The other day while driving into a ToysRUs parking lot I unintentionally drove my pristine 2 month old Prius over a 5 foot-wide concrete sidewalk that was recently constructed by the store management in a grossly misguided attempt to prevent people entering the lot from making an immediate right hand turn. The interior of this 'sidewalk' had not been poured and in effect was a 5" deep ditch filled with large rocks. The end result was that my car jolted over this curb, the ditch, and the opposite curve at about 20mph. I pulled into a parking space and immediately checked out the car. I was amazed to find that there was no damage to the front air scoop or any other visible part. When I got home later that day, I put the car up on car ramps and checked the underside and suspension. Everything looked undamaged and as clean as a 2 month old car should look. However, I'm now hyper-attuned to any impact in the car's driveability. It appears to me that the car feels slightly less 'smooth' when going over bumps and imperfections in roads, almost as if the suspension system is not quite as tight as it had been. Is this possible, or is this most likely just the fact that I'm more attuned to the suspension now? If it is something real (and not imagined), what is most likely to be the cause (i.e. what is most likely to have been damaged) in this incident?
What speed were you doing ? Is your steering wheel off centre or does the car pull to one side ? Allow for the fact that as your car is so brand new your are naturally being over concerned - as I would be.
I wouldn't want to say it's your imagination but hopefully it is. I tend to do the same kind of thing, if I hit a pot hole or something I'm hyper sensitive to anything the car does for a while. Fortunately the car seems fairly tough and can take a few jolts. Actually you could have an alignment check anyway, Toyota will do one free during the first year if you think it's pulling or the steering is off center or if it "wanders" going down the road. Two things about that: 1. you may want to try and get them to give you a little toe in in the front, +.05 degrees on each side seems to help with tracking (there are quite a few topics about alignment here) and 2. make sure you get a copy of the print out showing before and after from the alignment machine.
If it's any reassurance, the prius seems to be one tough li'l guy. I keep my tires pumped up pretty hard, which means that road nasties get transmitted right into the suspension, and I've hit a few holes that feel like they'd knock the front-end silly -- but the golfcart still tracks as true as the day I got it. Amazing, but I'm not gonna complain. So if you couldn't spot any actual damage while crawling underneath and your steering still seems okay, then you're hopefully good. . _H*
It's possible things got stretched out a bit. This is one area where hummer out performs the Prius hands down. I was just here thinking what I would have paid to just happen to get to see this. If you were to make a YouTube re-enactment, you'd have a very popular video. Hope the car's ok!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Nov 27 2006, 09:02 AM) [snapback]354398[/snapback]</div> Thanks for all the reassurances. Took the car to dealership to check alignment and it was within specs but they were kind enough to set it to 0.05 toe-in that I requested. Everything else appears to be in order. I remain extremely impressed by this car. My first experience with Toyota products after being primarily a Honda person in past.
