PriusChat is the best sales tool Toyota has!

Bought my 2015 Prius after reading about the car here in Pruischat! You are right, the people here are awesome, friendly and not biased.

P.S. Just saw a commercial for the Hyundai Ioniq................pretty much pushing how hip it is to own one! Loved the guy in the hardhat! He's saying his bros thinks his car is "cool". Where are the Prime commercials? Hey, Toyota!.........Its Prime Time!!

Don't fret over your battery. If you bought your car new and the battery last the life of your car loan and your car is still in good shape, just buy a new one and drive another 100k or so without worrying about it.

 

The engineers at Toyota have worked out the very best control mechanisms and electronics to manage the battery without the need for the driver's direct involvement. Soooo, try not to worry about it. I know other commenters are referring to their Prius hatchbacks rather than Prius C's, but their reasons are still sound.

 

I have a friend whose '07 Tacoma is in the shop getting an emissions-related part replaced. It'll cost $2,000. That's less than what I paid to replace the battery in my wife's '07 Prius. (Although I did the work myself.) Years ago, I had to have transmission work done on my Intrepid. That was over $900 and it took them six tries to get it right. How many Prius "trannies" fail?

You read a lot here about battery failures and other repairs because people come here for help. By far, the vast majority of Prius drivers have never heard of PC and will never have to have anything done to the Hybrid system.

If you choose to worry about your car, that's fine. But remember that worry is much like a rocking chair. It keeps you occupied, but won't get you anywhere.

 

Excellent point you made there Jerry. I doubt many people think of that!

 

It comes from my days as an industrial electrician. One of the other electricians was complaining that the maintainers kept calling for help with problems that were not actually electrical. (belt fell off, forgot to push a button, etc.) Having been one of those guys for 10 years myself, I explained that they fix a ton of stuff without calling an electrician and we never hear about those successes in the shop. He said something like, "Oh! I hadn't thought about that."

 

You can get to stuff, but it's akin to getting something out of an overstuffed fridge: you have to pull half the content out, to get to what you want.

 

But I kind of feel the opposite.
I remember when I was a kid, way back in the 70's, the few times my Parents looked at or attempted to buy a used car. The avenues for information and opinion were so limited. You could ask friends, family, co-workers for opinions. You could stop strangers in parking lots. You could look at printed ads in the newspaper. Maybe, there were a few articles in magazines, or reviews, if you were lucky enough to find them. But that was about it.

Today is great.
Automakers own websites. Sites like Prius Chat. Forums. Youtube....Pricing Information Websites and Services...
There is no excuse today for not knowing at least as much or more than the dealership about your intended vehicle. Including Price, Options, and everything.
I KNOW I knew more about The Prius when I bought it, I knew as much or more about The Honda Fit. And I think it's great. I'd rather have the upper hand of knowing MORE about the vehicle, than be my Parents in the 1970's, pretty much trusting what each salesman said, or what the dealership presented.

I had to tell the guy selling my Prius that Oregon was a CARB state, so the Hybrid Battery Warranty was 10 years, or 150,000 miles. He insisted it was only 8 years, and 100,000 miles. And he not only was supposedly "The Resident Prius Expert" but said he owned a Prius himself. There was kind of an awkward silence moment at the end of the discussion. I don't know if I ever convinced him. But since knowing this would be a selling aid? I hope he at least googled it.

But again, since I was well prepared, I was fine with it.
Knowing MORE than the seller? Is IMO a great advantage that use to not really exist.

 

I started with cars when I was 2yo apparently, so Mum tells me (we didn't get our first car till I was about 11yo). I'd rush to the front window when I heard a car coming. She told me that one day I didn't rush to the window, which surprised her, and I said something like - "yes, it's the green Austin from around the corner" - I heard it before so often and I'd already registered it in my storehouse. Then at school, I'd head to the magazines instead of boring fiction and read Popular Science, Popular Mechanics or Wheels (an Aussie car magazine), and the Wednesday Cars snippet in the Newspaper.

Yes, I've had my fair share of moments with car salespeople. I was looking at a Mitsubishi Sigma (Galant - not sure why there is an "L" missing) - and the salesman was proudly rattling off his sales spiel, and said about the "independent rear suspension" - at which I wandered across to the car and saw the beam axle and walked back to him shaking my head. He said "but it's got COIL SPRINGS so it's got to be independent". Oh dear. That repeated many times with sales-people.

 

Probably because there's not really a way to transliterate "gallant" very well in Japanese. ギャラント = gyaranto = galant. To double the L, it would need to be ギャッラント= gyararanto = galalant, which doesn't parse well for English speakers.

Usually, you see the small "tsu" (ッ) in front of a hard consonant to put a glottal stop" between the two consonants. For example, "bikkuri" is pronounced like "bic (tiny pause) koorie".

Apologies to the linguists out there, I'm not one.

 

You seem to be in my opinion!