Auto high beam issue has been fixed

[nielshm]

FINALLY!! After 3 years and 65.000 miles my auto high beam has been updated. Now it works as intented after having made complaints every time it's had services. 

Toyotas are very reliable and strong in terms of technical performance, but software sucks and no one seems to care when issues occurs. 

[Bernard Foy]

21 minutes ago, nielshm said:

FINALLY!! After 3 years and 65.000 miles my auto high beam has been updated. Now it works as intented after having made complaints every time it's had services. 

Toyotas are very reliable and strong in terms of technical performance, but software sucks and no one seems to care when issues occurs. 

Ridiculously long time to have to wait to have a software issue, or indeed any issues fixed. A seriously strong complaint should be issued in writing your national Toyota authority.

[nielshm]

3 minutes ago, Bernard Foy said:

Ridiculously long time to have to wait to have a software issue, or indeed any issues fixed. A seriously strong complaint should be issued in writing your national Toyota authority.

Well, I did complaint to Toyota Denmark. They more or less refused any knowledge to the issue. Like I was the first one ever. And if I really had a issue, I should take it to the dealer. 

[Bernard Foy]

I wouldn’t give it up that easily, but I’m like a Rottweiler once I get my teeth into something I don’t let go. Bombard them with emails and threaten to write to the Toyota headquarters in Japan about the poor service from the dealership and even poorer inadequate response from Toyota Denmark.

[nielshm]

5 hours ago, Bernard Foy said:

I wouldn’t give it up that easily, but I’m like a Rottweiler once I get my teeth into something I don’t let go. Bombard them with emails and threaten to write to the Toyota headquarters in Japan about the poor service from the dealership and even poorer inadequate response from Toyota Denmark.

The dealership is not the problem. They do send every complaint to headquarters, and are them selves frustrared, that nothing happens. And I'm far from the only costumer, the dealership just can't do anything about it, and they hate it. 

If Toyota want to be a major factor in terms of EV, that must perform must better in terms of screens, interactive onnections and fixing bugs. The BZ4X is loosing it's reviews compared to Kia amd Hyundai, and software is one of these reasons. 

[Cyker]

Toyota are a bit like Sony in that regard - Excellent hardware, terrible software. I try not to rely on anything in the car that relies on software, which is a shame since the Toyota Safety System is mostly software and keeps trying to gently kill me  

I think that will be, or even is, one of the most challenging things for the old school auto manufacturers, as they are not software companies, and software is its own horrible field of bodging bugginess.

Mechanicals tend to make sense, since they are at least forced to obey the laws of physics, but software very quickly stops making sense once it gets big, and modern programming techniques are about getting stuff out as fast as possible and fix it later, which is totally anathema to how things are done in the car industry, where things have to be at least mostly reliable, and not be full of potential customer killing bugs from day one.

That's one of the reasons Tesla have shot ahead of most other manufacturers in some areas, as they are a software company really, but I feel a lot of manufacturers have seen that and are scrambling to cover that area, which is a mistake when they should really focus on areas they are good at and slowly build up their learning and understanding of the software side instead of trying to leap-frog and then realize it's a big expensive mess. Tesla's mechanicals are still awful and they would have never made it as a traditional car maker, but because the mechanicals on electric vehicles is so simple and well understood from industry already it hasn't had as big an impact as it would have if they had to design something as complex as an ICE and transmission.

 

I will say I can almost tell which features in my Mk4 were used by Toyota employees using it daily and ones that are not, as a lot of the not-often used features are buggy AF - The road sign recognition cruise control is a good example! That is almost dangerously buggy on mine, but I don't have any faith my dealer would be able to do anything about it because it's a software problem, and they're not equipped to even diagnose it unless I can find a repeatable consistent way to make the bugs show themselves, otherwise the dealer will just say they couldn't find a problem, charge me £150 and send me on my way.

 

[Bernard Foy]

Well I suppose that the only consolation is that it is now fixed and working as it should. Better late than never 👏.

[newda898]

Is this a software update that means it reacts quicker to vehicles? Or did it not work at all?

Which leads on to... will this update be available in the UK? Really bugs me how Ford manage to get theirs working brilliantly in a little Fiesta, but Toyota and their technically superb drivetrain can't.

[nielshm]

12 hours ago, newda898 said:

Is this a software update that means it reacts quicker to vehicles? Or did it not work at all?

Which leads on to... will this update be available in the UK? Really bugs me how Ford manage to get theirs working brilliantly in a little Fiesta, but Toyota and their technically superb drivetrain can't.

Well, if 0% is total malfunction and 100% is correct operation in any condition, I was around 20%. 

With the update it's around 85%. Rain can be a problem, and red colored tail lights, must be +700 m. in front, before high beam turns on. 

[newda898]

1 hour ago, nielshm said:

Well, if 0% is total malfunction and 100% is correct operation in any condition, I was around 20%. 

With the update it's around 85%. Rain can be a problem, and red colored tail lights, must be +700 m. in front, before high beam turns on. 

Ah, fair enough. Sounds about the normal operation now then. My issue is with it not turning high beam off in time rather than failing to turn on. It's always been far too keen to turn it on and less so turning off.

[AndrueC]

Yeah I'm still prepared to consider the possibility that Toyota knows best and that what I perceive as tardy dipping might just be a computer with a far better understanding of the beam spread. I'm still inclined to take over on occasion but to be fair to Toyota I've only been flashed once when letting the car control the lights and on that occasion I don't think I'd have dipped any earlier(*).

As I've posted before it depends on the beam shape. It's entirely possible to illuminate a vehicle in front without actually dazzling them. I do think human drivers overestimate the extent of dazzle so dip earlier and more often than is really needed.

(*)I think the driver saw my lights approaching round a bend and flashed before it became an issue. You don't need to dip on a right hand bend until the car is almost in front of you.