SAJPRIUS

I have been an owner of Toyota's since 1986. Two Tercels and one Prius. Despite liking Toyota's. I will admit, it has been a more love/ less hate relationship. I have had troubles with each model, some easier to fix than others. Furthermore, I think the first 100,000 miles (160,934.4 km) are the best, with the least number of problems, thereafter, things start happening, sometimes little, and other times more dramatic. There were three bad things that happened to my cars: first, on my second Tercel the automatic transmission failed at around 65,000 miles (104,607.36 km). The irony was that I knew something was wrong when I first purchased the used car, should have done something about it right then and there, live and learn. Many years later, my Prius inverter went out at around 180,000 miles (289,681.92 km) (Toyota fixed for free, because of a previous court settlement) and then the hybrid battery failed at around 185,000 miles (297,728.64 km). I was still impressed that I got that many miles out of it. At least, I was prepared for that.

My biggest complaint about the Prius is: what imbecile ever thought of using a DVD Navigation disc to load the software needed for all the functions on the JBL E7022 radio/nav/multimedia to work? Without that disc, nothing operates on the radio. Unfortunately, to make things worse, my DVD drive is broken, so it can't even read the disc. Guess how much a brand new radio cost? Just under $5000.00. What?!!! Yea.

The funny thing is that, even though these expensive repairs have cost me money, I still like my Prius and hope that the worst is over and that my car will continue to run for the next 10 years plus. What can I say? The car is completely quiet, starts up every time, runs silent and smooth, is comfortable, all the electronics work, A/C is cool, and it is up-to-date on all maintenance. The only sound that bothers me is the front left KYB strut/shock squeaks when driving over speed bumps. The mileage is still excellent for 44 to 50 MPG. As long as nothing else goes wrong and allows me to earn enough money to eventually buy a new car, I'll be in good shape. Ten year from now, I wounder what the Prius will look like, that's if Toyota still has them? Living on a prayer, LOL.