Recall Story

So this morning at 7:40 in the morning, an hour which I am usually perched safely at my desk uploading news of the day to this site, I was at my Toyota dealer, Lancaster Toyota, to have my recall servicing done. Since I had to wait for the car anyway, Lancaster Toyota was kind enough to let me take some photos while the work was being done to share with you here. The idea being, here’s what they’re going to do to your Prius. Here’s the part and here’s how long it takes.

The entire operation is painless. My servicing took little more than an hour. Of course, there is no cost as it’s Toyota’s recall, not a regular service.

You can click on any of these thumbnails to see a much larger, higher resolution version

There’s my Prius up on the rack.

Steve Boyer is the Service Team Leader for me. He coordinates all the appointments and makes sure everything is as it should. Steve was kind enough to let me peer over Toyota Technician, Carlos’s shoulder for some of work being performed. Carlos was also very patient and took the time to display the parts and explain, in part, what he was doing. To say I was impressed with Carlos would be an understatement. He was polite, articulate and very professional. Typically, in a service setting, technicians hate being watched. Carlos displayed nothing but an extremely gracious attitude while I was in the garage and stopped numerous times to explain what he was doing or show me a part.

Here’s the new part, before it was installed.

The part being replaced was referred to as an intermediate steering arm. It’s a small arm not unlike a tiny drive shaft with what appear to be universal joints at each end. One end connects just above the floorboards of the vehicle and the other, just beneath them, outside the interior of the car proper.

Here are three shots of where the steering arm is in the vehicle, where you would expect, under the steering wheel.

Two shots from the recall guide Carlos referred to during the service.

The shiny bolt in the image to the right is the lower portion of the steering shaft being replaced. There is normally a rubber boot over this, Carlos is kind enough here to hold back so I can get an image of the arm in-situ, from the outside.

The car is down on the ground and now that the inspection part of the service is done, he’ll complete it by replacing the shaft.

Just a plug for my Service Team, GO SILVER!

Here’s Carlos worming his way into the car to remove the old shaft.

It’s weird stuff like this that always impresses me. Here Carlos has, very carefully centered the steering wheel and he’s secured in place with the seat belt so he doesn’t knock it out of center while he replaces the shaft.

Here are the old shaft and the new shaft. The new one is on the left and you can tell because of the round “hole” in the lower portion. That differentiates between the new one and the older ones.

Once again, thanks to Steve and Carlos for the patience and for their excellent work.

All in all, I can say that you really shouldn’t worry about the recall. Yeah, it’s an hour of your life but I think Toyota is doing the right thing by proactively recalling the cars that could possibly be affected rather than waiting to see where, if any, problems occur. As I understand there has not been a single reported problem with this steering shaft but Toyota engineers determined that the part did not meet their standards. So they issued the recall. If my car has to undergo a recall, those are the circumstances I would prefer. Given that the work costs me nothing, was done quickly and extremely professionally, I have no qualms about it whatsoever. I feel better about my Prius than ever before.

if you’re in the area, I highly recommend my dealer, Lancaster Toyota. My daughter just bought her first car with them. You can visit their page here o the POG or visit their site directly by clicking on the banner below.

If you have a recall story you’d like to share, email me. I’ll be glad to post it!

russell@priusownersgroup.com