2015 Toyota Prius v Model 5 touchscreen radio freezes about half the time. Must turn off the car and restart in order to reboot the radio and possibly, this time, it might work correctly. Since the touch screen radio is so important to the operation of the car, it is very annoying. Unable to answer the phone, change radio station, make calls, display energy use or mileage, etc.
This car is in Florida and I am an Ohio resident so I don't drive it too often. This is a good chance I'm taking it to the dealer so they can dismiss my complaint.
Since the car was new the touch screen becomes non responsive to touches. Everything appears to work normally except the response to touches. The buttons on the side still work, but there are a lot of things you can not control without touching the screen. It doesn't happen all the time. It's worse in hot weather. Turning the car off and then back on will fix the problem, but it will often come back and that doesn't help when on the highway. So far the dealer says that they have to follow Toyota procedures and there is no procedure for fixing this problem. I am going to do the best I can to convince them to replace the head unit next time I take a stab at getting this repaired. It's kinda "ironic" because I was going to buy a used Prius V, but I decided to get the new one so that I would have the integrated GPS and Bluetooth music from my phone. :(
Searching online this appears it may be a soldering issue in the Panasonic head unit. Software updates do not fix the problem. I have not seen anyone who has had the head unit replaced confirm nor deny that solves the problem.
I have also found some references to a Toyota TBS about the problem.
Tech Tip TT-T0336 April, 2015 states the following;
Some vehicles may experience an intermittently inoperative navigation/radio touch screen following a hot or cold soak. The only way that the customer is able to recover touch screen operation is to cycle the ignition or reboot the head unit.
Update from Aug 8, 2016: They did a another system update and the problem has not shown up in two weeks of very hot weather. (It was happening almost every trip before that). If it comes back again I will update this complaint, but I'm optimistic this problem is FINALLY fixed.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
2015 Toyota Prius v Model 5 touchscreen radio freezes about half the time. Must turn off the car and restart in order to reboot the radio and possibly, this time, it might work correctly. Since the touch screen radio is so important to the operation of the car, it is very annoying. Unable to answer the phone, change radio station, make calls, display energy use or mileage, etc.
This car is in Florida and I am an Ohio resident so I don't drive it too often. This is a good chance I'm taking it to the dealer so they can dismiss my complaint.
- Keith M., North Olmsted, OH, US