100,000 mile status--Dealer Experience/Advice

You always seemed to get charged more when you are a bit desperate, and the dealers sensed it, went in for the kill.

It's expensive but if the problem is fixed, then it's worth it at 100k miles

 

There is no "Drive belt" only the serpentine belt (a wear out item so it is not covered by the Hybrid warranty, perhaps the 36 month drive train warranty covered it) whose only job is to spin the engine water pump, but if it was really cracked (a reasonable thing at 100k miles) replacement is a good idea even though it had nothing to do with your symptoms. The other items may help and I hope that one of them did.

JeffD

 

Since you live in a hot climate, the HV battery expected life is a bit shorter than those of us who live in cooler climes. My dealer in CT charges $3400 for a new battery. I replaced mine at 195k miles (at about 9 years - both are factors) with a rebuilt battery (ReInVolt, now Dorman) for $2000 including installation. 2.5 years and 65k miles later my 2004 Prius is going strong.

JeffD

 

Every dealer charges different prices for service, I consider the services you did very minor and do those items myself. The diy price for what you did would be around $60.

 

The car has logged 100,000 miles on the odometer?

Was the car rained upon immediately prior to the driveability issues? If so, moisture may have gotten into the spark plug wells causing an engine misfire.

Any warning lights on?

Yes, you were overcharged for the services performed but that is normal behavior for a dealership service dept. especially since the car needed help immediately and you weren't in a position to call around for competitive quotes.

The normal change interval is 120K miles for the iridium spark plugs. The throttle body does need cleaning periodically and a dirty throttle body can cause engine response issues. The serpentine belt needed to be changed but that would not cause the driveability issues.

 

They probably gouged you a little but it was not $5,000. Your car is running good now. Don't look back.

 

you can look around for some hybrid shoppes while you have time and it is running well. i think the work you had done was worth $350.-400. at a dealer, so that wasn't bad. if you're not a diy'er, unless you want to learn, you're probably better off looking for a triple A mechanic, you don't need hybrid expertise to do most of the maintenance on these cars.

 

The dealer charges $125 an hour so everything will be expensive. Y0u seem willing to learn and can take pictures. Lets start with you taking pictures of the throttle body.

If the car has never had the throttle body cleaned in 8 years the carbon buildup sometimes turns into rust that can't be cleaned.
Many tb's have failed because of this rust. The throttle butterfly is motor driven (fly by wire) and does not use mechanical linkage to open and close it and sometimes this rust makes it to hard on the little TB motor to operate properly and will fail. The engine will stall and it will throw a dash dtc. Its a very expensive part to replace if it fails around $2000.

So.....take the air clean top cover off and pull off the air cleaner and take a picture of the throttle body bore and lets see how good a job they did
for $200.

The awful part about dealer service is you never get to talk to the guy who actually worked on the car. A good mechanic will tell you things that don't look good or things that are going to be trouble in the future etc. I highly recommend you find a good mechanic as about 90% of all maintenance things your going to need can be done by a decent mechanic at much less cost and much more interaction than the dealer.

Next thing you need to address is get a transmission fluid change. Your way overdue. Sometimes the dealer is not bad on the price but mostly there clueless and will shue you away telling you its a lifetime fluid. Its not. Cost $40 for 4 quarts of Toyota trans fluid WS fluid.
Open up 2 bolts. One to dump one to pour the fluid in. Would take the dealer 1/2 hour to do this.

 

diy is all about desire. it takes time to learn and time to do. it's not about difficulty, other than difficult takes more desire. for instance, the cabin filter is easy, and yet, some manage to break there glovebox in the process. it's not because it's difficult, it's because they don't want to take the time for proper research, learning and application.