Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing has issued a safety recall for certain sedans and coupes equipped with the Panoramic View Monitor 360-degree camera system. Said vehicles may have been produced with bugged software for the parking assist electronic control unit, which prevents the rearview camera image from being displayed within the 2.0 seconds required by FMVSS number 111.
Affected vehicles were manufactured for the 2023 model year exclusively. Suspect vehicles rolled off the assembly line between April 15, 2022 and January 26, 2024. The population comprises the Toyota Mirai hydrogen-fueled sedan, the Lexus LS 500 and LS 500h large sedans, LC 500 and LC 500h coupes, and the ES 250, ES 300h, ES 350 mid-size sedans. No fewer than nine part numbers for the parking assist ECUs are listed in documents published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Denso supplied the electronic control units.
Toyota and the supplier began a design review of the PVM systems in February 2023, in parallel with an investigation over a rearview camera monitor condition affecting a model from the Japanese domestic market. In September 2023, both parties decided to focus their efforts on the parking assist electronic control unit's initialization sequence. Lo and behold, Toyota and Toyota-controlled Denso determined that large amounts of data processed at vehicle startup affect the image drawing process.
The concern was replicated in February 2024, prompting Toyota and Denso to come up with a software update that prioritizes the image drawing process during initialization. With the original software, the rearview camera image is displayed within 4.0 seconds if the driver moves the gear lever into reverse right after turning on the ignition.
Dealers nationwide have already been instructed to update the parking assist system's electronic brain, which is done only via GTS+. Obviously enough, the software update is completely free of charge.
Photo: Toyota
Owners will be notified via first-class mail between April 7, 2024 and April 21, 2024. Toyota's American division estimates that 18,616 vehicles were produced with the iffy software. The easiest way of determining if your Toyota or Lexus has been recalled is by entering the 17-character VIN on the automaker's website or the NHTSA's website.
The Mirai entered the 2024 model year with little in the way of changes, beginning with Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 being standard across the board. The XLE grade offers up to 402 miles (647 kilometers) of range on a full tank of hydrogen, which is converted to electricity and water by the fuel cell system. As ever, the Mirai sports three hydrogen tanks rather than one. Their total capacity is 5.6 kgs (12.3 lbs).
Over at Lexus, the ES is technically closer to the Camry and Avalon due to its front-biased platform with transverse-mounted engines. The LS and LC are based on the TNGA-L platform of the Mirai.
The luxury-oriented coupe starts at $99,800 in the United States, whereas the LS retails at $80,685 (sans destination charge). As for the ES and Mirai, that would be $43,190 and $50,190, respectively.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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