Toyota recalls nearly 1.9M RAV4s to fix batteries that can cause a fire | Hacker News Reader

Toyota recalls nearly 1.9M RAV4s to fix batteries that can cause a fire

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91 pointsthm105 comments

I'm real glad this isn't with the RAV4 Prime. Here's my 1 year review from last month if you're thinking of getting one:

1. I signed a contract for my 2022 Blueprint SE Weather Edition just before the Inflation Reduction Act was signed, so I was covered for the tax credit and successfully filed for it. (NO way I'd buy it today without that credit though!)

2. I've absolutely loved this car, upgrading from a 2017 Jeep Renegade as my family SUV. My Jeep also had a massive amount of problems (replaced axle, AC system, tires, more for the ~5 years I had it) and having a year of maintenance-free headaches has been a huge relief.

3. Last year a lot of the posts on r/rav4prime were about getting protective coverings, etc. I got a few quotes but ended up just buying $100 worth of car wash stuff and keeping it clean as I can myself. Scratches are just a reality.

4. I don't have a Level 2 charger at home and I wouldn't bother at this point to install one. Most of my in-town/city drives are EV only, and highway trips I still get ~40MPG+. I just charge overnight if I need to, or luckily there's a few free chargers close by.

5. My main complaint is the anti-slip detection seems to go off a lot. Maybe it's the roads here close to Boston, or it's just real paranoid about slipping.

Some stuff I've bought that has helped:

1. Sun Visor Organizers (x2). I absolutely hate the giant "WARNING" about airbags in your face. Use that space for something productive instead.

2. Yakima FrontLoader Upright Bike Mount (x2). These are on sale at REI right now and have been so nice to use, and look pretty great. They're real easy to take on/off too if you're doing road trips without your bikes!

3. FITCAMX 4K Dash Cam. Way cheaper than the OEM model and looks like it belongs. Install was real easy. Given how crazy Boston driving is, I have gotten footage of some real dumb drivers here - and this is mostly CYA in case someone hits me.

Anyway that's it, here's an obligatory photo with the car loaded. https://i.imgur.com/1Stc3Ci.jpg

> Sun Visor Organizers (x2). I absolutely hate the giant "WARNING" about airbags in your face. Use that space for something productive instead.

I understand this is a North American thing. I know some bmw owners would buy used EU visors that didn’t have them. The parts are often shared with lots of years+models and relatively worthless in a part-out so pretty cheap if you cruise eBay.

The nissan leaf has a backup alarm in reverse (beep-beep-beep-beep!)

There was a button to turn it off (back up at 5am and wake up your neighbors?)

However it was removed in the US for reasons. People would get european buttons and install them to be able to disable that annoying noise.

I also have a recent RAV4 Prime. I tend to drive less than 40 miles at a time so I'm almost entirely on battery. I noticed that you can configure the charger to use either 8A (meaning you have to charge for a long time to refill) or 14A (which speeds things up a bit, but you need a dedicated circuit, there isn't a lot of headroom on top of 14A before your breaker trips). I don't really see a need for level 2 charging.

Although I keep the car in "Eco" mode it still has more acceleration than most cars, and in "Super" mode, it's insane (there is only one area where I need to use this for about 30 seconds).

> I noticed that you can configure the charger to use either 8A (meaning you have to charge for a long time to refill) or 14A (which speeds things up a bit, but you need a dedicated circuit, there isn't a lot of headroom on top of 14A before your breaker trips).

If you are in the US something to be aware of is that the ratings for residential electrical stuff (breakers, the wiring in your walls, cords, and outlets) is the rating for non-continuous loads.

For continuous loads (defined as 3 or more hours) the rating is 80% of the non-continuous load rating.

E.g., if you've got a circuit with wiring rated for 20A with a 20A breaker and multiple 15A outlets any load plugged into one of those outlets should not exceed 12A continuous, and you should not exceed 16A continuous on the circuit.

This isn't as well known as it should be. I only found out about it when I was researching to try to figure out why a 13A extension cord I was using with a 12A continuous load eventually burst into flame.

Charging at 14A then, assuming it won't finish in under 3 hours, should be done using a 20A outlet.

The good news is that it should be cheap to install one. The National Electrical Code requires that garages have at least one 20A circuit for outlets, so you should already have the wiring and breaker to support it. You should just need to replace one of your 15A outlets on that circuit with a 20A outlet.

The outlet itself is a few dollars, and is a simple DIY job (and I don't think requires a permit or inspection in most places) but first make sure that you really have a 20A circuit. If you hire an electrician it will cost whatever their minimum billable amount of labor is.

Same! I just charge at home, and luckily my town library has a free charger that I use on weekends when I can. My "Super" mode use is typically reserved for when I'm late getting my kids somewhere... >_>;

ooc, when you charge at home overnight how much range can it refill?

I can just about refill the full 40 mile range over night, by plugging in when I come home around 5PM and unplugging around 8AM, when charging at 8A. I guess the math is: the battery is 18kwh and charging at 120V for 15 hours at 8 A is ~14kwh.

thats awesome. i put a call into our local dealership, and sounds like the wait time for the one i'd like is still >1 year :(

>>My main complaint is the anti-slip detection seems to go off a lot. Maybe it's the roads here close to Boston, or it's just real paranoid about slipping.

What tyres are on the car currently? Sometimes really poor budget tyres can do this, especially as they wear out.

Gonna be the Dunlop Grandtrek PT20, which are terrible tires.

Did you get it for msrp? I remember people talking about how this particular model was getting priced $15-20k over in early 2022.

I got one for just $700 over MSRP in Pasadena recently. Had to visit multiple dealerships and haggle them down quite a bit (They wanted $5000 over). Although not easy, it's possible now, they aren't as unobtainable as they once were.

Nope :( However with the credit before the IRA was signed and MA tax rebate, it made sense. The markup wasn't that bad though, yikes.

re: anti-slip detection going off a lot. I'm not a big car guy, but is that what causes the weird grinding sound occasionally when hitting the brakes, particularly when hitting the brakes around the same time as going over a speed bump / pot hole / other thing making the road briefly uneven? If so, I have that happen a lot too

That's ABS.

I thought ABS was generally activated if braking really hard from high speed, but I hear the weird grinding somewhat consistently when lightly to moderately tapping the brake while going < 30mph.

I do know (or at least, I think I know) what ABS feels like when being applied and it doesn't feel like that. But my frame of reference is much older cars before the 2021 rav4 prime I have now, so maybe it's just different.

I don't know your car specifically. But newer ABS may pulsate at a higher frequency than older systems.

But with a PHEV, you might also be using regenerative braking more often and friction brakes less often? If so, the friction brakes might have more corrosion and give some odd sounds when they are finally put into use, as they scrape the surfaces clean again.

It's also activated when there is slip detected, such as when you go over a broken section of road while braking or even turning. My Chevy Suburban will engage the ABS even without me braking.

Figured this was related to hybrid RAV4s or EVs but no - the regular old "car battery" is the issue!

My neighbor breathlessly informed me a couple months ago that I should be worried about my EVs burning down our house. She seemed a little surprised when I mentioned that my Ford (not an EV) is actually the bigger risk for spontaneously burning down my house.

Politics were involved, yes.

When discussing fire risk, I remind people that ICE cars have "combustion" in the name for a reason - its propulsion literally comes from controlled explosions using flammable liquids.

Fires from gasoline cars are at least extinguishable. Lithium fires aren't really.

And, credit where credit is due: remarkably uncommon in a dormant vehicle.

If your gasoline is exploding in the cylinders instead of combusting, you should use higher octane or adjust your engine. When gasoline explodes in an internal combustion engine, it’s called “detonation” and if it persists, it can increase the number of parts in your car rather suddenly.

It always disappointed me that humans haven't really managed to make the rotating detonation engine work. Its theoretical efficiency and power density is really high.

Now I'm imagining something like a fidget spinner combined with a Nuclear Pulse Engine[1] and it's awesome because I'm imagining that it can provide both propulsion and rotation...but I bet we need some great advances in material science before anything like it could exist.

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

I think it would be more like an enormous Wankel engine.

A Wankel was what I thought of first, since it's the closest we've come to a rotational explosion engine, but I'm a space nerd so the combination of rotation and propulsion could make for some interesting applications related to space travel.

Technically a deflagration is also an explosion, it's just subsonic, whereas detonation is supersonic. Plenty of explosives don't detonate: they're called "low explosives" and gunpowder is an example, as well as normal petrol-air mixtures.

I stand corrected! I’ll file this one away.

To parent who I erroneously told to tune his engine: my mistake!

Unless you have a weirdly fire prone Ford, I think this is another example of people often really confusing the fire stats for ICE vs EV.

Yes, mile for mile gas cars catch fire more often.

The problem is, gas cars catch fire usually when they are older and neglected. Oil leaks and fuel leaks being 95% of the culprits. And when they do catch fire, they do so while on, not in your garage. And if they DO catch fire in your garage, they do it within minutes of you returning home... When you're still awake and alert.

Compare that to EVs, that catch fire a little less often... Except they do so when almost NEW with zero visible faults that you could catch (like an oil leak onto your exhaust). This is way more problematic.

And no, im not an EV hater. I have a Chevy volt.

I'm not talking about ongoing statistics about fires in older cars, or singling out gasoline as the problem. Just look at recalls in the last few years alone for spontaneous fires in unattended vehicles. The 12V battery and associated electronics are more than capable of starting a fire, and once a car gets going, they all burn really hot and fast whether fueled by electrons or gasoline.

Do we have good numbers on EV fires now? Aside from what, 19 fires due to the faulty LG batteries in the Bolt, I don't hear a lot about spontaneous combustion being a thing. It's really hard to get anything like current numbers, but from the few places I've looked which try to collect such data, it seems that nearly all fires are secondary to impact damage.

I've had multiple different vehicles have recalls for fire situations with them without the requirement of them being recently driven. One vehicle even had multiple recalls for fires like this.

That's great. I'm talking about vehicles that catch fire not recalls for possibilities. Beyond that, the only way a vehicle that hasn't been on to catch fire is from a really faulty 12v system. EVs have those too.

Once Lithium Phosphate (LiPO4) or Sodium-ion batteries become more common, this whole "burning Tesla" will become moot.

48V electrical system should help a lot too, due to lower currents, and therefore less resistive heating.

Lots of fires (in all types of car) are due to bad connections in the low voltage system.

That's an interesting point, but how would a higher voltage not cause the same problems with bad connections?

It's related to Ohm's law, but if you have a specific load you need to power (say 8 watts) a 12 volt system can run that using 0.6 amps (at 18 Ohm) while a 48 volt system can run that same 8 watt load at 0.16 amps (at 288 Ohm).

Another way to look at it is a little easier with something like a 24 volt PoE injector vs a 48 volt PoE injector. The 24 volt supplies the needed energy at 1 amp, but the 48 volt supplies the same energy at 0.5 amps. Both work out to 24 watts (volts*amps=watts) but a wire carrying 48 volts doesn't generate as much resistance, which would be lost as heat into the wire carrying the load. If it loses too much heat because the resistance is too high, well, that's how you make a heating element -- cram amperage into a wire until the resistance makes it hot.

For example a 960 watt fan - fairly typical of the cabin air fan, at 12 volts would need 80 amps, whereas at 48 volts would need only 20 amps. (Power in watts = Current in Amps * Voltage)

If you have a bad connection in that cable of 0.01 ohms, then that bad connection would generate 64 watts of heat on the 12v/80a system (enough to melt the plastic on the cable and start a fire), whereas on the 48v/20a system it would only make 4 watts of heat (probably safe). (Power in Watts = Current in Amps Squared * Resistance in Ohms).

Bad connections are far more prone to get worse, rapidly (and arc themselves bigger...) When larger amounts of current need to go through them.

All connections need to be nicely done -- the ones on your range plug, they should be very snugged, and double checked.

Etc. lugs on a 200 amp home service panel are ON there.

I had a recall on my Ford Van. The hydraulically actuated brake switch used by the cruise control could crack and leak brake fluid into the electrical contacts. That would then start an electrical fire. That could happen when it was parked. The notice from Ford said not to park it in a garage until the issue was fixed.

Brake fluid isn't conductive... There must be more to the story...

It is corrosive though, so perhaps it ate through something like a ground wire?

You are correct. Brake fluid gets water and other stuff in it over time. That makes it conductive. The problem was the hot side of the switch was always live because it uses the same 12V source as the brake light switch. Which has to work when the car is off.

https://www.zehllaw.com/ford-cruise-control-recalls/

My experience with electrolytic corrosion is a track develops and it gets more and more conductive over time.

Ah yes - it dissolves paint and many plastics, so I could imagine some insulation was dissolved away... Although the most common wire insulations, PVC or XLPE, aren't impacted by it.

I don't, and the insurers don't, care about the car catching fire. It's the putting it out bit.

All cars, regardless of fuel, are extremely flammable. Once they get going they burn quick & hot. The fire department usually doesn't spend much time trying to put out a car fire inside a garage, they knock it down enough to throw a chain on it and drag it out onto the driveway.

> the insurers don't, care about the car catching fire

Of course they do. You think an insurance company would cover a vehicle using an open flame for power at the same rate and an ICE? And how often do charges actually catch fire where it’s not a total loss? For the insurance companies, the result is the same - a replacement.

I can tell you that insurance companies charge more (though low double digits on the year) when your house is heated with e.g. a pellet stove vs a typical oil furnace.

>using an open flame for power

is this why i can't get coverage for my steam engine with a wood burning furnace?

Your neighbor was likely reacting to valid EV recalls.

"Chevrolet Bolt EVs Should Be Parked Outdoors Due to Fire Risk, Government Agency Warns"

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/chevrole...

IMO it's notable that since then literally millions of ICE cars from companies like Ford and Hyundai have also had "keep outside" warnings due to recalls. For some reason that doesn't seem to discourage buyers.

Does your neighbor share a structure with you?

> RAV4 small SUVs

Only in the US would anyone refer to the 2013 RAV4 as "small" :)

The RAV4 been gaining bulk over the years. I remember in the late 90s it really was a small SUV. It went from 148-164″ L x 67″ W x 65″ H in 1998 to 180″ L x 73″ W x 65-67″ H in 2013. Today it is 181-182″ L x 73″ W x 67-69″ H.

Almost every vehicle has, even sedans.

Thank you EPA wheelbase loophole that reduces he MPG target by increasing the vehicle size.

It's not just the EPA fuel economy requirements. Safety requirements mean cars need a lot bigger doors, more crumble zone etc.

I think it’s mainly because each new mode year has to be “better” than the last. It’s easier to be “better” (more head room, more boot space etc) when you’re bigger.

So individual models grow and then new ones come in below. For example the rav4 used to be Toyotas smallest suv, now there’s the CHR, and even the Yaris Cross

I'm sure I'm slightly misremembering/exaggerating, but RAV4s of recent years seem like a similar size to how I recall the Highlander from that time period, and now Highlanders are more like how I recall those older 4Runners(?).

The 4Runner is now 190-191″ L x 76″ W x 72″ H, in 1998 it was 179″ L x 67-71″ W x 68-69″ H. So today's RAV4 is slightly larger than 1998's 4Runner.

My wife had a 2012, 2017, and 2020 (2017 was totalled in an accident). The 2020 was dramatically bigger than the 2012. (if not in wheelbase, in perception)

She actually likes the fact that her current car, a 2023 VW ID.4, is closer in size to the 2012.

> Only in the US

I bet there are some Canadians that would disagree. And some Mexicans. And there are undoubtedly many other places in the world that does not share Europe's population density which would consider it a small SUV.

Edit: I feel bad for forgetting to mention Australia. They may well be bigger V8 enthusiasts than North America.

No, has nothing to do with population density but all to do with legislation, taxation, and advertisement. It started as a regulatory loophole and slowly became a viral advertisement meme.

US, Canada, Australia are the only odd ones out. Even in Mexico most pickup are utilitarian low height flatbeds, same for most Central and South America.

You guys have a large (length and height) vehicle arms race that is absolutely setting back decades of vehicle design, pedestrian safety, and fuel efficiency.

Pickup trucks are huge in large part because of fuel efficiency regulations like CAFE which regulate fuel use per unit area. Ironically deregulating fuel efficiency would make small efficient pickups sellable again. Also repealing chicken tax would help allow economical imports. The domestic demand for remaining compact ranger/s-10/Tacoma is massive. But it's basically illegal economically to sell more.

I'd have definitely driven a compact in from Mexico were it not also illegal to permanently import them before 25 years old under most circumstances .

As far as I understand it, some of the most popular pickups in North America are basically unregulated already. Ford certainly isn't advertising the mileage on an F250, and as an HD truck I'm pretty sure the feds give it a pass altogether. I know there is discussion about it for future HD trucks, but as far as I can tell that's still a few years off.

I could be totally wrong, though, this is not an area I'm an expert in. But I do own an F250 that routinely gets sub-10 mpg unloaded. Fortunately I only drive it a couple thousand miles a year to tow my trailer, otherwise I'd feel a bit guilty about how brutally inefficient it is. HD trucks also suck as daily drivers IMO, the suspension is so stiff that it would ride better with a couple thousand pounds of ballast in the back. One of my neighbors does exactly that. Probably doesn't impact the gas mileage, can't go a lot lower...

That’s the whole point. They enacted a stupid MPG formula into law. So instead of manufacturers trying to make a compact pickup get 50mpg, they just sell big old f250s because the formula lowers down the MPG requirement dramatically.

Malicious industry capture is more likely explanation than stupidity IMO. Sell bigger more expensive shit while shutting down economical competition.

For the average person, low population density means more miles driven. That’s a good reason to go for a vehicle that gets more miles per gallon. To the point that land and parking is cheaper, you might expect vehicles that sprawl with longer bodies and an aero shape to provide a good mix of capacity and fuel efficiency. The Tonka Truck design you see a lot of in the US isn’t especially practical for most buyers. A strong hint that most trucks aren’t purchased for hauling is that they don’t have an 8-foot bed equipped. It seems like the truck’s purpose is more to be a signifier of group affiliation.

And Middle Easterns and Australians.

Basically everywhere but us Europeans and our tiny cars in our tiny cute medieval city roads (:

And your 13 ft (4m) wide rural roads.

You talking about Britain? They have some of the narrowest main roads I've seen in Europe.

Mexico has large cars, but Mexico doesn't seem to "love" them in quite the same way as the US. I am typing this from Monterrey, NL, MX right now, and the car-size distribution skews smaller here, while also having a very long tail of small cars, cars significantly smaller than anything even available in the US. Some cars that are quite popular in mexico that are totally unavailable in the US include:

- Chevy Aveo (not available in the USA as far as I can tell) https://www.chevrolet.com.mx/autos/aveo-auto-sedan

- Hyundai i10 https://www.hyundai.com.mx/modelos/grand-i10-hb/

- Suzuki Ignis https://www.suzuki.com.mx/autos/ignis

- Nissan March https://www.nissan.com.mx/vehiculos/todos/march.html

For folks who just need to get around, all of these are small new cars available for purchase for less than $18,000 USD.

For the higher end buyer, there's more expensive small cars available as well:

- Audi A1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_A1

- Seat Ibiza (still midsize, but smaller than e.g. Kia Soul) https://www.seat.mx/autos/ibiza/descubre.html

- etc.

So while the small car is dying in the USA, it's doing great in Mexico.

If it were purely population density you’d see massive cars in the Nordic countries, and small cars in Los Angeles

'Small' is relative; a 2014 RAV4 tips the scales at 3,500 pounds, just 200 more than a Camry, and extends a mere 10 inches longer.

Such margins barely nudge it past sedan territory by American standards, making the 'small SUV' label fairly apt, especially in a market where vehicle dimensions have steadily grown over the years.

The older RAV4s were small though. Due to the EPA poorly thought out emissions rule, all automakers been increasing the size of their cars every generation because increasing the wheelbase reduces the MPG target they have to meet. The target is still increasing but this gives them a offset.

As a person with multiple dogs living in Europe I consider it to be small.

S in SUV stands for small btw

u stands for penis and v for syndrome

Sport?

Indeed, sorry )

It's small for an SUV, let's not be pedantic.

SUVs are also smaller in other countries.

The RAV4 a 5 seat car, if you define 2 row cars as full SUVs the definition loses all meaning. Full SUVs carry 7+ people.

Hmm... ok. I always think of SUVs as cars that are bulkier and have higher road clearance than a "normal" car (and perhaps 4WD or similar), without necessarily carrying more people like a "minivan" or "people carrier" would.

Wikipedia says "there is no commonly agreed-upon definition of an SUV and usage of the term varies between countries.", so that might explain the discrepancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUV

I rented a Toyota Raize in Japan, and the website (Budget) repeatedly described it as an SUV. It's 100mm narrower and 250mm shorter than my VW Golf.

SUV OGs were body on frame. Enclosed trucks basically.

Soccer moms and dads driving to the grocery and back with their three spawn though have more market share. So they sell you a unibody oversized car that would be absolutely destroyed if used as the OG truck frame vehicles, and the soccer dad can pretend his oversized car is some off-road hauling machine.

Toyota actually referred to my C-HR as an SUV, when to me, it was just a hatchback.

I don't even think of my EV6 as an SUV, even though it's categorized as such.

If they sold it as a hatch nobody would want it. Hatchbacks are old and unstylish and seem like station wagons. SUVs are modern and what people want.

SUV is a marketing term not any kind of real size or capacity term.

I feared this was related to the RAV4 Prime (the PHEV version), but thankfully this appears to be a (highly consequential, but–) fairly run-of-the-mill ICE vehicle recall.

Has to hurt, though.

2 years ago I got a letter to take my 2018 RAV4 to the dealer to see if we had a battery mounting issue. Ours did not but still got a free replacement battery and “was confirmed to be secured properly” by the dealership.

I guess enough vehicles had the issue they are issuing a full recall for those effected? Seems like old news to me or should I be expecting a letter soon?

Surprising. I bought a 2015 RAV4 used in 2017. It still had the factory battery, I didn't have to replace that until last year when it finally bit the dust. I think that's the longest I've ever had a factory battery last on a car.

Looks like the issue is with replacement batteries that aren't quite the same dimensions as the OEM ones.

Some OEM batteries are made in Japan with virgin, not recycled, lead. My Lexus (Panasonic) battery lasted 11 years.

Expectations of battery life, and typical experiences, assume a certain amount of stress such as extreme temperatures and occasional deep cycling. Someone who keeps their car garaged, never plays the radio for a while after shutting the engine off, and never accidentally drains the battery is going to have an outlier like you're describing. I'm no expert but my understanding is that these types of (potentially avoidable) stresses are majorly significant contributors to a runaway process of internal breakdown/corrosion that determines how much longer it'll work.

Lithium batteries like to be stored at 50-60% charge, while lead acid car batteries like to be stored at 100% charge.

How would you know which ones are and which ones aren't? This sounds like myth to me, though I can see how lead recycling might lead to lead of inferior quality if it isn't done properly I can't see this happening in Japan (though I've seen plenty of examples of battery recycling in less developed countries where I'm pretty sure the lead is not going to be very pure).

seems like you're suggesting that recycling lead has some kind of impact on battery longevity? Can you provide more detail there?

If you just re-melt, scoop of the crap and recast the lead you may end up with less pure lead than if you were to 'properly' (for instance by reducing it to get rid of any lead oxide) recycle it.

>Toyota said in a statement that some replacement 12-volt batteries used in the SUVs have smaller top dimensions than others. If the hold-down clamp is not tightened properly, the battery could move, allowing the positive terminal to contact the clamp and short circuit, the company said. Toyota said it is still preparing a fix. When the remedy is ready, dealers will replace the hold-down clamp, battery tray and positive terminal cover with improved ones.

This seems fishy. The cost to properly torque and mark a bolt in a recall is orders of magnitude less than making and installing all new parts.

Maybe the fix isn't fixing the human error, but making it impossible.

This is exactly it, the fault is that it's too easy to do something wrong, so they're replacing it so that (likely) it won't even latch at all unless it's done right.

Particularly since battery replacement is one of the easier DIY auto repairs many people take on.

TLDR; this is not about the lithium battery in hybrid or electric versions of the RAV4. It's about the conventional (lead) 12V battery possibly moving around in the engine compartment. The batteries themselves are ok!

So it won't be that costly or hard for Toyota to fix - it's a pretty regular safety recall. Just because it says "battery" and "fire" in the title people assume the worst. It's just clickbait.

I'm wondering if they actually test the hard turn or they have other methods to reproduce the issue.

The Rav4, even in Prime plus trim is a penalty box. Better off buying a Lexus NX/UX instead.

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