Looking forward to dumping my Prius

Well I'd look for another car too. These kind of problems with american cars always created bad feelings with me. I would look at Honda and if your still ok with Toyota products I think they are an excellent choice, including dare I say, Prius, after all 1 in a million chances it could ever happen to you again.

 

Where do you live that you refer to the dealer as an "agency"? Have you owned this 2006 since it was new? If so, how was the performance up until this set of problems?

Perhaps you are working with a poor dealer. We had a Subaru that was like that. It had a series of problems, and they always came in clusters. It would take the dealer two or three tries to get a problem fixed. Then we moved to a different city, where they had a really big Subaru dealer with lots of experience. Suddenly our troublesome Subaru was no trouble at all. Having a good dealer made all of the difference in the world. Small problems were instantly fixed and didn't come back or turn into big problems.

Tom

 

An internal short can occur from multiple sources: (1) battery module leak, or (2) any short between the inverter and the battery. If it is intermittent, it can be maddening to locate and pretty much requires a lot of expensive swapping of parts.

Just a couple of questions:

1. You've been the only owner?
2. Odometer reading?
3. Geographical area?
4. Typical driving profile?
5. Any technical details from the agency paper work?

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

 

Thank you for getting that 1 bad car. Can you write down the VIN number so we can avoid it and know our Prius will be as reliable as, well ...
... as a Prius.

 

Sorry to hear about your Prius lemon.
I also own a RAV-4 and its been very reliable the last 10 years.
Good luck on your next Toyota. I hope your experience with the Prius isn't contagious !!

 

I'd be looking into a lemon law suit given the attempts to repair and time out of service. In CA, 3 attempts and no fix, qualifies to start a case.

Hope you don't need to trade in.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your bad situation but it is not typical. My Prius was in a major accident prior to my purchasing it and hasn't given me any problems so far, and I'm one of those kinds of people who just drives the car and then fixes it if it breaks; maintenance is an afterthought for me.

 

Wow, your bad luck Karma sure kicked in.

I think I'd look to balance that out by buying a Lottery ticket...

Hope it all works out for you!

 

I'd dump my car if it stops in the middle of the road for 'no reason' too. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

 

Thank you!

For some of us, the Prius is a also a puzzle, a most interesting engineering Rubik's cube. We are the ones who learn more from failures, not that we are insensitive to the problems, but because it gives us insights that we may be able to put to good use in the future.

Your history with this vehicle has gotten a bunch of us to start running down the possible hypothesis. We'll be fascinated to read the maintenance record. Speculation, I'd start with the connectors followed by checking the wiring closely. Either one have often led to intermittent failures that are very difficult to resolve.

You've got the "A" team.

Nor should you until it is diagnosed and corrected. Be sure to ask for the failed parts if nothing else just to understand what happened.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson

 

I'd be looking at the "lemon law" also, In fact I believe there is a large law firm that's in Philly that deals with that. I see some billboards some time in my travels for them I think there number is 1-800-lemonlaw

 

Does a 2006 vehicle with over 40,000 miles on it qualify as a lemon and require legal action?

I'm not an attorney, so I'm just asking.

 

your shop lacks a good diagnostic guy.

can't say the regional rep is always the sharpest crayon in the box either... but i won't say much more about that.

 

well for what it is worth I have been driving my 2006 Prius since April 14th '06 and have just passed 50,000 miles this week. Never had a single maintenance issue with my car..

 

Unfortunately from what you wrote (I am not a lawyer) you do not qualify for your states lemon law. You still could file a lawsuit but that is harder. The lemon law is for cars with less then 12000 miles or less then one year old.

Pennsylvania Lemon Law Statutes

 

I can sympathize somewhat...my little car was in my local dealership for 2 weeks. Had to contact Toyota Corp, and get a regional rep out. Fortunately for me, after about 3 hours he was able to find my problem, a bad lojack install. I bought out of town and that dealer did the install. At any rate, Toyota Corp was awesome for my problem. My car has been flawless ever since.

 

You shouldn't need the lemon law anyway. It sounds like you are doing some of the right things. I believe that there is an arbitration procedure for problems like this, and, were I you, I would find the appropriate form in your paperwork and submit it. And tell your service department manager and perhaps your regional Toyota service organization that you have done so. Keep a record of all correspondence and calls, of course.

Even the best car maker makes a problem car from time to time. I had an experience a few years ago where a Chrysler product I bought had a problem with the A/C. The problem was evident the day I bought it, before I even closed the deal (I learned from this NEVER to take delivery on a car that already has a problem!). I was told it should not be a problem to get it fixed and let myself be suckered. To shorten the story somewhat, the A/C would leave the shop fixed, but would stop blowing cold within a couple of weeks of any repair. I tried 7 times to get a permanent fix, and finally filed for arbitration. Meanwhile, the service manager at the dealer contacted the regional office, and they contacted me offering to buy back the car. I bought another of the same model (one model year later) and was happy with it for more than 10 years.

So my advice: work with the service manager and the regional office to get a resolution. And don't be too quick to give up on the Prius: I think you simply got a bad vehicle.

My 2006 has 32K miles and is working like a champ. I expect to keep it to at least 120K miles...