Featured A couple of not so good articles about Prius reliability and safety

Wow...
Those Koreans are kicking some serious butt lately!
If they ever find a way to reunite, they will pose some serious competition to the EU.

 

I've never put a lot of stock in Initial Quality surveys. To me, those simply reinforce what buyers thought (or were convinced to think) before buying. I mean who goes into a new car deal thinking the vehicle is a piece of crap but I'm gonna' buy it anyway?

 

does this mean toyota seams are now further apart than tesla?

'the prius did earn 5/5 on the mechanical/drivetrain score'

'corolla scored highest among compact cars'

 

Those initial quality surveys used to be worthless, and now they are a laughable parody of what they once were.

For my money, Powers' problem here is changing perceptions towards dashboard tech. These days a laggy radio station change will drag down the score more than a leaking head gasket.

 

This is my life. My CMax has "horrible" reliability ratings mainly because of the microsoft powered MyFordTouch system. Early owners like myself had to deal with flaky performance along with the automotive version of BSOD (blue screen of death but ours was black) before a major update loaded via the USB port made it livable and now nearly on par with Toyota's limited offering. Ford no longer uses microsoft BTW.

 

My condolences. I refuse to buy cars that won't allow me to replace the factory infotainment device with a proper aftermarket deck. I don't have very many "No-not-never" rules for car selection but that is one of them. It's not worth the headache to put up with them in the first place, plus it's a depreciation time-bomb ready to annihilate resale value. One that is only going to accelerate in rate and grow in scale due to younger people with greater tech demands moving into the market.

The factory system in our new Prius lasted about 4 days before I junked it.

 

no not never...... with charging infrastructure, roomy cargo space, range & blazing high power, we found flaky electronic goodies & fit & finish in the Tessa to be tolerable tradeoffs. That's often the case if you can't have it all.

kind of like the 1980s once Japanese got quality dialed in, versus gm never thinking they needed to do any better.
.

 

Hey, whatever socks your sandals!

 

TBH, that thought never occurred to me during the shopping/buying phase and I was a somewhat serious audio person for decades (radio DJ as a kid). It came with the optional Sony sound so it's adequate but I added a small underseat powered sub for a little more low end punch.

 

Prius still rules for long term powertrain reliability according to statistics on over 1.8M US trade-ins: Toyota Prius Reliability - Dashboard Light

 

Source: 2017 Toyota Prius Prime Pricing, Specs & Reviews | J.D. Power Cars

Overall Quality

PCR Data Not Available​

Source: 2017 Toyota Prius Prime

2017 TOP SAFETY PICK+
2017 Toyota Prius Prime​

It is always a good idea to check the original source of an article. Articles about a report can be . . . lying inaccurate.

Bob Wilson

 

2018 Toyota Prius Prime

It looks they did not test the passenger side small overlap crash for 2017, it only got Acceptable for 2018.

 

The crash rating thing is interesting:

"What is more worrisome about the older Prius cars of this same generation, is that they are not equally safe as the 2018. IIHS clarifies why saying:
"The Toyota Prius was redesigned for the 2016 model year and the Prius Prime was introduced in the 2017 model year. Beginning with 2018 models of the Prius and Prius Prime built after May 2018, a structural brace was added to the passenger-side lower door hinge pillar to improve occupant protection in passenger-side small overlap frontal crashes. (Information about when a specific vehicle was manufactured is on the certification label typically affixed to the car on the driver door or adjacent B-pillar.)"

What about older Prii of older generations? When the small overlap test came out around 2014, I believe Toyota beefed up the Gen3 around 2015 Model Year. Prius v was not as good and had to be beefed up too at some point. And that was apparently just to meet the older driver-side focus test.

We can ponder if v could possibly have been discontinued in USA for this reason.

 

I think poor and declining sales and the introduction of the more popular RAV4H had much more to do with it.

 

I hope the IIHS gets to test the late 2018/2019/2020 Prius on the small overlap frontal crash to give us an updated rating for the front passenger. Maybe this time the Prius will get a “good” rating.

 

VW buyers.

 

I always wondered if JD Power was something born out of "6-Sigma". In the "Toyota and Prius Score" article, there is a commenter who states "Its not just initial quality where Toyota is falling off. Its long term durability as well. I’m one of many who bought the Prius 3rd generation introduced in 2010. At 90k miles it started burning oil."

I have yet to see ANY Prius out there with blue exhaust... ...and there are a LOT of Prius's out there.

 

Who gives.a flying *uck about JD Powers? They are just an advertising firm.