2008 Prius Touring Edition spontaneous FIRE

A good friend of mine was pretty upset when his Toyota dealer and the regional manager refused to cover any part of the $3500 transmission overhaul his minivan required just after its warranty expired. He felt a lot better though when he found a check for the full amount in his mailbox a few months later, along with a letter from Toyota explaining that they'd had an unacceptably high failure rate for that transmission and were retroactively extending the warranty.

Try Ctrl+F1. It toggles the ribbon on and off. I leave it off most of the time. When hidden, the ribbon reappears if you hit the Alt key. It took me a while to adapt to it, but IMO the ribbon is a far superior interface to the endless cascading menus it replaces.

Wow, that would be my former Toyota dealer. I don't enjoy being frustrated, so I'd go somewhere else.

 

Prius is not one of the cars with a badly-designed engine that overheats & sludges oil.

The other people already provided citations. I'll just add this one where you can hear the complaints DIRECT from the customers who, even though they had dealer records proving the engine was serviced every 7000 miles, Toyota still voided the warranty and stuck customers with $6000 bills. I started with the oldest complaint because it demonstrates how many YEARS Toyota kept denying engine warranties & sticking customers with the bill. For many customers they waited 9-10 years until Toyota finally refunded the engine replacement money. Maybe you guys think that's "acceptable" but if I were one of those customers, I'd be pissed. You have an engine warranty; you honor it. You don't leave the customer waiting for 9-10 years.

As for blacklisting car companies, most of mine were purchased BEFORE the companies had problems. For example Honda reprogrammed the Civic Hybrid firmware to use more engine & less battery. That lowered MPG ratings. However I bought my three insights before those events had occurred (I only learned about it a few months ago).

Volkswagen: They have a problem with 2011 and later TDI fuel pumps blowing-up and destroying the engine. BUT volkswagen did not act like Toyota and void engine warranties. Volkswagen stood behind their warranty & gave customers free engine repair. For me that is a sign of a good company.

I don't expect perfection, but I do expect companies to honor their warranties & fix their errors. Toyota spent over ten years from 1997-2008 voiding engine warranties & basically screwing the customers. (Until they lost a class-action lawsuit and the gov't FORCED them to do the right thing.)

LINK 261 Complaints and Reviews about Toyota Engine Problems | Page 9

 

Yeesh! I wish PriusChat was on his hate list!

 

JPP if you click on his name there is an ignore button. PriusChat can be as serene as driving a Prius.

 

Ignoring me does no good.
I change my name (or my handle) every January so employers, or google, or the DHS cannot track my web history. And if I did not frequent PriusChat how would I learn more about the used G3 that I am shopping for? I am destined to own a prius. Now I need to learn everything I can about it.
BTW it's poor netiquette to quote somebody else's post and not trim it down to the relevant 2-3 sentences you are replying to. Quoting an entire message has long been considered rude to other users.

 

Jeez, so much off topic blather!

Is it too much to ask that we go full circle and get back to the topic of this thread;
2008 Prius Touring Edition spontaneous FIRE | PriusChat
I suppose that the sludge/Who-I-Love -to Hate stuff could be rant-worthy...
but if so, they might rise to the level of having their own threads.

Then again, as the OP has not responded with anything at all, nevertheless
something meaningful, see post #11, maybe we should just consider the topic
closed until they do.

 

I remember a few fires in sitting Gen II's posted on PC. One was on the street and one was in a shopping mall parking lot and one was in a garage that burned to the ground.
There all here just have to search.

Googled and here's the garage one I think:

Prius Catches Fire In Corte Madera Garage, Causes Explosion « CBS San Francisco

 

Lithium-ion batteries are known to spontaneously release their energy (see the Boeing Dreamliner, the Apple iPods, various laptops, and model airplanes). I've never heard of NiMH batteries catching fire

 

Poof, all gone!
That was easy!

 

Back to the original post. It seems a bit hard to believe that the OP is having such an issue with how this is being handled - I think it pretty decent that they came out to inspect a car so far out of warranty.

The issue is that you do not really know how the fire started. To state in the title that it was spontaneous is a bit inflammatory (pun intended) - it could be, but that is not something that you can say for sure. When you think about it, cars do not catch fire unless there is something very, very wrong with them. There are a number of other potential causes that I would imagine are just as likely - everything from vandalism to something left inside of the car to some aftermarket addition. Have you done anything to rule out other causes?

As others have pointed out, in your original post you state that your niece is not asking for anything from Toyota... except for a new car. Well that is not nothing, rather it is not an insignificant ask. Perhaps that smelled a bit fishy to Toyota - why not ask for the current value of the 2008? Toyota looked at it and did not see a fault. Now it is going to be up to your niece - she is going to have to be proactive and figure why the car caught fire. I would hope that if it was a clear cut issue with the car that Toyota steps up. If she has hard proof and they do not that is what the court system is for.

Best of luck.

 

Okay... This post has been going on and on and no one has noticed that the OP hasn't come back to reply or supply any additional information. I smell something funny and it's NOT a 2008 Prius!

 

Unless I'm reading the time stamps incorrectly it has been less than 24 hours since the original post so it may be a bit soon. I'd agree if the OP does not check back in within the next day or so your nose may be dead on.

 

You are reading it incorrectly. He posted about 40 hours ago.

 

my bad.

 

Hey, Steve. It's been two days, and this is the OP's only post in almost six years. Plus, if the car is a charred pile of molten steel and ash, I would have pictures and all sorts of information to provide... It just doesn't seem like this really happened, or the OP realized it was his/her fault.

We still own an '07 and I would be just as interested as the rest of PC Members if the car was a danger to myself or my family...

Hey, OP, where are you? Are you at a Congressional Hearing? Was your post your only opening statement and now you are pleading the 5th Amendment?!?

 

The UK equivalent of the 2008 Prius Touring is the Prius T Spirit. I've never heard of any T Spirits here spontaneously combusting - the rabid press here would have a field day. However, I find the theory of "rodent intrusion" into the engine area causing a fire much more plausible - especially as I once found left over McDonalds food and packaging in the engine compartment of my old MX-3 about 4 years ago - and yes, it was RATS...!! Fortunately, they'd spent more time chewing on the plastic fast food packaging than on the cables in my car. I was very lucky indeed.

 

I find this section of your post disturbing.

" She notified Toyota and after a month of the melted car left in her driveway, they came to inspect and said cause was "undetermined"

When she filed claim/notified the insurance company they "the insurance company" Take possession of the vehicle immediately. Transport it to a secure facility (evidence preservation)

An investigator from the insurance company electrical/mechanical engineer and a representative from the vehicle manufacture investigate and try to determine the cause of the fire. If the determination is a malfunction of the manufactures equipment the insurance company will get reimbursed from the manufacture.

vehicle fire are always investigated especially when the insurance company may have to pay damages.

Just sounds fishy.

 

Now look, if you are going to drag facts and logic into this thread, that will just displace a lot of FUD into some other thread.