessories. It takes the energy from the traction battery. The inverter is part of the drive unit and it takes the DC power from the traction battery and makes the proper frequency AC power for the traction motor to propel the car.

I think this is the first time that I've heard of the DC/DC converter stopping the car in motion. More commonly, the car is not able to start because the 12V battery is drained from not being properly charged. It's probably just a different failure mode that is actually pulling energy out of the 12V battery instead of simply not charging it.

 

[evsurfer]

Hi miimura,

Thank you for your response and the clarification on converter vs. inverter. I think the dealer was telling me about the faulty converter.

It's probably just a different failure mode that is actually pulling energy out of the 12V battery instead of simply not charging it.

This sounds like what happened to my car. I'll update once I get more information on the fix. Thanks again.

 

[Blastphemy]

My car has a vin # over 2000. I currently have 12k miles on it.

My VIN ends with 1816, and I've been driving my Rav4 EV since July '13. I've put around 6,500 miles so far.

Very sorry to hear about your respective incidents, but glad no one was hurt.

Do either of you know what firmware version you each have for your Rav4 EV?

 

[evsurfer]

My VIN ends with 1816, and I've been driving my Rav4 EV since July '13. I've put around 6,500 miles so far.

Do either of you know what firmware version you each have for your Rav4 EV?

I'm not sure how to find the firmware version. The Software Update screen shows only "VB503150" and "21.210" for the Navigation and Bluetooth systems respectively.

Anyway, Toyota of El Cajon worked with Toyota HQ and identified the root case of my problem. They said that the DC/DC converter wasn't charging the 12V battery properly and the battery also went bad. So they replaced the Dc/DC converter and the 12V battery. I drove the car for 30 miles today, and it is good so far. I'll update this thread if I continue to have the same issue. But, I hope not.

 

[Kohler Controller]

One would think the "12V Warning Light" would have illuminated just like when the alternator dies in an ICE car. If the voltage of the 12V aux battery drops below 13V while "ON", then it should know the DC/DC is not charging it and throw a warning well before it drops below 8V (or whatever voltage causes the system to open up the relays).