Check EV System warning message

[Vach]

Got my car back:

Converter $2200
Gateway $3700
Heater $2700

Total bill for warranty $10,770

It drove fine to the Arby's fast food joint. No EV message yet :?

The printout had a DTC code 552, if that helps anybody. Could be for the heater failure.

How much was your charge port inlet fix? Toyota should have sold you a 40kWh Model S.

Charge port, about $2,000

Motor reportedly $30,000, but the bill showed $0.01

We already know the battery is $36,000

I'm astonished they haven't offered (or demanded) to lemon out the car yet. They replaced the motor?

I'm at 2700 miles and nothing yet. Maybe I'm lucky.

 

[gary2020]

So my wife tried starting the car this morning as usual.
Said would not start. Looked down at the screen and saw the EV system error that said to take to dealer.
She tried twice to start no luck.

Then maybe 1 minute later and I tried and started the car, with the same message on the screen.
Turn the car off. Started again with the same message on the screen.
Left it in the driveway.

Came back at 3pm, car starts again fine with same error message.

I then plugged it in for 1 minute, unplugged it and started with no error messages.

Took it for a 15 mile drive, freeway, local, had dinner,came back, no problems.

I read this whole thread and if i took it in now, it would not be reproducible so they probably would not do anything.
Or am i wrong on this?

Will keep you all posted.
I know Seamonster had similar issue initially and then had to bring it in.
Well today is day 1 of the issue so i'll see if the error reoccurs.

Car has 1500 miles on it, had for less than 2 months.
Had 81 miles left on the charge...nothing special, just another morning when it would not start.
I bought from the dealer in redwood city in san francisco bay area so just across the bay from tesla but i doubt the proximity will expedite the typically 2 weeks diagnosis period that most have experienced with this issue at the dealer.

Will charge overnight and see what happens...have about 60 miles on it now.
weather have been very temperate to warm (not hot), and certainly not cold.
The schedule charge startup does not work on my car...maybe some correlation with that with this ev system error?

it's a diff thread by i wonder what is the % of rav4ev users where the schedule chargeup actually works?
is it 10%? 50% or 90% of the car owners?

I mean i've read many saw it doesn't work but do we really have any idea what percentage roughly?

 

[miimura]

There seems to be two severity levels to the EV System Error - one intermittent and one persistent. With the intermittent failure, you can clear the EV System Error by turning the car on and off 5 times. There was a service bulletin issued by Toyota regarding charging station compatibility. In that bulletin they give instructions to press the start button twice without your foot on the brake (to turn on ACC, then turn ON) and wait for the startup sequence to complete. If the error is still there, turn it off and repeat up to 4 more times. This has worked for some people with the Check EV System error also.
The persistent failure appears to be a complete failure of the Gateway ECU that bridges the Toyota ECU and the Tesla ECU and obviously cannot be cleared with the above procedure and the car will not drive. One owner in Washington state has suffered a loss of power while driving when the error first appeared.

Regarding the scheduled charging, I think everyone has the charge start early. However, for many people, myself included, it doesn't matter much. The percentage of owners that are experiencing completely missed scheduled charge events will be hard to gauge. There are probably many owners who don't come to the forum at all, and others who only come when they have trouble with the car. At best, we could gauge a percentage of active forum members who are experiencing those failures.

 

[SeaMonster]

I recommend taking the car in for service. First, you want to get this documented. Second, they seem to be learning more about this and they might just be able to do something, even though the problem does not persist. ECUs are supposed to record all errors and save them, not just show them while the error is occurring. Assuming that it does, they may be able to address it.

 

[evbuddy]

Looks like my car is in a worse shape than it went in.

I went in driving, Check EV System light on. Now service guys are telling me that their computer cant even communicate with the
vehicle. They tried upgrading some thing and likely have messed up. They claim it is out their hand, toyota and tesla are talking and they are waiting for instructions. This sucks.

I called the Toyota Customer relations and reported the issue. The customer relation rep was great. He wants other owners having the
problem call them and let know the issue.

The phone # is 800 331 4331. Calling and reporting the issue should hopefully raises the seriousness of the issue and urgency to act upon.

 

[Vach]

I am going to have to side with Tony on one of his earlier points and agree that this is probably going to turn to a recall if enough people have issues about it. right now if they keep replacing the ECU on each car they're basically losing money on the sale and losing money on fixing things and then losing money with service rep hours that basically don't do anything but look at it.

Balls.

 

[ground_gainer]

So... what happens if they do a recall? Do they hopefully have a fix for all of us or do they just junk them all and give us our money back? Unfortunately there's not anything else like the Rav4 EV out there in the price range. I'm not really interested in another car right now.

 

[Vach]

Yea, me neither. The idea bugs me because my next alternative is a hybrid due to not being able to afford the Teslas.

I'm not actually sure how the recall process works. Did anyone have a prius when they had that recall?

 

[the2bobs]

My consistent "Check EV System" error message that developed Saturday night forced me to take it into the dealer Monday morning even though I really would have benefited from the HOV stickers for my drive. Unfortunately, it wouldn't even let me put it in gear until I restarted it 8 times. I have the Toyota recommended Leviton charger so there shouldn't be any compatibility issues there. The local dealership didn't have any loaner cars available which really pissed me off since I needed to be at a meeting and wasn't thrilled about having to rent a car at cost. They called later in the day and said that a firmware update cleared the issue and I could pick it up though. When I arrived today (I was out of town yesterday) the "Check EV System" light was on when they brought it to me!!!

After an uncomfortable conversation (for them) they're going to fly someone from Toyota in Thursday morning to look at it. I live ~ 15 minutes away from Torrance which is Toyota HQ so I'm not sure I believe the "flying someone in" bit but at least someone with a little more experience will be looking into it. This time I got a loaner car at least (non-hybrid Camry) but overall I'm very unhappy that a car I've had for a month with 570 miles on it is having this problem. I don't mind a few hiccups to be on the leading edge but from what I'm seeing here these aren't isolated problems. FWIW, between the error being cleared with the firmware update and the Check EV System light coming on there was a charge (at the dealer from the Leviton EVSE). I'm not sure if it's related at all or if anyone else has had this problem triggered by a charge (my initial error screen wasn't) but this really needs to be resolved.

 

[evbuddy]

About " Toyota recommended Leviton charger". I was asked what charger I was using..This is BS. There are public charging stations that are non-leviton and I have used them with out issues.

As long has it level 2 and J1772, car must handle. They can not use "Toyota Recommended" as a crutch. The lack of understanding about these vehicles at all functions of dealer ship is unbelievable.

 

[ground_gainer]

About " Toyota recommended Leviton charger". I was asked what charger I was using..This is BS. There are public charging stations that are non-leviton and I have used them with out issues.

As long has it level 2 and J1772, car must handle. They can not use "Toyota Recommended" as a crutch. The lack of understanding about these vehicles at all functions of dealer ship is unbelievable.

It's definitely BS but it looks like they're getting it from corporate and it's been the message for awhile: http://green.autoblog.com/2012/11/06/toyota-warns-that-rav4-ev-might-display-warning-at-some-level-2/

 

[n3ckf]

Im wondering.

Should we do a list on the site of every VIN of a vehicle that has experienced the Screen of Death?
I'm at 700ish miles in my first month of ownership and i'm kind of wondering if this is in my future too...

 

[snoltor]

Toyota is on a steep learning curve right now. I had my Corolla for 8+ years without a single issue. But they are making those things by the millions (200 - 300,000 Corolla sales per year in the US) and so they have production for that car down to a science. Whereas we have the first couple hundred of a car that was pushed to market pretty quickly. I'm at 1100 miles and if the problem crops up on my car I'll drop it off, get a loaner and wait till it's fixed. This is my first EV and it's a blast to drive. Love it. I think a recall is possible but not until Toyota and Tesla figure out exactly what's been going wrong. All the posts on this discussion point to the likely culprit so let's hope they get it solved.

About " Toyota recommended Leviton charger". I was asked what charger I was using..This is BS.

 

[cwerdna]

.
The persistent failure appears to be a complete failure of the Gateway ECU that bridges the Toyota ECU and the Tesla ECU and obviously cannot be cleared with the above procedure and the car will not drive. One owner in Washington state has suffered a loss of power while driving when the error first appeared.

Whoever that person is should file a safety complaint at http://www.safercar.gov/.

 

[miimura]

Before they can issue a recall and fix all the cars in the field, they have to figure out why and how they made bad parts to begin with. Then they have to make new parts and test them to make sure they're more reliable in the field than the original. This is going to take a long time. I'm just waiting to see how long it will take for a car with a replaced Gateway ECU to get the the Check EV System error again.

I think it's interesting that there was a story today about similar failures in the Focus Electric.
Story on Autoblog Green

 

[cwerdna]

I am going to have to side with Tony on one of his earlier points and agree that this is probably going to turn to a recall if enough people have issues about it.

It will likely only be a recall if it's a safety defect or non-compliance w/FMVSS. Some of the cases reported here do qualify (IMHO) as safety defects.

If no recall, sometimes Toyota does do SSC (Special Service Campaign) or LSC (Limited Service Campaign).

I had my Prius' inverter pump replaced under LSC-A0N (http://priuschat.com/threads/lsc-a0n-hv-inverter-water-pump-dealer-letter-and-technical-instructions.87161/).

So... what happens if they do a recall? Do they hopefully have a fix for all of us or do they just junk them all and give us our money back?

Highly unlikely they'd junk the cars and give you a refund. That's a total last resort.

I'm not actually sure how the recall process works. Did anyone have a prius when they had that recall?

See http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/recalls/recallprocess.cfm.

As for Prius recall, it depends on what the recall was. There was a recall involving the Toyota floor mats during the whole SUA PR fiasco but I don't have those, so that was n/a. Dealer made a note that I had aftermarket mats. Another part of the prevention of the pedal becoming entrapped under a mat was to trim the bottom of the accelerator. It was done w/o asking me. They told me after the fact when I'd brought my car in for something else (oil change, I think). I was told that if I wasn't satisfied w/the the pedal feel after trimming, they could order a replacement. I have no qualms w/it.

I recently did have steering shaft recall done on my Prius. See the PDF I linked to at http://priuschat.com/threads/steering-recall.122697/#post-1749975 for some details.

The PDFs at http://priuschat.com/threads/2004-2009-prius-recall-for-steering-and-water-pump-issue.118199/#post-1680899 and http://priuschat.com/threads/2004-2009-prius-recall-for-steering-and-water-pump-issue.118199/#post-1680905 have background info on those recalls.

Unfortunately, since I had my inverter water pump replaced per my request via LSC-A0N, I was ineligible for another replacement pump via the C0U recall. I'd heard anecdotal reports that the pumps received via LSC-A0N weren't lasting that long. That's a separate story...

During the 2010 Prius (I don't have one of those) brake ECU recall (software update), the Priuschat founder/admin posted http://priuschat.com/threads/2010-toyota-prius-abs-brake-recall-in-less-than-a-minute.76127/.

The Prius Product Manager (marketing guy) also post this info: http://priuschat.com/threads/toyota-announces-voluntary-recall-on-2010-my-prius.76033/ and http://priuschat.com/threads/prius-brake-recall-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9C-a-little-more-information.76158/.

I've had other recall work done on other cars. I usually just brought it in saying I wanted it done or they tell me that there's pending recall work that I should have done. I usually receive a notification via snail mail, but since I'm an enthusiast usually about cars I own, I tend to know about it well before the notifications come out. Sometimes when I know, the dealers don't even have the parts yet so they can't do the work anyway.

Hopefully this is somewhat insightful. Usually, for recalls found on safercar.gov, you can do a document search and find all the associated documents (correspondence between automaker and NHTSA, some high-level analysis, notifications, remedy procedure, etc.)

edit: Procedure is easier now. You can now just click on the associated documents link for the recall entry.

About " Toyota recommended Leviton charger". I was asked what charger I was using..This is BS. There are public charging stations that are non-leviton and I have used them with out issues.

As long has it level 2 and J1772, car must handle.

The charger is inside your car. The Leviton "charger", charging stations you refer to and the L1 charging cord set that comes w/the car are all EVSE.

Obviously, the Rav4 EV has some compatibility problems w/certain J1772 EVSEs. But, unfortunately, such compatibility probs aren't unique to this vehicle.

 

[cwerdna]

I called the Toyota Customer relations and reported the issue. The customer relation rep was great. He wants other owners having the
problem call them and let know the issue.

The phone # is 800 331 4331. Calling and reporting the issue should hopefully raises the seriousness of the issue and urgency to act upon.

Yes, folks experiencing the problem should call.

See http://priuschat.com/threads/prius-brake-recall-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9C-a-little-more-information.76158/page-2#post-1061546 for some background as to why. (And yes, Doug was the Prius Product Manager at the time of the post. I have met him 2x before at official Prius events.)

 

[AvLegends]

I think it's interesting that there was a story today about similar failures in the Focus Electric.
Story on Autoblog Green

Misery loves company At least we are not alone!

Sounds like a similar issue to our Check EV System message...

Here as well...
http://insideevs.com/open-letter-from-owner-about-focus-electric-drive-failure-and-the-stop-safely-now-warning/

At least Ford, from what I understand, developed their own technology. You would think they would be able to jump on the problem and get it solved for customers right away... unlike for many of us left in the lurches between the secrecy squabble between Tesla and Toyota... resulting in a two week stay in the shop that really should be 2-3 days! :roll:

I guess the lack of urgency to correct problems associated with the very limited number of compliance vehicles produced is not limited to Toyota...

Didn't Mr. Spock say in The Wrath of Kahn... "The needs of the many (Toyota's bottom line) outweigh the needs of the few (Rav4 EV owners... us)"?

 

[qwk]

This sounds like the direct result of making things complicated by introducing Toyota parts into a Tesla drivetrain. There was simply no need for a Toyota computer that needs to communicate with Tesla hardware and software. It looks like it would have been a lot simpler to just use the entire Tesla system(including the Tesla charging plug), instead of picking parts and pieces.

I was going to buy a Rav4 EV, but I opted for the Model S instead. Very glad I did that.

 

[SeaMonster]

I was going to buy a Rav4 EV, but I opted for the Model S instead. Very glad I did that.

I'm considering a Tesla for my next car, but the math doesn't work for me. Comparing the Rav4 to the Tesla you get about 2/3rds the car for 2/5ths the price. I'm not criticizing your decision in the least, but I'm finding it hard to make it work for me. I'm leaning strongly towards buying another Rav4 EV. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.