Have a 2012 Sonota Hybrid with about 110K miles on it. The car does not currently get driven very much and usually less than 30 minutes at a time. Yesterday, had driven someplace, parked the car for a couple of hours and when came out and started up the car, a message of Check Active Air Flap System came up on the ECO panel behind the steering wheel. This was the first time I had ever seen this message. The message stayed there while it was idling, shut the car off, started again, message was still there. Drove home, as car started to get up to 25-30mph or so, the message turned off. Stopped at a stop light, message came back on. Got on highway, message disappeared again once got up to some speed. Continued this behavior rest of the way home.

This morning, I looked at it while at home and in garage. While car was turned off, I looked through the grill in front, and it appeared that the flaps were open. I started the car and let it idle. The message came on again. Again, when I looked through the grill in front with the car idling and the message showing, it appeared that the flaps were still open. I have not found a clear answer online, so not sure if the normal situation idling should have been open flaps or closed flaps.

I am taking it in to a dealer tomorrow to have them look at it. I have seen some information that indicates this may not be a cheap fix if they have to replace the whole unit. Does anyone know if this is something that will have to be fixed to prevent additional damage or can the message just be lived with if the fix is too expensive. I assume that the always safe position would be to have the flaps open, but is there anyway to force that? The car was in an accident in January (9 months ago) with some front end damage, so not sure if this might be somehow related to that. I need to go back and try to find the information from the fixes that were done to see if this assembly might have been replaced then. Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

I did just check the invoice from the January accident repairs and it showed a part labeled "86381-4R000 FLAP ASSY-ACTIVE AIR, LWR" which sounds like this item so it appears that this assembly was replaced after the accident. The invoice (paid by insurance) showed the part was $705.65, the labor was not broken out for that particular part as there were numerous repairs that had to be made not just replace this part. I did find the part listed as an OEM part for $244.47 on Amazon