Entunes problems

[tridub]

I just thought of something stupid...

Why hasn't Toyota heard the same Entune complaint from legions of Prius drivers, who surely must have the same remote-climate app that the RAV4 EV does? That's one of the best features that only an EV or a hybrid can really do anytime, anywhere, because you wouldn't want to start an ICE in your closed garage unless you had a death wish. Does anyone know if any Prius model has this capability? If so, does it work right now? Ditto for any other Toyota or Lexus hybrids.

Only plug-ins have enough battery to do a meaningful remote climate. So, that's the RAV4 EV and the Plug-In Prius only, within the Toyota and Lexus product lines. I don't know anyone with a PiP well enough to inquire about their status.

Thanks. That's news you can use. I love the remote-climate feature, so I won't even consider buying a Toyota that doesn't plug in. Now I guess I need to start lurking on PiP sites so I can find out if they're having Entune problems too. I wonder how many of those have been sold. Their EV range was so short that I was never interested...

 

[eschatfische]

So, this is happening to me too, and I've gone ahead and called this one in.

Let me be blunt, I've called this in every year since I've owned the vehicle, and I'm sick of it. I've sort of joked that I own the "magic" RAV4 EV in the past, since my 2012 still has great range, charges on-time every night with the built-in charge timer, never had the "Check EV System" error, and we're over 50,000 miles. We even had the motor replaced due to excessive noise, and it was handled well by Palo Alto. But Entune? Yep, Entune breaks every 10-14 months, just like it does for the rest of you. It's certainly broken this time, no doubt.

I've called it in every year, and I'm persistent, and it ends up getting fixed. At this point, I can say "go back in my notes, and you'll see that I've called this in and it hasn't been an issue with the car itself" with the phone reps, and that seems to have worked. I've been promised a call-back from Paul on Monday, and I'm sure I can convince Paul to escalate it if he hasn't already.

But man, Toyota. I have to say, this is bad form. It's not that hard to keep an online service running. It's not this hard to create a customer service department who can help you escalate a problem that has literally nothing to do with the car itself. Any future car I buy will be with a car company who has a basic understanding of customer service.

 

[miimura]

Any future car I buy will be with a car company who has a basic understanding of customer service.

How about this one:

"Any future car I buy will be with a car company who has a basic understanding of how their own telematics systems work."

 

[davewill]

The Plug-in Prius doesn't have remote climate triggered from your phone, just a button on the remote that can trigger it locally. The regular Prius has the same button.

 

[michael]

I have been relying on Ravcharge to initiate a charge at 4 AM every morning because the built in charge timer has so much "slop" in its start time. Today I'm short of charge because Ravcharge was unable to do its job as a result of the Entune failure.

This is a hassle. Toyota owes us a fix.

 

[nipulpatel]

I called my issue in again on Friday and the best they could say was for me to go to the dealership and they'd handle the issue. I told them that I don't believe it's a car hardware issue as my Rav4 sends the Entune app the range every time it's finished charging and when I've run and then stopped the car after a trip...so obviously the car was communicating. They were adamant that I take it to the dealership and they's know what to do...or they'd call them back.

This is ridiculous...but i see it's 'par for the course' in after reading the rest of the posts on this issue.

 

[Luckyduckie]

I have been relying on Ravcharge to initiate a charge at 4 AM every morning because the built in charge timer has so much "slop" in its start time. Today I'm short of charge because Ravcharge was unable to do its job as a result of the Entune failure.

This is a hassle. Toyota owes us a fix.

Maybe go back to scheduled charging? It's been working for the last 10 months without fail (touch wood). :lol:

 

[michael]

It's a little more complex than that. I do extended charges most of the time, so I try to complete the charge as close as possible to the departure time (so as to minimize the time the car sits at a high SOC).

Actual departure is around 7 AM, but the scheduled charging will get it done many hours earlier. I've found setting it for 10 AM gets it done around 6, provided the car is at a low state of charge (starts around midnight).

But if the car is already mostly charged up, the scheduler doesn't give so much leeway. That's why I use Ravcharge to kick it off at 4 AM if it hasn't yet started. The combination of the two has worked quite well.

But with Entune not working, the backup 4 AM timer start doesn't work, so Monday I was in trouble because the car was already pretty well charged Sunday night.

Grrrr.

 

[michael]

I called my issue in again on Friday and the best they could say was for me to go to the dealership and they'd handle the issue. I told them that I don't believe it's a car hardware issue as my Rav4 sends the Entune app the range every time it's finished charging and when I've run and then stopped the car after a trip...so obviously the car was communicating. They were adamant that I take it to the dealership and they's know what to do...or they'd call them back.

This is ridiculous...but i see it's 'par for the course' in after reading the rest of the posts on this issue.

Pretty much what you'd expect from a company that has adopted fool cell technology

 

[michael]

Looks like it's fixed!!

 

[tridub]

It's finally working for me too! Based on previous Entune outages like this, do you long-time RAVers expect Toyota to tell us what their problem was, or just say, "what problem?"

I fully understand that the RAV4 EV was just a "compliance car" that Toyota was unfairly forced to build by the fascist government crap weasels in Sacramento, and they probably lost money on every unit sold. I also realize that Toyota continues to lose money every time they have to do any kind of warranty service on our beloved golden unicorns. So, I sympathize with Toyota's position, and I wouldn't really blame them for resenting this vehicle and every poor sap who bought one. However, I had hoped that Toyota would have tried to make the best out of this sad situation by using it as an opportunity to promote their overall brand to customers who, like me, may never have owned a Toyota before. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, so I am not only having second thoughts about my recent RAV purchase...I would now have reservations about buying any Toyota product.

By contrast, my Nissan LEAF was quiet and dependable. I think the only time the remote app stopped working for an extended period was due to a security flaw that some white-hat hackers found. And during this app outage, which Nissan fully acknowledged, owners could still control their cars via any web browser. I am not aware of any similar back-up capability for our RAV's. I read that Nissan played some games with LEAF battery problems a few years ago, but my experience with my 2015 LEAF was all good. If it had more range, I would still be driving it. I would not hesitate to buy another Nissan, or recommend them to my friends, but I can't say the same for Toyota right now. I hope my opinion changes.

 

[tridub]

Oh yeah, I know that RAVcharge exists, and it's pretty cool. But it couldn't fix this particular Entune problem.

 

[Larry_in_Seattle]

Spoke with Kevin Spillane today about my recall seat belt fix, a topic that came up on the phone call to Toyota about Entunes.

The long and the short of it: He said that for a specialty car that was never purposed for widespread distribution and that dealers outside of the limited few were never going to have that car to deal with that we should be "thankful" for all the support Toyota HAS given us. That they HAVE helped owners in other states (including me for the 1st recall in WA), etc, etc, at a substantial cost to Toyota.

What I told him was that ALL of this "hassle" and time-sink could be avoided if they'd simply told dealers nationwide/worldwide that if someone shows up at their door with a RAV4 EV, welcome them warmly and offer to contact the specialist (Kevin) to set up the work to be done. Instead, when problems arose I've drovem to at least 6 local dealers, taken time from multiple people at those dealerships, elevated it up to their service managers or owners, who then contacted some regional office, who then contacted corporate, who then told me to call the 800 number.

OK, so last week I called the 800 number and talked with 2 people directly - each of whom puts me on hold to bring others into the discussion. I spent 1 hour and 15 minutes on the phone with Toyota corporate and the issue STILL wasn't resolved. Then today I got the call from Kevin.

If they really wanted to streamline this and make it as cost effective as possible, send out a service memo to every dealer and set the stage properly. 1st by respecting the RAV4 EV owner and thanking them for being a Toyota customer, and then by taking the lead in contacting Kevin to make sure the proper steps are taken. Instead of disenfranchising us from the Toyota brand, they should treat us with respect and courtesy. Now I must await a return call from the local dealer to coordinate me coming BACK to their shop to have the seat-belt work done.

Very frustrated that somehow it's OUR fault that they don't have a clue on how to treat customers.

 

[nipulpatel]

My app started working today as well! I was able to check the range status as well as start the remote climate.

 

[user 340]

Thank goodness that the Entune charge activation is working again.

It is clear that Toyota believes that the 'EV' in our car's name stands for Experimental Vehicle.

 

[davewill]

... The long and the short of it: He said that for a specialty car that was never purposed for widespread distribution and that dealers outside of the limited few were never going to have that car to deal with that we should be "thankful" for all the support Toyota HAS given us. That they HAVE helped owners in other states (including me for the 1st recall in WA), etc, etc, at a substantial cost to Toyota. ...

I love the way he ignores the fact that Toyota's warranty obligations are OBLIGATIONS. People and cars move around (duh!) and Toyota has to deal with that.

 

[TonyWilliams]

... The long and the short of it: He said that for a specialty car that was never purposed for widespread distribution and that dealers outside of the limited few were never going to have that car to deal with that we should be "thankful" for all the support Toyota HAS given us. That they HAVE helped owners in other states (including me for the 1st recall in WA), etc, etc, at a substantial cost to Toyota. ...

I love the way he ignores the fact that Toyota's warranty obligations are OBLIGATIONS. People and cars move around (duh!) and Toyota has to deal with that.

Using Kevin's argument about a limited production car, I absolutely guarantee that they bend over backwards for Toyota hydrogen car owners, and there's only hundreds of those.

At least they don't have to worry about those getting out-of-state!!! No place to refuel.

 

[tridub]

Do we even know what the Entune problem/solution was this time, or every time? It would be nice to know, so we can tell Toyota exactly what needs to be fixed when this happens next year. Did they just have to reboot a server, or sacrifice a virgin, or what?

 

[davewill]

... or sacrifice a virgin, or what?

Probably a factory rebuilt virgin, and they probably only scare them a little.

 

[dstjohn99]

Is Entune down AGAIN? I can't update my charge status or initiate a charge remotely this morning. I had to walk ALL THE WAY to my car to manually restart a failed / interrupted charge. It was almost 300 yards away!