Besides the now infamous reprogramming of the ECM system, the recent recall says that "a special dielectric grease will be applied to a connector for the transaxle to prevent water intrusion" which could also cause stalling. Does anyone know if a layman, non-mechanic can look someplace to determine whether that was actually done? The dealer's invoice notes the reflashing of the ECU, but there's no mention of greasing anything. This is a dealership which fried the ECU the first time through the recall work, and sent me home with 32 psi of air in each tire after rotating them - so asking them if they did the whole recall seems pointless.
Some cars get it some don't. Question them on the subject. The fronts should be 2 lb over the rears. Again talk to them about it. I would guess they did the reprogramming, why would they not?
I've been asking in various places about this for a month now, and even pulled apart the connector in question to have a look. It doesn't really appear to need grease, being one of the ones that's already weather-resistant on the outer part, and the inner part is splashed up with the ATF or whatever the transaxle fluid is already, which isn't conductive. So evidently even the techs that hang out here don't know the answer on this, and nobody's kicked it back to FTS for the real story. . And the ironic part is that there are TWO OTHER almost identical connectors farther along the transaxle housing that, if there's a problem in the first place, would be equally vulnerable to it, and there's nothing in 50P about either of them. . And the absolute topper is that SSC50P completely ignores a very real potential issue of a starter blockoff plate mispositioned to cut into the wiring harness that goes to all of these connectors. Yep, nice sharp little piece of metal digging into the side of the cables. . _H*
Hobbit's got a page on it at http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/starthole/. It's a metal plate covering the hole in the engine where the starter motor would be fitted, if this were a more primitive vehicle. In addition to the Repair Manual pictures shown there, in another section of the manual I found a diagram clearly showing the starter cover the other way up (ie as Hobbit found it fitted). But it seems hard to believe they really wanted it fitted with the tab outwards.
You may be surprised how often repair/build manuals get something confused or wrong. I see it all the time with industrial and process control manuals. The most common problem: an illustration that is flipped so it's the mirror image
chances are, some tech has already talked to tech assist about the mirror-image problem. when my husband had to warranty rebuild the first 05 tundra engine (possibly the first in the country to be rebuilt), he went through the manual with tech assist and pointed out some problems he found. i don't know if they revise or what. many dealers don't buy the hard copy manual anymore, they use the online version, i believe it's on tis. in that case, they could just go through and edit the figures, i imagine. speculation about the one connector has been that it's the only one that's been a problem, but since i have no solid evidence for this i'll just release it as speculative.
