Another recall for Toyota owners

Friday 14 February 2014

Jersey’s Toyota dealer says they will contact any customers with Prius models affected by the manufacturer’s recall over the possibility that the cars could stop without warning.

Freelance Jersey say they don’t know how many customers locally will be affected by the news from Toyota that almost 31,000 UK-registered Prius cars manufactured between March 2009 and February 2014 need to be recalled.

The car manufacturer, which has had a number of recalls in recent years, says there’s a potential problem with the hybrid system’s boost converter software.

Freelance Jersey’s Service Manager Shane Carre said: “When a recall comes out, what we don’t have is a vehicle listing and that takes a little bit of time.

“We’re still waiting for confirmation. We don’t know if it’s going to be everyone. Customers with affected vehicles will be mailed as soon as we have the information ourselves and we can check their cars.”

Toyota say all customers can check whether their vehicle is affected using a registration look-up function in the owners section of the main Toyota website.

Although there have been no reports of any accidents or injuries relating to the problem, the boost converter is needed when driving with a high system load, for example when accelerating hard from standstill.

In a statement the manufacturer said: “Toyota has identified that the software setting could lead to higher thermal stress occurring in certain insulated-gate bipolar transistors in the boost converter which may lead to them deforming or being damaged. 
Should this happen, warning lights may be illuminated and the car is likely to switch to “failsafe” operation – it can still be driven, but with reduced power. In limited cases the hybrid system may shut down, causing the vehicle to stop. The driver will not experience any change in the vehicle’s behaviour or performance prior to the problem occurring.”

Owners will hear within the coming weeks whether they need to make an appointment for their vehicle to get the software update needed. It will take about 40 minutes to complete and Toyota say it will be carried out free of charge.            

If owners require additional information they can contact Toyota Recall Helpline on 0800 1388744.