2014 prius c front right axle blowout?

How old was that 12v battery? They don't last forever. Running them flat by leaving the ignition on surely doesn't help matters, but if the battery were more than 6 years old then it was only a matter of time before something like that happened. It would have been nice if they'd offered to simply charge the battery and have you pick up the car a few hours later, but it's past that now.

The mechanical joint at the wheel end of the driveshaft is called a constant velocity (CV) joint. It's a very carefully machined assembly made from hardened steel and lubricated with a special kind of grease. The grease is sealed in by a rubber boot that has an accordion shape to it.

If the rubber boot is torn, grease can come out. The loss of grease by itself not terrible. However, water and dirt can get in through the tear, and that is bad. Once water and dirt get in, a joint can wear out very quickly. These joints deal with a lot of mechanical stress, so once they start to wear from any cause the wear pattern accelerates dramatically.

It wouldn't be impossible for a tow to damage the boot on a CV joint, but very unlikely. Virtually every front-wheel drive car on the market has the same system of driveshafts with CV joints and rubber boots. Most modern tow trucks use spectacle lifts that don't go anywhere near the driveshafts or grease boots, and the rollback aka flatbed style towtrucks are even less likely to cause boot damage. After all, the point is to be able to move cars without damaging them.

Bottom line: You'll probably never know how the boot was ripped. The most common cause is hitting debris in the road, and the second most common is the rubber drying out and cracking from old age.

Sometimes it is more practical to replace the entire driveshaft including the CV joint and its boot. Sometimes it works out better just to replace the joint on the end of the shaft. Either way you shouldn't wait to deal with it.

 

I thought about this a little bit more:

When you find a car with a torn boot on a CV joint, one of the first things you see is a pattern of grease that has been thrown out of the boot while driving at high speed. Centrifugal force slings the grease out, and the inside of the fender well gets splattered with the stinky grease residue.

Here's the thing: if the tow was what damaged your boot, then somebody would have had to drive the car to get the grease thrown out.

Therefore, if the grease was already splattered out when the car arrived at the dealer, then the boot damage must have happened before the towtruck was involved.

 

I would not recommend it for a first-time DIY. It typically requires considerable strength and/or powered tools, plus stands to hold the car up with the wheel off. It's dirty, heavy undercar work.

On the other hand, there's absolutely nothing special about it being on a hybrid. So don't pay the dealer price.

Any local neighborhood mechanic or chain shop (firestone pepboys meineke etc) can be expected to handle this properly, so shop around.

 

Oh ugh. They're piling on.

It's good that you had the CV re-done. That was important given the ripped boot.

But replacing all the struts and springs? On a Prius with only 58k miles? Admittedly I can't see your car through my web browser, but that sounds pretty deep into scam territory. You'd have to be overloading the car for every one of those 58k miles, or taking it off jumps or something to need all that.

Almost all of these Prius cs will make it through their entire lifetime with the original springs, and many with original struts.

I wouldn't be shocked if you eventually needed a new ball joint, end link or wheel bearing at some point... but those are replace-as-needed items just like the CV joint. And it doesn't sound like you need any yet because they aren't on this list.

EDIT: I see they did list the end links, referring to them as stabilizer links. So that one is a maybe, but I'm very suspicious of their diagnostics. Are you getting loud clacks and clunks when you go over speed bumps? Sounds that weren't there before?

Frankly I would thank them for the CV replacement and ignore their further recommendations unless you really think you feel a problem driving the car.

Good luck!

 

Yeah, none of that should need to be done unless the car was in a major accident

 

The prices look low compared to what I know from the best quality parts, and there is no brand specified. So I have to assume that they are not using the best stuff.

And again, I really think they're trying to take advantage of you.

 

The best prices for oem parts are usually online dealers like camelback.
Some local dealers will match

 

It's an acronym for Original Equipment Manufacturer.

Sometimes that means Toyota themselves, but in many cases the original manufacturer was actually a subcontractor. Toyota buys the parts from that subcontractor to build the car and stock their own spare parts shelves. But sometimes that manufacturer goes on to sell the same part directly to the public, and that sometimes results in savings to the end buyer.

 

there are a lot of 'black market' poorly made chinese parts sold through reputable non toyota sources, which can be nothing but a headache

 

This whole list is “small stuff” compared to hybrid concerns in the future. They are items any franchise can do and make money. You want an independent mechanic who has good references and can work on hybrids.

You should take it to a real mechanic shop and not a franchise. Ask friends and neighbors, ideally for an independent who has hybrid experience.

Otherwise take it to the dealer you bought it from and ask them to inspect. Still don’t have them do any of this at least right away.

Get a second opinion and then shop around unless it’s a good independent with a very small “do it now” list.