My wife calls me today and tells me that she is getting the dreaded "check System", and "External System Not Connected" message on the display. By pressing buttons, she got it to eventually respond, but every time you restart the rig, it reoccurs.
The worse part about this is that when it's malfunctioning, the climate control is disabled, and we're set to getting single digit temps around here.
I have 43K miles on her, which puts it out of the factory warranty, but thankfully I purchased the extended warranty. Call the dealer and he knew what it was about. Told us to bring it in so that they could "check the connections". When my wife got there, he had already contacted the warranty company and got everything approved. He looked at it, but said he knew it wasn't the connections. He's seen a few of these already and each time the connections weren't the problem.
It was 8:30pm when my wife got there (I had to take my son to his hockey game), so it was too late to order one tonight, but he said he would do it tomorrow or Monday.
He told me that I was fortunate that I bought the warranty. Parts and labor would have cost me at least $1,000 MORE than what I paid for the warranty. So it looks like I came out ahead with purchasing the warranty.
He even printed a copy of the TSB and gave it to me, even though he told me he wasn't supposed to.
The TSB stated that this problem occurs with LCs, Highlanders, and the Prius. It went on to say that they have redesigned the unit to resolve the problem. It didn't mention the LX, but it's the same unit so I assume that they are affected as well.
Quite honestly, I'm a little disappointed that a $50k+ vehicle could have costed me $2k-$3k in repairs with only 43K miles on it if I hadn't purchased the extended warranty.
The upside is that my wife said that the dservice manager was awesome, let's just hope that it limps along with this cold snap until the new unit comes in.
The worse part about this is that when it's malfunctioning, the climate control is disabled, and we're set to getting single digit temps around here.
I have 43K miles on her, which puts it out of the factory warranty, but thankfully I purchased the extended warranty. Call the dealer and he knew what it was about. Told us to bring it in so that they could "check the connections". When my wife got there, he had already contacted the warranty company and got everything approved. He looked at it, but said he knew it wasn't the connections. He's seen a few of these already and each time the connections weren't the problem.
It was 8:30pm when my wife got there (I had to take my son to his hockey game), so it was too late to order one tonight, but he said he would do it tomorrow or Monday.
He told me that I was fortunate that I bought the warranty. Parts and labor would have cost me at least $1,000 MORE than what I paid for the warranty. So it looks like I came out ahead with purchasing the warranty.
He even printed a copy of the TSB and gave it to me, even though he told me he wasn't supposed to.
The TSB stated that this problem occurs with LCs, Highlanders, and the Prius. It went on to say that they have redesigned the unit to resolve the problem. It didn't mention the LX, but it's the same unit so I assume that they are affected as well.
Quite honestly, I'm a little disappointed that a $50k+ vehicle could have costed me $2k-$3k in repairs with only 43K miles on it if I hadn't purchased the extended warranty.
The upside is that my wife said that the dservice manager was awesome, let's just hope that it limps along with this cold snap until the new unit comes in.