Want to buy a 2014 Rav 4 EV

[cyb593]

I am going tomorrow to look at one of these vehicles. I love Toyota's and love electric cars as i have 2 leafs and love these vehicles also. My main concern are a few things:

1. The Tesla propulsion issue with the whining which is a concern. Did this occur on the 2014. The one i am looking at has 68k miles on it. I will be on the look out when test driving however didn't know if the issue was fixed before this year was made? Is there a way i can get records to see if it has been changed previously?

2. What is the price of fixing that with my own money if that does happen?

3. I cant find any price of how much one of these batteries would cost to replace it.

4. I am buying it from a Nissan dealer and not a toyota dealer , however is there any way to buy that platinum warranty if i dont buy it from a Toyota dealer?

I bought my leafs because i couldn't find one of these in Georgia and never wanted to pay for shipping but now i have one semi close to me i want to make a move but also want to be cautious. Any help would be great. I hope to join the club of owning a rav4 electric.

 

[KurtManz]

1. As far as I know the design is identical between 2012-2014. The only difference is when the car rolled out of the factory. There were no improvements between years.
2. search around the forums. I think you'll find horror stories that repairs of the EV system are thousands of dollars. that's why there are so many threads of people trying to get onto the toyota warranties. To avoid paying for repairs like that.
3. I have never ran across anybody talking about replacing the battery. Check the facebook page, there may be other leads on that. The batteries don't seem to be degrading too rapidly as people are still doing "tony tests" and reporting relatively low degradation even after several years (and some people have put some high milleage on theirs)
4. Yes, I was able to buy a Toyota warranty and bought mine on a 3rd party dealer. That was a year ago on a 2014 (barely over the 3 year mark). It took me about a month and multiple trips to the dealer making my way all the way up their finance team until I found the ultimate manager... With persistence I was able to get one. Search around and you'll see people asking and recommending different dealers around the country trying to get them. It's highly recommended to get one if you can. If you have the vin number you could start the conversation with your nearby toyota dealers before buying.
5. Check under the hood and look for the stickers showing the recalls were done. look in the forum and you should find 2 or 3. Otherwise you'll have to deal with that yourself.
6. If you're in Georgia then you probably already discovered that only the california Toyota mechanics are trained to work on these and that you'll have to deal with scheduling a traveling mechanic.

These are great cars for the right drivers. You'll get a relatively inexpensive, well equipped full size SUV with ~100+ miles of range that has 0 mpg :c)
You will also be living on the edge when it comes to any repairs and of course end-of-life for these cars will be interesting...

So far I've gone through:
1. replace tires (pretty standard)
2. replace 12V battery (replace the oem one before it goes out on you. I had mine go out and was without the car for 2-3 weeks while I did the 'schedule the traveling mechanic' for what turned out to be just clearing an error code

other items that will need attention one day:
1. Replace coolants
2. Break pads? People say they last forever due to the regenerative breaking.
3. the infamous whinny bearings.


People have done cool mods to some. From level 3 chargers, to LED light replacements, adding mud flaps, cargo nets.

 

[asavage]

My 2014's had the charger replaced earlier, and the drive unit (DU) replaced two months ago (at 59k) for noise.

The 'Q' revision of the DU, that seems to have finally quashed the DU noise, did not occur until well after the final production of the RAV4EV, so "all" of ours will eventually have noise (my opinion).

Out-of-pocket for a replacement DU is ~$14k.
Other items that do fail on the RAV4EV and that are unique & expensive:

* Nav system
* Charger
* Inverter
* Heater

You *must* have the Toyota warranty, whether purchased before the first three years are up, or like Kurt & I, the Toyota Used Car warranty. I paid ~$3200 for mine last year. On this car, you really can't do without it, the risk of expensive failure is too high.

Kurt & I are in the Seattle area. I bought my 2014 from basically a used car dealer, and had no problem purchasing a Toyota Used Car warranty from a local Toyota dealer (the same one Kurt used earlier, so he'd "greased the wheels" for me). They require an inspection, about two hours and ~$150. It bought me 5 years and 60k miles.

 

[user 340]

Other items that do fail on the RAV4EV and that are unique & expensive:

* Nav system
* Charger
* Inverter
* Heater

That's a good list. I suggest adding the DC-to-DC converter (failed heater can take out part of it) and the Tesla ECU (computer).

You *must* have the Toyota warranty, whether purchased before the first three years are up, or like Kurt & I, the Toyota Used Car warranty. I paid ~$3200 for mine last year. On this car, you really can't do without it, the risk of expensive failure is too high.

Amen to that! One caveat about the extended warranty. There has been some discussion here that the warranty will cover repairs up to the value of the car when the warranty was purchased. I don't know how that is determined, but you can use the Kelley Blue Book as a rough guide. If you buy a used one at $16K and you replace the DU, I think that kills your extended warranty. Maybe you can buy another one then

 

[asavage]

Thanks for catching the Gateway Computer, I forgot about that one, and they definitely do go bad.

And the DC-to-DC inverter, although I'm reasonably certain, based on past posts, that if the heater takes out the DC-DC, one could have the DC-DC's fuse replaced. It's not an insurmountable obstacle to repair, unlike some of the other items.

 

[smkettner]

My heater is failed. DC-DC still works.

 

[asavage]

Yet another spammer.

 

[rav4nc]

May be we can report and the admin can remove that spamming?

 

[asavage]

When I clicked on the '!' button to report it, the next page stated, "This post has already been reported."