I was taking a look under the back end of my xB this afternoon to see what was under there and how big the JDM spare tire stamping was, and I found a variety of plastic or metal boxes and a bunch of loomed hoses under there. What concerned me was that they were just sitting under there, unprotected from debris. There wasn't even any kind of plastic shield over them, like you would find on the bottom of an engine compartment.

Did the factory or the dealer forget to put something on? I'm concerned about the longevity of the parts under there, because they look fragile.

What are some of these boxes and hoses for?

I'll try to take a picture tomorrow in case you aren't sure what I'm talking about

Thanks

 

nope, that's how they all are.

 

Mine is like that too. I think, not sure, it's the "black box" that records movements and stuff prior to a wreck.

 

The black plastic box and hoses are fuel evaporation system related. And yeah it might have been nice to protect them a bit more...but they are probably fine unless you drive on gravel all the time.

 

iheartzombies.........."Mine is like that too. I think, not sure, it's the "black box" that records movements and stuff prior to a wreck." ..........., LMAO, state of the art stuff for under $15,000. i think , no, no..........lol

 

same here, however I found spiderwebs in some of the corners under my xB. some very brave or stupid spiders.

 

Um, xB's have EDR's... Not what he was looking at, but we do have them. Look it up.

 

Yes indeed Event data recorders are in place on the xB's. I think that this unit may be part of the requirements of OBD2...not sure on this...but the data recorder is part of the electronics on the car.

 

Yes, we do have EDRs - with a scanguageII you can even tap into them!

the black box you see is in fact " fuel evaporation system related" as terrible ted sed.

 

 

easy now...

 

Not to add fuel to the fire, but we also have Vehicle Stability Control, which you can't find on many other cars under $30K. If you think EDR's are "state of the art," wait until you lose control on a snowy road, only to have the frickin' car take over the steering and braking FOR YOU. @_@

Saved my life the first winter I had the car. Never seen anything like it. O.O If I hadn't known exactly what was happening, I'd have thought I was driving a Transformer, because I swear on my honor the car drove itself.

Anyway, Toyota was absolutely brilliant in their decisions of what to put on and what to skip to keep the car low-cost, and of course, that's why I bought the car. I'd rather have VSC over cruise control any day.

About the only thing they left out is side airbags. *COUGH COUGH* And I have a FUNNY FEELING that they might pop them onto the next model.

 

lol, no sh$t.......... they sent me ta school and i ate the books. well that's good ta know, i learn something new everyday

 

So should I fabricate a protective covering out of sheet metal? ;)

 

You could. It certainly shouldn't hurt. But you likely don't really need to. Do you drive offroad in the desert alot? (maybe in this case is would make sense) (I would think that damage is only likely if you are offroad or driving on gravel alot.)

 

edr's are different than most of the black boxes out there. we have a crappy low end equivelent as do most cars.

 

I'm having a hard time envisioning a scenario in which debris would really make it up there... seems like anything kicked up would travel in the direction the tires spin and vector toward the rear skirt, or potentially up into the wheelwell.

In fact, I would almost bet that if you drove a bone dry car over wet roads for a half hour, you wouldn't even see much more than road mist making it up there, but it's just a hunch.

 

The plastic boxes and conduits are tougher than one might expect, and they're tucked well up in there. I wouldn't be concerned about it in the least. Well, unless I had a really long semi-offroad driveway, or used the box to explore a lot of unimproved dirt roads...

The evap emissions control pump kicked on while I was installing my swaybar- spooked me, for sure... but reading the manual, it does that automagically, as required..

 

I used the stock rear heatsheild to make a heatsheild for the evap box. ( i had to sheild the box with my center exhaust , thus not needing it in teh stock location as theres no muffler there)

 

You got any pics of that?