… for the mechanical problem that led to the recent recall of their new bZ4X EV. In the absence of a fix, they are offering to buy-back the vehicles. Very, very strange…
Edited to add…
As expected, Subaru has the same issue with their mechanically-identical Solterra model, and–similarly–they have no fix for the problem:
I’ll just keep on avoiding buying the first year of a new generation of car.
Let the early adopters be the guinea pigs.
Drive it until the wheels fall off.
This is incredible to see… The largest automaker can’t keep wheels on? What the heck??
Scrap the wheel bolts. Thread capscrews into the back of the hub with red Loctite and go back to lug nuts, increase torque, done.
Exactly
This situation is not something that should mystify Toyota’s and Subaru’s engineers.
I wonder why the wheel bolt idea isn’t working, since it is common in many European cars? The most common method seems to be threaded studs pressed into the hub, and lug nuts holding the wheel on. One advantage to the stud/nut method might be that the nuts are further away from the brakes, and therefore not subjected to severe temperature changes. Seems however that if the EV uses regenerative braking, the brake heat should be less than w/regular brakes. So if it works w/a VW, why not this one? It’s a puzzle at this point. The only thing I can come up with, maybe the hub or bolt material properties is the problem. Evidence wise, from my penchant of finding stuff laying the street, rarely find wheel bolts, occasionally find wheel nuts, but those aren’t common either, except from big trucks.
That’s what I’m thinking also.
Toyota’s engineers have come up with a different design for this vehicle’s lug bolts, so the bZ4X (and the mechanically-identical Subaru Solterra) can once again be sold to the public.
The article I read (and this one too) indicate that both the bolts and the wheels were at fault. They are supposed to be changing both wheels and bolts to correct the problem.
Yes, that is what the article indicates. Apparently, those lug bolts and the original-design wheels weren’t… compatible. This seems like a fairly basic issue that should have been discovered during pre-production testing, but…
You’d like to think so. The article I read first indicated there were tolerance issues with both parts. So in this case, you have a 2 failure mode stack up. That makes detection harder with small numbers of units. And while you’re vetting suppliers, they tend to have their best workers making the initial runs and so you may not see the whole tolerance range even with separate lot fabrication. What surprises me is the time it took to resolve it. I suspect they knew the cause way early on. It was the time to acknowledge it internally, devise a plan to resolve it and put it into motion that caused the delays.
