Anyone have issues with access to Toyota Tech Info after paying your money and being approved (seems like it is a very stupid, involved process). Paid around mid-day on Wednesday, got my you are go to go email, but was repeatedly denied access. Called the help line and the very disinterested woman who answered told me to wait 10 minutes and all would be good. I actually waited about four hours and all was not good. Called back and despite the fact they were supposed to be there until five, they had all bugged out at 3 p.m. for the Thanksgiving holiday. So, still no access today, I will call on Friday and hope they are there, but I need to fix a car and I am not very happy with this whole thing. I doubt I will ever put forth the cash for it again. What experience has anyone else had with them.
I have noticed the 10-minute-wait thing before ... actually the disinterested woman (same one maybe?) kind of explained it to me, the outsourced system-that-takes-your-money transmits the list of who-is-paid-up to the other-system-that-logs-you-in six times an hour, on the :00, :10, :20, :30, :40, :50 points, if you've passed one of those points since completing the payment/validation ritual, you should be good. I agree the payment and signin parts of the system seem incredibly clunky. It all works very nicely once you're in. (The part that worried me most was the terms&conditions language saying they only expected it to work on Windows with some old ancient version of Explorer, none of which I use, but I find it all to work fine in Firefox on Linux and it is now quite standards-based... the content gets delivered in standard HTML, PNG, SVG, and PDF, and a bunch of Javascript for the cool wiring diagram interactivity stuff). The prospect of online-service-being-hosed-right-when-I-want-to-fix-my-car is the one thing that really troubles me about online manuals (also, what do I do in the boonies with bad network coverage?), and is the reason I will probably one day just have a mass-download day for my own model year manuals, but so far all I've been doing is saving particular sections as I happen to look them up. -Chap
My approach was buy 30 days and collaborate with some skilled folks. Worked well but I had mixed opinions about the quality of information. Bob Wilson
Arrrgh. thanks to both of you! The whole experience was (is) maddening. Finally managed to reach a disinterested person this morning and after convincing them that I had followed all the steps, they reset my account. So, I am in. I am finding the information not as helpful as I would like (I actually found better information on the Bob is the Oil Guy site). But, it was marginally helpful. Anyway, will never pay for access again. Can't believe Toyota would have such a backwards system in place.
Hey, if you say a bit more about the information you're looking for while your subscription is still in force, I might be able to give some searching tips. There's a huge amount of very good information on there, but the navigation can be a bit counterintuitive until you get the hang of it. (OK, maybe that just means it's counterintuitive, period ... I guess once you've got the hang of it, it's not about intuition any more.) -Chap
Well, I have the job done, but I have another day of Tech coming, if I can login. So....a couple of the things I was looking for was a complete set of torque values for the car....I would think they would have them all in one table or something, but I could not find it. And, while they are available here and there online, I was also looking for exploded parts diagrams, you know, all the parts in say, the rear door, or all the parts in a sideview mirror, I would logically think that all of them would be in one central place. I did not have enough time to really look at the Tech site today -=- as I would have had on Wednesday, if I had been able to access it then when I paid for it.
Hmm, yes, both of those are tricky. As far as I can tell, the exploded parts diagrams have never been part of the service literature: even in the dead-tree version for my Gen 1, there were not complete exploded diagrams of that sort. That seems to be a whole 'nother database of stuff they provide to parts departments. (An exception is the part numbers for wiring connector shells and terminals, which are all in the techinfo Electrical Wiring Diagrams.) Best bet for exploded diagrams showing parts are any of the many Toyota parts outfits selling online; pretty much all of them now show the complete diagrams and give part numbers, and for free. On techinfo, the New Car Features manual (the NCF tab) is the place for the best explanatory, what-goes-where-and-why diagrams, but not for everything in the whole car, mostly for things you're expected to wonder about. Side mirrors might not make the grade as 'new car features'. That said, I've noticed that the later year NCF manuals (especially since they left dead-tree versions behind in 2011) have been getting really big, as if, no longer burdened with having to think about what the thing would weigh if printed, they really have been throwing in a section on every random widget in the car. So the chances get better and better that what you want a diagram of is in the NCF somewhere. But those are diagrams geared to explanation. For the completely detailed ones with part numbers, still the online parts dealers are best. Torque values ... hmmm ... I know my Gen 1 dead-tree Repair Manual does have a SS (service specifications) section right up front, with lists of torque values all together, organized by system. I would usually cross-check those anyway with the ones shown in the section for the actual system, to make sure they agreed. My subscription's not paid up right now so I can't dive in and check whether such a section is still there. You did notice the trick (I hope) where the first list of topics you get (on the search screen) is just a big flat list of search results, but once you pick any of them, you get a manual viewer with a proper tree of sections down the left side, which would be the easiest way to find that section if it's still there. -Chap
You might ask for help from @3prongpaul or @ericbecky . Christmas cookies for their shops are great bribes for their skilled staff and insights. <GRINS> You might also visit the Yahoo Group, "Prius Technical Stuff." An unusually skilled place, little known to the troll-dom. Bob Wilson
