Previously I posted about someone trying to scam our business for parking their car and subsequently claiming we caused their Prius to have a failed hybride battery and inverter. After all the great feedback from everyone from my previous post, we determined the person was trying to scam us for buying a used Prius with another engine replacement and who knows what else was replaced in the vehicle, and have us pay for repairs. As I prepare to defend our case in small claims court, we reached out to the plaintiff to state our case why he is wrong about the cause of the damages to the car. When he responded, he let the cat out of the bag with his new allegation: " .... but, when your employee parked the car, it was NOT placed in Park, it was left in Drive with Parking Brake on." This was an interesting claim, so I went out to my 2014 Prius V and tried to do exactly what was stated above. Immediately the car went into an alarm mode and I further exited the car and heard an alarm outside of the car. No person in the world could walk away from a car giving off all these alerts. Here is my request of the Prius community: 1. Is there documentation anywhere on the 2013 Prius responding this way if the parking break is left on and the car is in Drive? 2. Does anyone have video showing a 2013 Prius responding as mentioned so I can show this in court to prove these allegations are insane? Again, any feedback and support is greatly appreciated!
If you want information that will stand up in court it would be better received from Toyota, I would think.
If the car was left in drive, parking bake on or off, and I exit the vehicle from the driver seat, a very loud high pitched solid tone is emitted from the car. Like you said, I can't imagine anyone walking away from that without taking notice. I dont remember all the details from the original thread, but how does this person know that the car was left on or in drive or what ever if he valet parked it? My understanding of how valet parking works is the valet takes the vehicle and drives away to park the car without the customer to park the vehicle. Then, when the customer is ready to leave, the valet who already has the customer's keys, goes back to the car and brings it to the customer. The customer is not there to witness what was claimed to have happened. As for information that will stand up in court, I would suggest downloading a copy of the owners manual for the particular model Prius involved and spend some time looking for all the info. The manual has more info than I was ever interested in reading but I bet it covers every scenario your customer can come up with. I would also suggest that you get all of his changing allegations in writing.
I think your better angle on this is that it is the plaintiff's burden to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that leaving a Prius in Drive with Parking Brake on would cause a failed hybride battery and inverter. It sounds like neither of you have lawyers, but when he says that on the witness stand, you stand up and say, "Objection, the witness is stating an opinion and has not been qualified as an expert." Even assuming that your employee left the car in drive with the parking brake on, that doesn't mean that it caused the failure of the battery/inverter. The plaintiff will need an expert witness, who is trained in the field and has been qualified, to render such an opinion. A lay witness can merely state facts -- what he saw with his own eyes. As an aside, I assume you are bringing to court to testify the employee who parked the car and will testify that he has driven many Prius vehicles, and so he is familiar with pressing the PARK button and there were no alarms sounding when he got out. And while I agree with everyone that hearing the alarm when closing the door with the car in drive would cause your employee to think twice, it doesn't necessarily mean that he took any action. The car was fine, it was parked, he could have decided that the alarm did not require any further action. When I'm charging a battery from the 12v cigarette lighter, it will make the same sound when I leave (I think there must be back flow or something). The first time it happened (before I determined the cause) I ultimately did walk away as everything I could check was fine. So its not inconceivable that your employee just figured that is the sound the car makes and walked way.
I'm confused as to how leaving the car in drive with the parking brake on will result in needing a new inverter and hybrid battery. As Scona wrote above, that is what I would ask Toyota to confirm or deny in writing.
well this whole thing just seems weird in general, but I guess I /could/ see how if the car is left in drive and the parking brake is on could be not great. Leaving the car in drive would keep it in gear and if there is no wheel resistance it would move forward. Since the ICE starts and stops and the inverter engine is always available, the times that the ICE is not on, the inverter would be trying to push the car forward. Now saying all this, I would think it's harder on the brakes and rotors more than the engine(s).
Interesting case. I had to search and read the original post to understand what took place to lead to this court case. Can I ask a question? How long was the car parked? "Leaving a car in Drive with Parking Brake on", isn't this same thing as stopping at an intersection while applying the friction brake on? I can't think of doing this would harm battery and inverter in anyway. If it did, many more Prius would be sitting dead in all those stop and go traffic jam. Edit: I looked it up. In your original post you stated that the car was parked for ~1 hour. No way in my humble opinion, 1 hour of parking a car with car Ready and brake on would cause the battery and inverter to be dead.
Leaving in "N" with brake on for an hour might drain the battery, especially if air conditioning were on. In "D" should not, UNLESS for some reason the system is programmed not to restart the engine to recharge the battery while parking brake is applied.
