Notes from a 500 mile trip : GRS PHEV, good, bad, ugly

[Nick72]

Just landed home after a 500 mile round trip. Long day.

I'm going to start with the bad and ugly combined. A new fault. 

After being diverted by Waze off the M1 which was closed or at a standstill earlier today, and I'm taking the industrial estate plus sleepy village route. Slows down to probably a few mph in the traffic and the parking sensor front nearest right is beeping. Yellow bar so not the closest proximity red bar. But there's nothing there. The car in front of me is one or two car lengths away. It's still beeping. That would be fine except, when the parking sensors beep the pan view cameras come on and take over the Infotainment screen. Not set to Auto btw. It just does this and you have no say. Unfortunately, the parking sensor can't make up it's mind and the Infotainment screen is going on off on off on off in out in our shake it all about, let's do the hokey cokey. You get the picture. And continues to do this for the next 15 minutes non stop. Needless to say I then got lost because I couldn't see the map in AA running Waze. It was black screen then camera then black screen then camera. Alternating every 2 seconds. 

Had to then park up. Switch off and on again.  Inspected the sensors expecting to find a stuck on leaf or squashed bug. Nothing. And odd because that would have resulted in a zero range (which ought to be calibrated out in the auto cal for an ultrasonic sensor) whereas I was getting a yellow bar not a red one. 

All working fine then 15 minutes later I'm doing the hokey cokey yet again. Pulls over. Off then on again. Fixed. No issue on the inbound leg. 

So it may need to be a dealer visit in the next couple of weeks if it happens again. I'm reminded of the adaptive cruise control issue I had once on the last R4P. Radar not available message pop up. Words to that effect. All of a sudden out of the blue. Could not clear the message covering up the drivers display info since if you cleared it then it would come back a few seconds later. Hokey cokey again. Never got to the bottom of that. Another case of now I need to pull over at the next services. 

Any ideas? No, I've not washed the car since I got it so no scope for blasting the sensors with the jetwash being the cause. 

 

So that was the bad and ugly.

More positive note, the seats are really comfortable. More so than my Merc. And they were very good. 

New features which I'm trying to rationalise...

1. Driver display. Red circle with speed limit, says 70. Underneath that is a smaller red circle saying 50 and a little stop watch symbol overlapping. I was on the motorway (70) but in an average 50mph speed limit. So I'm assuming this is what it was telling me? I don't know if this came from the map, Toyota cloud, or the RSA.

2. LTA dots. When going slow with adaptive cruise on often in stop start traffice the display shows the car in front and the number of distance separation bars, 1, 2, or 3. But on occasion it shows dots to the car in front to indicate the system is following the car in front. This well known. What it also does is do this at high speed. I was doing 60mph when the dots appeared. It was foggy, dark, and lane markings poor. So I assume it was saying, can't follow the lines mate, I'm following the car in front?

 

Probably need the Dicky Davis sport jingle for this...

 

As for other motorists today. The *** head league table is...

Audi 6pts (6 separate asbo aggro Audi idiots)

Rage rover 4pts (4 separate idiots)

White Van Man 2pts

Ford Failures 2pts

Pukegos (that's Peugeot) 1pts

 

The my car has broken down on the motorway league table is...

JLR (land and range rovers) 4pts (4 separate instances)

Peugeot 3pts

Audi 2pts

Ford 2pts

Seat 1pts

Hyundai 1pts

BMW 1pts

Renault 1pts

 

That felt cathartic. 😂

[Cyker]

This is what annoys me about these ADAS systems - There needs to be a big red button you can mash that just turns them off in an emergency when they go wrong.

Or just get rid of them and improve driving standards which would make most of them redundant! (Things like LTA in particular - If someone can't keep their car in the lines consistently they shouldn't be allowed to drive!)

I'm getting a bit tired of mine randomly cutting accelerator input because of some phantom potential collision it's imagined when I'm crossing a junction... It makes me miss my Mk1...!

 

[Nick72]

5 minutes ago, Cyker said:

This is what annoys me about these ADAS systems - There needs to be a big red button you can mash that just turns them off in an emergency when they go wrong.

Or just get rid of them and improve driving standards which would make most of them redundant! (Things like LTA in particular - If someone can't keep their car in the lines consistently they shouldn't be allowed to drive!)

I'm getting a bit tired of mine randomly cutting accelerator input because of some phantom potential collision it's imagined when I'm crossing a junction... It makes me miss my Mk1...!

 

I don't mind the tech so long as it works reliably. I used the LTA in most of today's trip and it worked fine. Easy driving with the adaptive cruise on. Still got to stay alert just in case it decides to go pear shaped but no issues today other than a couple of times the adaptive cruise decided to brake (slightly, not hard) when there was nothing there. Is that what you mean?

Thing which annoyed me was that I lost my Nav because of a dicky ultrasonic parking sensor. The two are independent, or should be. So now a fault in one system effectively causes issues in another. This was a daft choice of moding. I don't need to see a camera view when the parking range sensors and display are telling me how close I am. Showing me a video ain't going to make that any better. 

Feels buggy.

[Cyker]

10 minutes ago, Nick72 said:

I don't mind the tech so long as it works reliably....

Very much this!!!

Alas I think there are too many beta-quality devices on cars which is bringing down the reliability. I love my tech too but not when it randomly tries to kill me!  

I don't want to be the tester/guinea pig unless they want to may me to be one!

[ernieb]

This is not new technology by any means. So it’s either poor quality parts or our good old Toyota standby poor software implementation. I suspect the later…..

[Broadway One]

13 hours ago, Cyker said:

"Or just get rid of them and improve driving standards which would make most of them redundant! (Things like LTA in particular - If someone can't keep their car in the lines consistently they shouldn't be allowed to drive!)"

Agree, strip out the tech. & reduce the list price. The RAV 4 is a robust bullet proof family car let it perform just that.....Barry Wright, Lancashire.  

 

[Cyker]

7 hours ago, ernieb said:

This is not new technology by any means. So it’s either poor quality parts or our good old Toyota standby poor software implementation. I suspect the later…..

I just mean in general - Toyota usually put things on years behind everyone else, but the upshot is that by the time they do all the bugs are worked out so it Just Works, whereas a lot of this ADAS stuff is being forced on early, by Toyota standards, by the desire to maintain 4-5 star NCAP ratings; It's one criticism I have of how NCAP weight their scores as if they removed all the ADAS stuff from my Yaris, it would likely drop to 1-2 stars - See what happened to the poor Panda, dropping from 4 stars in it's original test to 0 stars in the current one, almost purely because it doesn't have any ADAS systems which the newer tests are weighted heavily for.

Because they test them under ideal conditions, they are blinkered against how dangerous the ADAS systems can be - Interpreting the wrong speed limit, false positives triggering the AEB, being steered into oncoming traffic/parked cars by the lane keeping system, sudden accelerator inputs being cut because the car thinks you pressed the wrong pedal when you are in fact trying to get out of the way of an oncoming vehicle etc. are all things NCAP seem oblivious to, and has led to this bizzare situation where they saw fit to give my Mk4 5 stars, whereas I personally feel my Mk4 is less safe than my Mk1!! It's probably a lot more survivable, but I feel the chances of getting into an accident in the first place are lot higher in this car because I don't have full control over it and the systems are not well suited for congested city environments. 

But alas that precious score is why we won't see cars without them anytime soon, and likely will see even more intrusive systems going forward...

There might be some brave manufacturers who don't care about the NCAP rating, but for the mass market a low score is often a kiss of death for sales...

[Nick72]

8 hours ago, ernieb said:

This is not new technology by any means. So it’s either poor quality parts or our good old Toyota standby poor software implementation. I suspect the later…..

Quite likely!

[Nick72]

59 minutes ago, Cyker said:

I just mean in general - Toyota usually put things on years behind everyone else, but the upshot is that by the time they do all the bugs are worked out so it Just Works, whereas a lot of this ADAS stuff is being forced on early, by Toyota standards, by the desire to maintain 4-5 star NCAP ratings; It's one criticism I have of how NCAP weight their scores as if they removed all the ADAS stuff from my Yaris, it would likely drop to 1-2 stars - See what happened to the poor Panda, dropping from 4 stars in it's original test to 0 stars in the current one, almost purely because it doesn't have any ADAS systems which the newer tests are weighted heavily for.

Because they test them under ideal conditions, they are blinkered against how dangerous the ADAS systems can be - Interpreting the wrong speed limit, false positives triggering the AEB, being steered into oncoming traffic/parked cars by the lane keeping system, sudden accelerator inputs being cut because the car thinks you pressed the wrong pedal when you are in fact trying to get out of the way of an oncoming vehicle etc. are all things NCAP seem oblivious to, and has led to this bizzare situation where they saw fit to give my Mk4 5 stars, whereas I personally feel my Mk4 is less safe than my Mk1!! It's probably a lot more survivable, but I feel the chances of getting into an accident in the first place are lot higher in this car because I don't have full control over it and the systems are not well suited for congested city environments. 

But alas that precious score is why we won't see cars without them anytime soon, and likely will see even more intrusive systems going forward...

There might be some brave manufacturers who don't care about the NCAP rating, but for the mass market a low score is often a kiss of death for sales...

So true. 👍

[J2024IE]

21 hours ago, Nick72 said:

 

23 hours ago, Nick72 said:

Just landed home after a 500 mile round trip. Long day.

I'm going to start with the bad and ugly combined. A new fault. 

After being diverted by Waze off the M1 which was closed or at a standstill earlier today, and I'm taking the industrial estate plus sleepy village route. Slows down to probably a few mph in the traffic and the parking sensor front nearest right is beeping. Yellow bar so not the closest proximity red bar. But there's nothing there. The car in front of me is one or two car lengths away. It's still beeping. That would be fine except, when the parking sensors beep the pan view cameras come on and take over the Infotainment screen. Not set to Auto btw. It just does this and you have no say. Unfortunately, the parking sensor can't make up it's mind and the Infotainment screen is going on off on off on off in out in our shake it all about, let's do the hokey cokey. You get the picture. And continues to do this for the next 15 minutes non stop. Needless to say I then got lost because I couldn't see the map in AA running Waze. It was black screen then camera then black screen then camera. Alternating every 2 seconds. 

Had to then park up. Switch off and on again.  Inspected the sensors expecting to find a stuck on leaf or squashed bug. Nothing. And odd because that would have resulted in a zero range (which ought to be calibrated out in the auto cal for an ultrasonic sensor) whereas I was getting a yellow bar not a red one. 

All working fine then 15 minutes later I'm doing the hokey cokey yet again. Pulls over. Off then on again. Fixed. No issue on the inbound leg. 

So it may need to be a dealer visit in the next couple of weeks if it happens again. I'm reminded of the adaptive cruise control issue I had once on the last R4P. Radar not available message pop up. Words to that effect. All of a sudden out of the blue. Could not clear the message covering up the drivers display info since if you cleared it then it would come back a few seconds later. Hokey cokey again. Never got to the bottom of that. Another case of now I need to pull over at the next services. 

Any ideas? No, I've not washed the car since I got it so no scope for blasting the sensors with the jetwash being the cause. 

 

So that was the bad and ugly.

More positive note, the seats are really comfortable. More so than my Merc. And they were very good. 

New features which I'm trying to rationalise...

1. Driver display. Red circle with speed limit, says 70. Underneath that is a smaller red circle saying 50 and a little stop watch symbol overlapping. I was on the motorway (70) but in an average 50mph speed limit. So I'm assuming this is what it was telling me? I don't know if this came from the map, Toyota cloud, or the RSA.

2. LTA dots. When going slow with adaptive cruise on often in stop start traffice the display shows the car in front and the number of distance separation bars, 1, 2, or 3. But on occasion it shows dots to the car in front to indicate the system is following the car in front. This well known. What it also does is do this at high speed. I was doing 60mph when the dots appeared. It was foggy, dark, and lane markings poor. So I assume it was saying, can't follow the lines mate, I'm following the car in front?

 

Probably need the Dicky Davis sport jingle for this...

 

As for other motorists today. The *** head league table is...

Audi 6pts (6 separate asbo aggro Audi idiots)

Rage rover 4pts (4 separate idiots)

White Van Man 2pts

Ford Failures 2pts

Pukegos (that's Peugeot) 1pts

 

The my car has broken down on the motorway league table is...

JLR (land and range rovers) 4pts (4 separate instances)

Peugeot 3pts

Audi 2pts

Ford 2pts

Seat 1pts

Hyundai 1pts

BMW 1pts

Renault 1pts

 

That felt cathartic. 😂

adaptive cruise control, parking sensors, etc have all been working perfectly in my Rav4.  also the guest mode issue is gone since I upgraded the iPhone software to 18.0.1. have not had the guest mode issue since i updated.

does your waze maps not show navigation directions on the 12.3 screen? when i am using carplay maps, or inbuilt sat nav, the navigation directions also show on the 12.3 screen (speedometer screen).

 

 

[Flatcoat]

It had to be remembered some of this tech is now mandated by our friends in Brussels. Why would annyone expect EU beurocrats to understand technology and its limitations and consequencies? 

[Nick72]

1 hour ago, J2024IE said:

adaptive cruise control, parking sensors, etc have all been working perfectly in my Rav4.  also the guest mode issue is gone since I upgraded the iphone software to 18.0.1. have not had the guest mode issue since i updated.

does your waze maps not show navigation directions on the 12.3 screen? when i am using carplay maps, or inbuilt sat nav, the navigation directions also show on the 12.3 screen (speedometer screen).

 

 

No problem on my 2021 RAV PHEV either.

Yes it shows on the driver's display in simple form but that didn't say enough to tell me which of the 5 roundabout exits were required on an industrial estate. 😂

Guest mode issue fixed since doing the logout and in trick.

[DavidinDerbyshire]

On 10/23/2024 at 10:59 PM, Cyker said:

I'm getting a bit tired of mine randomly cutting accelerator input because of some phantom potential collision it's imagined when I'm crossing a junction... It makes me miss my Mk1...!

 

That's what I suffered on one of my first trips in the car back in June. I reported it to whatever Govt agency it is that asks to be told such things, and I told Toyota. Talked to fog. To be fair to the system, being at the head of a traffic light queue does mean having to experience red light runners...and like everything else the police force is doing nowt about it is now an epidemic. It was two red light runners who appeared to have triggered my problem. But it was a miracle I wasn't hit from behind when the car just slowed to a crawl. But it hasn't happened since then. 

[DavidinDerbyshire]

14 hours ago, J2024IE said:

guest mode issue is gone since I upgraded the iphone software to 18.0.1.

Really?  I shall try that later today. Fingers crossed. 

[Nick72]

5 hours ago, DavidinDerbyshire said:

Really?  I shall try that later today. Fingers crossed. 

Or just try logging out to guest mode in the Infotainment. Then login in again as your profile. It will ask for your My T email and password. Once done that solved the problem for me on Android at least.

[J2024IE]

On 10/25/2024 at 11:10 AM, DavidinDerbyshire said:

Really?  I shall try that later today. Fingers crossed. 

well, guest mode not fully gone,  used the Rav4 today numerous times and got guest mode once.

 

[Nick72]

10 hours ago, J2024IE said:

well, guest mode not fully gone,  used the Rav4 today numerous times and got guest mode once.

 

Darn it.

[J2024IE]

On 10/27/2024 at 8:21 AM, Nick72 said:

Darn it.

it still happens, but a lot less now

[Nick72]

9 minutes ago, J2024IE said:

it still happens, but a lot less now

I've not had it once since the singular relapse. 

Must be phone related.