Online Forum for the 2012 Rav4 EV

Hi everybody, I recently purchased a Rav4 EV with 126,000 miles. This car had terrible drive unit bearing noise, so I took it upon myself to try to fix it.

ALL of the noise was caused by bearing failure, however taking it apart exposed a seal failure as well.
Three bearings were in bad shape. The motor bearings had axial play, and the gearbox pinion bearing had fretting on the outer race, indicative of shaft voltage.

Here is a google doc describing it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A6n0bkLowViFNtoD2bjzkL_IHk5RLS-mvYRUpe2qzGA/edit?usp=sharing

Please excuse the crudity of the document, I didn't have time to build it to scale, or to paint it.

Lots more pictures here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/fUffopAvPV64R6kBA

This is my first experience working on an EV, and let me tell you, they are so much easier to work on than gas cars.

Since there are no drive unit service manuals or internal parts available from Toyota, or presumably Tesla, I would encourage others to share as much as you can about replacement pieces and procedures.

Wow, this is amazing insight - thanks for the great write up!

As these cars age, I suspect more and more of us will be faced with the prospect of bearing and seal replacement; it's nice to see that the process isn't that unreasonable.

Thanks again for taking the time to document and share

Supposedly, the latest version of reworked units Tesla used for replacements included some sort of brush to keep this from happening again. I know my last replacement has gone for 30K miles, twice as far as the each first two motors did before making the milling noise and needing replacement. I also know that QuickChargePower (local to me) will do these replacements.

If anybody opens up a rev Q drive unit, I would love to see what they did differently. I have ideas on a modification, but if Tesla already solved it, I want to see what they did. The rev F drive unit does have a brush, but I don’t think it was effective.

Excellent. Thank you! I always wish I had done photos and videos after I complete a repair. Thanks for actually doing it and sharing.

Wow very cool! Great job! I love seeing people working on this car!

Nicely done. I appreciate that you took high-resolution images instead of the usual phone-camera crap. I mean, these were likely phone-camera pictures, but not a single one is out of focus, as most are that I squint at when trying to follow someone's build.

Also, thanks for explaining your bearing and seal choices. Other than the seal spacer (I don't do any precision machining that requires a lathe, I sub it out; I do own a small mill-drill and boring bar, though, and it does come in handy sometimes), your decisions and approach is very similar to what I would have done if faced with those choices.

I am fortunate to have received the updated DU replacement, but it's nice to see the internals and process.

All inductive Tesla motors used in the 2012-2014 Toyota RAV4 EV have the “brush”.

Thanks Tony!

Was the only difference preload springs, or is there something else different in the rev Q and newer drive units that allows them to last? Or is this just a rumor?

RAV4 doesn’t have a “Q” revision... that was the Model S.

We have ”REV1”, and presumably REV2 as of February 2019.

I honestly don’t know every change.