I took my 2020 RAV4 hybrid to the dealer for checking the corroded cable problem. The car didn’t show any messages on the screen.
the technician came back in 45 minutes telling me there is lots of corrosion of the cable, the car failed their tests. Cable need change. They told me they will order parts from Toyota which will take couple of weeks. Toyota will cover all. Car is out of 3 years warranty.
It is really unfortunate that a 3 year old car has a significant problem like this. Toyota should have designed this cable connection away from snow and salt !
is the new design / replacement better? Will the problem happen again in 3 years?
Toyota has extended the warranty for the 2019-2022 models, which is a good thing. The design is flawed beyond stupid.
I had a chance to examine a failed one the other day. From my perspective there are two causes of failure ( both of which present with the same two fault codes), the first is in the design of the lower male portion of the connector on the motor. Which is completely encased by a plastic housing. Water,small sand/salt can easily infiltrate this split plastic housing and then be sandwiched inside where the radio frequency shield is and of course the HV cables.
The second is the infiltration into the actual aluminium hub of the female portion of the connector.
In the first case of the male portion of the connector, it appeared to have experienced corrosion/freezing of water. In the example I saw the male aluminium case had actually cracked from freezing, and the plastic housing was bulged due to dirt, freezing and corrosion.
While I have not seen examples of the female portion failing, I have seen a video of it, in the other thread that is now locked.
I did order a 2022 Rav, but due to production limits I have the 23 model now. I do not know if there is a real fix yet to the new modified cable. The techs I spoke to are not sure, since the only difference in appearance is the new cable has a cut out on the plastic cover on the male portion of the connector.
When I put on my "thinking hat", I can see how the cut out may help to eliminate the issue of the male connector building up with water/dirt and salt, but the issue of migration of salt/water into the female housing could occur. I do think the issue on the female connection point is one of poor materials of the internal rubber gasket.
The connector I saw, even though it was the male end that failed, the rubber on the female connector was shrunken and cracked. It has slipped right off the male portion and was kind of just sitting inside the female housing. I hope on the replacement cable, they addressed this rubber gasket. Perhaps the original was of poor quality, and didn't have the same expansion/contraction rates as the aluminium housing it is seated in?
Time will tell if this a fix, or if failures will keep occurring and the warranty extension will also happen on the 2023 models as well.
I should also add,that the replacement is of the entire harness components. Including the harness above that connects into the electric motor. But given the past life time of the original cable, if there was not a major redesign , that only gives the average snow/salt/winter drivers two years or so.
