[stevesol]

Has anyone ever had an incident where the volume control on the audio system failed to work? I was driving this morning and noticed that the volume control wouldn't respond at all. Not on the dash and not on the steering wheel. I couldn't do ANYTHING with audio except switch modes or turn it on/off... I couldn't change the balance, bass, treble... nothing. I also lost ALL of the feedback beeps from the tactile display. The other screens (climate, NAV) functioned normally, just without beeps. Later in the day when I fired it up to drive home, everything was normal. Gremlins?

P.S. I found out what the STUPIDEST animal on the face of the earth is.

HINT:
An animal that encounters a road with an oncoming car will do one of three things:

A- Watch you from a distance
B- Run away
C- Decide to run RIGHT INTO THE SIDE OF YOUR PRIUS as you drive by it.

This animal selected choice C from the depths of its pea sized brain.

Answer: A deer.

I am SO CAREFUL with my car... I park at the fringes of parking lots to avoid car door dings, shopping carts, and spacially challenged drivers. I never thought I'd be attacked by a crazed deer. The stupid thing ran off into the woods. I have to go the body shop to get two side panels fixed. Sheesh!

 

[SkipHuffman]

C- Decide to run RIGHT INTO THE SIDE OF YOUR PRIUS as you drive by it.

I had a cat run into my ankle while I was riding my scooter. I had braked to avoid hitting it as it sauntered across the road. It ran right as I passed it turned back and ran into my ankle. Bounced off and skeedadled into the bushes. I doubt it did more than ring its bell. Weird animal. I have seen it since.

 

[mrv]

interesting - usually the deer I see will actually look both ways on the road before crossing! that's much better than the children (and their parents) in my neighborhood...

I was on a bicycle once and a dog came out to bark at me. I slowed down to go around it, but it kept moving... Eventually I actually ran into it (albiet at a really slow wobble), but the dog stood its ground - the middle of the road!

 

[aklarson]

Hey -- did you ever figure this out? I'm having the same trouble -- exact same symptoms.

-- Aron

Has anyone ever had an incident where the volume control on the audio system failed to work? I was driving this morning and noticed that the volume control wouldn't respond at all. Not on the dash and not on the steering wheel. I couldn't do ANYTHING with audio except switch modes or turn it on/off... I couldn't change the balance, bass, treble... nothing. I also lost ALL of the feedback beeps from the tactile display. The other screens (climate, NAV) functioned normally, just without beeps. Later in the day when I fired it up to drive home, everything was normal. Gremlins?

 

[stevesol]

Aron,

It just went away after a restart and hasn't been back since. One time glitch?

Steve

 

[MUGlover]

Man, I'd pay to turn the screen beeps off. I'd skip the deer thing though. Deer are not kind to cars and you were very lucky.

To put stupidity in perspective, the deer knows little of cars and cannot tell which ones (if ANY) are good for the environment. It knows of head-butting to establish dominance, so it took a whack at your car. I say this because of the "running off into the woods" comment, indicating the deer was more or less prepared for some kind of impact and didn't just wander up to your car. You need people walking into the side of a stopped bus for that.

We all feel foolish when a repeated behavior turns out to no longer be the preferred way to act. I still reach to turn the key once in a while, and I had another car many years back with the shift in a different place, so when reaching for what I thought was a shift lever, I merely washed my windows.

 

[kvetchlady]

This happened to me ONCE...and disappeared the next day, when I restarted the car. It hasn't happened since, so I haven't thought about it until I read your post.

 

[DuncanNixon2004]

willow ptarmigan

This generally holds true

Stevesol wrote:
...animals will...
A- Watch you from a distance
B- Run away
C- Decide to run RIGHT INTO THE SIDE OF YOUR PRIUS as you drive by it.

However, the Yukon has a preponderance of willow ptarmigan. Since most birds will move sometime before you hit them you tend to believe that ALL birds will behave similarly. A willow ptarmigan (and probably other ptarmigans) seems to have the idea that if it stays perfectly still you won't see it or hit it or shoot it or something of that idea.

While travelling at 100kmh I generally adopt the philosophy that if it is not that big an animal the risks involved in taking defensive moves are outweighed by the safety of continuing in a straight path.

My wife and son disagreed when the bird in question disappeared under the front wheels.

Incidentally, Chicken, AK was named Chicken because the founding fathers couldn't spell "ptarmigan". :roll:

 

[BIF]

Folks, let's keep on topic here. Animals, or volume control, which will it be?

I choose volume control, because maybe that can be fixed.

Yes, the exact same behavior happened to me last Wednesday when I went out to run an errand. After I restarted the car, the symptom went away and has not returned.

I think I will report this one to my Toyota service manager, and ask them to run a bulletin check.

 

[BIF]

I just called about the volume control. My dealer hasn't heard anything about the problem. The best thing to do, they say, is to bring the car in if it happens again.

So, what, am I supposed to call them from my cell phone in the car to tell them that I'm on my way? Because if I shut the car off, the problem will go away.

<sigh>

The silver lining is that I'll get the nav and fuel filler pipe fixes done in the next week or two (hopefully).

 

[stevesol]

Has anyone had this problem occur more than once or persist after a restart? Maybe it's a "rite of passage" or "adolescent growing pains" thing for the Prius. One time, and it's over. If it repeats once or twice a year, I guess I can live with it. I'll just pull over and restart. At least it's better than the Windoze computer I use at work. I'm restarting THAT all the time. (Thank goodness I've got a Mac at home!)

 

[BIF]

Hmmm, not a very nice way to spell "Windows". I'm sorry you're disappointed, and I wish you the best.

Now to get back on-topic to the Prius. We don't know how often it happens, or even if it can happen more than once. I don't like "rites of passage" when it comes to computers or cars. I try to fix things, or find somebody who can fix it for me. That's why I have asked (and will continue to ask) my service department about this issue from time to time.

 

[Joel]

Yes, this is what happened to me when my MFD started to fail.

Has anyone ever had an incident where the volume control on the audio system failed to work? I was driving this morning and noticed that the volume control wouldn't respond at all. Not on the dash and not on the steering wheel. I couldn't do ANYTHING with audio except switch modes or turn it on/off... I couldn't change the balance, bass, treble... nothing. I also lost ALL of the feedback beeps from the tactile display. The other screens (climate, NAV) functioned normally, just without beeps. Later in the day when I fired it up to drive home, everything was normal. Gremlins?

P.S. I found out what the STUPIDEST animal on the face of the earth is.

HINT:
An animal that encounters a road with an oncoming car will do one of three things:

A- Watch you from a distance
B- Run away
C- Decide to run RIGHT INTO THE SIDE OF YOUR PRIUS as you drive by it.

This animal selected choice C from the depths of its pea sized brain.

Answer: A deer.

I am SO CAREFUL with my car... I park at the fringes of parking lots to avoid car door dings, shopping carts, and spacially challenged drivers. I never thought I'd be attacked by a crazed deer. The stupid thing ran off into the woods. I have to go the body shop to get two side panels fixed. Sheesh!

 

[BIF]

Yes, this is what happened to me when my MFD started to fail.

Oh wow. Definitely more serious than rebooting Windows. I'll monitor my car more closely, and I will keep bumping this for visibility.

Do you have any information on what needed to be fixed, such as TSB number, Campaign number, Toyota Documentation, etcetera?

I need some hard facts to present to my service guy. He had ZERO hits on "audio problem" or "audio volume problem."

Thank you, Joel...

 

[mrv]

Yes, this is what happened to me when my MFD started to fail.

Oh wow. Definitely more serious than rebooting Windows. I'll monitor my car more closely, and I will keep bumping this for visibility.

Do you have any information on what needed to be fixed, such as TSB number, Campaign number, Toyota Documentation, etcetera?

I need some hard facts to present to my service guy. He had ZERO hits on "audio problem" or "audio volume problem."

Thank you, Joel...

I had a http://techinfo.toyota.com/ subscription given to me as a gift for last weekend, and I did not see a TSB on the MFD problem listed there yet.


Inability to change the volume, or the radio being on even though the system says that it is off, are some lesser-reported symptoms of a malfunctioning display.
In some cases of the malfunctioning display, you will also loose radio controls as well. Usually
you can still change things using the steering wheel controls, but
not always...

If you go for climate control, you get a check system error. The
consumption screen has no MPG (or l/km) bars, and no outside air
temperature reading. I think you also loose any arrow flow on the
energy screen. It only happens intermittantly.

(some similar symptoms to the Newarkitis of the Classic Prius, except
with the "external system is not connected" type of errors, and a
different final fix...)

A few 2004 Prius have had this issue, reported mostly on the Prius-2G
yahoogroup. There are some photos in the Bay_Area_Prius_fans yahoogroup,
too (You'll have to cut'n'paste the URL, and be a group member, to view
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/ba ... /Intermitt
en+Problems+with+Display+%26+Asse&.order=&.view=l&.src=gr&.done=http%3a//pho
tos.groups.yahoo.com/group/bay_area_prius_fans/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%26.
view=l

It's been showing up on some of the Australian 2004 Prius lately -
there it seems to be temperature (cold) related. More photos:
http://www.trufit.com.au/Prius/ScreenUnitFailure/

The fix for the affected 2004s so far has been to replace the entire
display screen. It's under warranty, but it's a US$3000 part. I know
the problem has been reported for US, Canadian, and Australian cars
so far, and the fix is always the same. The car is safe to drive
while waiting for the part, which is now on backorder...
I think the problem is in an ECU that's embedded in the MFD unit.

 

[BIF]

I hereby nominate Michelle as Vice President - PriusOnline Research Department.

Wow! Thank you so much for that info.

 

[stevesol]

Thanks Michelle. I'm not sure that what you describe is actually the problem I experienced. It wasn't my display that malfunctioned. It was all things audio, steering wheel controls included. I'll just wait and see. It was still just a one time deal.

Steve