prius defect rate

As a long time Prius Chat participant and now a Prius Owner my only possible response is for my eyes to glaze over and to robotically repeat:

Prius are perfect.
There are no defects. Only random opportunities for spontaneous improvements to various systems.
Check your 12 volt battery.

 

it's pretty amazing. i wonder how other toy products measure up. our camry's and hycam's have been the same.

 

glad i'm not an suv guy, wonder why that one's a problem, awd?

 

Based on a sample size of 1443 vehicles, probably self selected volunteers.

You'd have to define "a defect" for the purpose of understanding what is presented.

And with 600k plus Prius cars just recalled, don't these numbers change more than a bit.

 

The Rav4 complaints spiked in the CR numbers when going from first to second generation. I think there were a couple fires from improper oil changes around that time.

It was in an old article about how problems are higher in new models and redesigns. CR held the Rav4 up as an example of how badly they might diverge from the previous model's or manufacturer's data.

 

fires from oil changes? what are they using for light, a torch?

 

Here is what the website says about the underlying data:

I hope they publish more detail; it is an interesting approach.

 

The more I read in that website the more I like it. Smart people.
Check out this graph:

 

Pretty much only Gen1 and Gen2 looks like they held quality into Gen3 in 2010.

Interesting the overall industry reliability getting quite good with time.

 

What do you mean ?

 

OP plot ends at 2010

 

Not surprising since the data is on trade-ins. These last 5 years will have been affected by the Great Recession, but the approach is innovative regardless.

 

The fires generally happen sometime after the oil change.
The Sonic originally had a belly pan for the engine bay. It was left off soon after the first year. It was being left off after oil changes, which lead to annoyed owners, but the issue that lead to GM just not installing the pan is what happened when the oil change technician didn't take the pan off at all. They would remove the oil plug, and let the oil drain onto the pan. It would then drain from a hole in the pan. If the oil wasn't cleaned off the pan after the job was finished, then it was close enough to the engine to eventually catch fire from the heat.

Now, it was quite some time ago, but the impression I had of the Rav4 oil fires was that something about the design could lead to oil spilled during a service that may ignite, literally, down the road, like with the Sonic's belly pan. So it may not be something unreliable or dangerous about the design itself, but it lead to lazy and sloppy work that did.

 

My only problem with the curves was failure to include the number of vehicles in each data point. The "2003" local peak doesn't match my experience with our 2003 or what we see in the "Gen I" forum. Now if it included the infantile problems of the first generation, NHW20, it would make sense. As a general rule:

• Last model year is most reliable having all improvements done at the factory or before leaving dealer.
  
• First model year is least reliable because improvements have to be fixed in recall maintenance.

Bob Wilson