Good bye Prius 2010-2017

I didn't take a picture, but on the dash it is clocking in around 38-41mpg (highway). I got the car on Sunday and it's Thursday with already 300 miles. Rides fine but the mileage is spot on around the 40mpg they are saying. I'll try and take a picture sometime of the dash when I get a chance. The city is rated for 28mpg, but I've gotten 30.5mpg so far.


Again this is just after 300 miles, but really the highway mpg that I care about most.


Re: Toyota, I'm not familiar with the sludge monster issues with the cars, but I will say this as a general statement. Unfortunately companies are there to make money and sometimes it can either be stepping on a few toes, burning off a few customers, or doing outright illegal things.


This is not related, but I had a Samsung Galaxy S4 I bought in late 2013. This is before the Note exploding battery issues. I had swelling in my battery for my S4 after 14 months. The back of the phone was removable. I contacted Samsung, took pictures and gave the S/N and wanted a new battery b/c the swollen battery was unsafe. They told me the phone was "out of warranty" due to being over 1 yr old and I could BUY a new battery from them or take a hike. They couldn't care less. I'm actually amused with their Note 7 problems and karma really comes around.


Another unrelated story: If you have hardwood flooring from Lumber Liquidators you should take a look at this 60 minutes piece:

 

No I didn't check the oil. I haven't checked the oil on any of my cars and I've had regular oil changes and have not had any problems. In fact, my relatives still have Toyotas older than my car, and amusingly I checked my brother's and his car's oil was fine. It's 10 yrs old so older than mine.

If you take a look at post #54 I already described the issue.

I couldn't read the alert. If you look at other people who have had this issue, they say the same thing. It just stays on only long enough for Superman or the Flash to read. I thought the engine problems were gasoline related.

 

No need to worry about Toyotas anyway. Just like Samsung, I won't buy another again. It only takes on bad experience to permanently stain a company's reputation, but then again I'm sure they already know this.

 

Personally I'd be more worried about fouling up of the engine long term if it is due to oil just leaking in the engine block and burning with the gas.

Hyundai has a very good and longer warranty. I probably should have looked at the cars there, but I did not have any time to. I looked at Mazda (didn't like what I saw), Volkswagon (cars look nice, but I heard the maintenance is more expensive and fussy than other brands), Honda (drove the Civic and liked it).

The Civic was good and I don't like large vehicles so I did not get an Accord. There's no parking here in CA. So got it then I'm done.

You should probably keep a very close eye on the oil burning on your engine if you want to keep the car long-term. Seem to be enough people experiencing it.

 

The CAFE Standards that were agreed upon during Obama's administration will have standard cars getting 50 mpg in another 5-10 years. At this point, having a hybrid is not financially worthwhile from my perspective. If you buy a hybrid for other reasons outside of cost (tree hugging, etc.....) that's a different issue, but anyone looking to save money with a hybrid it is no longer a good proposal in my opinion. You are spending money today, to have money tomorrow, the only question is when......depends on what you buy another hybrid at vs. regular car.


The cheapest Prius right now is the Prius II with an MSRP of $24,685 which isn't really accurate because if you go to the dealer it will likely be over $25,000. Most MSRP's I've seen have been over $25,000.

But with this said, let's say you can negotiate it to $22,800 which I'd be impressed because these are not high margin cars and you'd have to really push to get a price like that on a Prius....but assuming you did......

The Civic I got isn't a base, it has a sun roof, heated seat, full 7" touch screen with smartphone integration, etc, etc. it is also larger than the current 2017 Prius for close to $4,300 less than a very basic base Prius II. The new Civics now are as large as the Accords made 10 yrs ago.

So do the math...with gas at $3.50 which is quite high, getting the car at $22,800 which is virtually stealing one at this point (unlikely), and driving 14,000 miles a year, my calculation is a little over 17 years before you are "even".

If gas is $3.50 over 17 years that's a pretty serious issue.........

Everyone gets what they want for whatever reasons they have. For me I just did not want a hybrid from any mfg. not just Toyota.

 

Ok, I did Google and see the sludge issue:

Vehicle Engine Sludge | Consumer Reports

That's unfortunate for those people. I also heard that people who had the 2010 Priuses due to the brake issue back in 2010, Toyota gave a cash settlement for the value lost on the car, or something to that extent.

 

Very variable.... Like $4,300+ price difference variable.

 

I don't have any issue with what people want to buy. In all my posts I always what "for me" or "what I do". I'm not painting a broad picture on what everyone else should do, this is the very mathematical conclusion I arrived at for myself personally.

 

I had the Prius airbag recall fixed before I got rid of it, so that was taken care of.


I use the unlocked Google phones so I have a Nexus. I also unlocked the bootloader and I have custom software loaded that I have re-written and added additional enhancements.

Barring that, iPhone is ok the battery lasts long and it's reliable but the software isn't customizable. Plus Apple controls all the updates so it send out a unified build.


The out of the box Samsung S7, Note, Edge, whatever, LG so and so, HTC blah.......all the other out of the box I'd never buy. A lot of them are loaded with manufacturer skins and are lagged in security updates. A lot of $800+ Samsung phones are either on 6.0 or just getting 7.0.

I've had 7.1.2. since it came out several weeks ago.

 

My neighbor towed his $30,000 all electric Volkswagon golf last night. He got stuck in the amazing SoCal traffic and totally ran out of battery and had to get it towed. I'm surprised those things only go 86 miles.....sheesh.