Edmunds: long-term test wrap-up on 04 Prius

After bashing Prius back in 2004, Edmunds now seem to be a believer in Prius.

 

$40 for key fob battery, ouch!

 

wow...thats alot for the battery for the remote haha....I really hope my nav display doesn't break. When I don't need the screen im in the habit of turning it off, otherwise it can be distracting and my theory is that keeping it off prolongs the life and uses less energy=greater efficiency

 

The car is 6 years old. What the heck did they do to the poor Prius that it needed its brake pads replaced?? We got members here who never needed brake pad replacement past 100,000 miles..

Maybe they were doing the "Sykes the liar" tap-dance on the brakes?

 

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Obviously "one off" statistics don't mean that much anyway, but I think if you want to compare reliability and fuel economy with other cars then you should compare them with other cars that are also driven by people who don't own them.

 

I think it is great the did the test but I hope they include in their report that this was a first model year and everyone knows that the new models always have many more problems than later models.

 

Agreed. I am surprised that there were so many repairs

 

The magazine is full of shit.

I paid about $5 for two fob batteries,
and $88 for the inverter pump and a couple of hours of ignorant DIY labor.

Their total costs not including body work are about $10,000.
Mine are about $500.

 

Whoever is repairing their vehicles is making a fortune off of them!

 

wow way to high cost
and replacing a fob battery not only for the 40 dollars but simple stupid because its not a repair its simply out of energy

 

I think their objective is to estimate what the average person may pay for total vehicle costs and assumes the person has to have all vehicle maintenance performed at a dealer. I.e. no mechanical expertise nor an inclination to perform such work.

While not considered a repair it is still a part of the cost of vehicle ownership and should be included in the total budget. It is likely that whoever replaced the battery for them has a minimum shop charge to perform any work. Most places would just do it for you for free but some places do not and the magazine probably wanted to capture a worst case scenario.

 

I had to replace my front pads at 35k miles! You don't wanna know what I do with my brakes!

 

This caught my eye:

Makes me to think about buying extended warranty again....

 

Ah, but everybody knows you're special Grumpy.

Me...I had to have the rotors resurfaced at 60k because they were rusted and pitted--from lack of use!

 

F8L posted "I think their objective is to estimate what the average person may pay for total vehicle costs and assumes the person has to have all vehicle maintenance performed at a dealer. I.e. no mechanical expertise nor an inclination to perform such work."

I don't presume to know their objective, but I do think they captured the costs of an owner who does not have a clue, picks the most expensive shop in town and requests that charges and gratuitous service be doubled 'to be on the safe side." Or something equally ludicrous.

Multiple posts in the forums detail inverter pump replacement costs at the dealer, and I cannot think of one that came anywhere close to $700. At least I make it clear my charges are DIY handled by a noob. Certainly some owners may not want to follow my footsteps, but the magazine is calling their readers suckers, one and all. Or making up shit on the Prius. Either way, the reporting is garbage.

 

I think you are correct on all three accounts, my friend.

 

I believe that Toyota developed Prius to be a technologically leading vehicle with relatively low total operating costs, including fuel and maintenance.

I also believe that more than a few in their sales and service network have a different goal - by emphasizing its 'newness', profit as much as possible from the average customer.

Neither imagined that we would all gather here at PC and scrutinze the whole thing in such detail, nor that we would collectively invest so much effort in furthering the first set of goals above.

What Edmunds and the rest of the automotive media do, should probably come as no surprise.

 

Cheers, Justin!
I like what Tochatihu wrote above: