It all started with a flat tire, and now I beg for your help!

We had a 110,000 mile, 52MPG on average, Prius Touring Edition, with all the bells and whistles of the best 08 Prius.

Then we had a flat tire. I had it towed on a flatbed to the same tire store (Firestone) that had replaced our tires at 60,000 miles. Our first set lasted so long, because we have a touring and therefore don't have those weird, lower quality tires that many had. Also, our first replacement set did cause a decrease in MPG, but that went away fairly quickly.

So at the Firestone dealership the guy showed me how the side seam had separated, split open, from the bottom of the tire and that this meant the car was out of alignment and that I therefore had to have all new tires. I realized that this was 10K early, but I went for it, given that we depend on this car to be perfect and we would need all new tires anyway.

He sold me Ecopias. My husband hated the way the car drove, took it back to Firestone, stood there and watched, as they realigned the tires. This means there have no been two alignments since this second set of tires were installed, one at the time of installation and one a few weeks later.

My husband still hated the way the car drove. Initially, there was 45 pounds all the way around. He had that decreased to 30, for some reason.

I drove the car to Luscious Garage in San Francisco -- a 90 mile one-way trip from Santa Cruz -- and they found that the Firestone store in Santa Cruz had failed to properly align the tires. Their repeat of the alignment and subsequent report showed that initially the front tires toed out, which is the opposite of how they should be. I think there was also a problem with the right rear alignment, the very one that had been wrong initially, according to Firestone. Luscious Garage rocks. I believe they do their level best at all times. I gladly paid the 110 dollars, which covered the alignment and the 30 dollars for a check out of the car, including driving it around, and such. I called the Firestone dealership and they promised to compensate me for this cost. Also, Luscious increased the pressure to 40 all the way around, saying that this was the happiest medium, with 45 being arguably high and 30 being too low.

By the way, the car was getting 46 to 47 MPG after the new tires were put on, until I drove it to SF to Luscious, where they did the realignment. When I drove it back, it was getting 56. I have no idea what it has been getting since, but yesterday it was getting 47 for the brief time I was driving it around to see what I thought of it.

Now we are at least 5 weeks later and my husband hates the way the car drives. He wants to take it in to the Toyota Dealership. I am against that for the following reasons. a. the so-called certain cause of all the trouble, according to my husband, is the recall that involves something to do with the steering wheel or something. I am 99.99999 per cent sure I already got that recall taken care of, and even if I didn't, I don't believe that's the problem. We will, find that out tomorrow, however and be sure that it is taken care of. b. I believe that if you take a car to the Toyota Dealership and tell them there is something wrong, they will find something to fix that costs a minimum of 700 dollars, and they will fix that thing, and your car will be no better. However, just to put my husband's mind at ease, I see no problem with him taking the car in, having the oil changed, (assuming we can yell them into putting the synthetic that we always use in and not too much as they often do) and then having them drive it around to see what they think. They can also check to see if we did or didn't do the recall in question. They can also check the alignment.

Note about alignment issues: Firestone has one of the fancy 20 thousand dollar alignment machines that are so perfect that even a child can use them. My husband believes they are dong the alignment, because he watches and is convinced. However, Luscious does not have such a machine. They have manual tools that work just as well, and don't want to pay for the 20 thousand dollar machine. Their mechanic says that "it is not true that any moron can work the alignment machines at Firestone" and that if you don't understand what you are doing, you may well set the car up incorrectly from the start and that it will seem like something is being aligned, but it isn't really happening or happening right. Moreover, the Luscious Garage mechanic swears that the bolts or whatever it is that must be loosened, tightened, or changed on the Prius were not touched and he was extremely skeptical that any alignment had been done at all, proper or otherwise. So regarding alignments we have a multitude of opinions here, including: Firestone's perfect machine, my husband's perfect watching of the perfect machine, my complete ignorance about whether the machine or the Luscious mechanic is doing the job right, my having felt guilty, because I had never done a realignment, the Luscious mechanic having reassured me that I should not have to realign the car unless I hit something, get hit, or get new tires. All sides are either ignorant --me -- or they are extremely confident -- my husband -- or they are experts -- the luscious mechanic. So this is a side issue that I have spent no small number of hours trying to reconcile with no luck. Did Luscious really align it correctly? Did Firestone? etc. etc. I believe in Luscious, of course.

While we wait to take the car to the dealer tomorrow, I am writing a note to the Firestone Manager -- a new woman who took over after the guy that put my new tires on the car was suddenly fired. I have not yet received my 90 dollars, because I could not print my Luscious receipt, because my printer doesn't work, I'm trying to do actual work and am busy, and I'm refinancing my house and a million other things, so I have not managed to get my receipt to her. I do recall her saying that she would "make this right."

So, what I'm thinking of doing -- after my husband has the oil changed, the car driven around, and the recall verified -- is to take the car back to the dreaded Firestone place, show her the original Luscious receipt, at minimum get my 110 dollars, and preferably get new tires, after explaining that my husband HATES the way the car drives, and assuming that the Toyota dealership finds no other issue -- I know this is inconsistent with what I said about them above, but I can always hope.

So, my issues for the list are.

What kind of tires would be good, assuming the Firestone manager wants to replace the tires, a pipe dream, I realize.

If the Toyota dealership DOES find a problem, what VALID problem might cause the issues my husband is experiencing. They are: reduced mileage, horrible handling. Specifically, the car does not turn when you turn the steering wheel, until you have turned it a lot farther than you used to have to turn it. This is true in both directions. In other words, turn to the left, it does not turn. Turn to the right, it does not turn. Turn it further, it turns. Also, he thinks the car is dangerous, and I guess this is because it is slow to respond, and then it finally responds, and the thinks of this delayed response as likely to be too much of a response such that the car could go into a spin out at higher speeds. This happened, he thinks or claims, when we were coming home from vacation and he had to do a hard stop at an intersection, to avoid broadsiding a car that was turning in front of us. He claims that the car nearly lost control at that point. I believe that is FALSE. I think he is confusing the way a Prius feels when you do a hard stop and possibly also turn on the traction control and/or the anti-lock brakes. I was in the back seat to avoid arguing with him about his obsession that the car is dangerous, and I confess that I did not check to see whether the anti-lock or Traction control icons lit up at the time. However, I did take over as driver and felt ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM AT ALL except that the car seemed to lack some responsiveness, which I attributed to the fact that we had it loaded to the gills with camping garbage.

If you read this far, I'll give you a deal on the software we sell.

 

When you turn left it does not immediately turn. When you turn right, it does not immediately turn. This lack of quick response seems balanced. Eventually it does turn. He seems to believe that it turns more and more quickly as you turn the wheel, and this causes him to worry that it will tend to fishtail. Also, it used to get 52 and now it gets 47 to 49 mpg. Also, I can't assemble a reasonable world view of alignments, given the different strong opinions on how this is best done.

I am very sorry for the length of this message, but it is a long, painful story. My husband believes the car is junk and dangerous at this point. I'm more than happy to take over the car, but he believes it is too dangerous.

 

I LOVE the car and I want it to last as long as possible. I want to pass the 200K and 300k milestones. Its my husband who needs the car to drive long distances each day, so it makes more sense for him to have the economical and safe car.

 

Cliff Notes to Original Post, written by Original Poster
1. What kind of tires are best.
2. What kind of problem could cause a car to be less responsive to turning left or right than it was before it had new tires put on it.
3. Documented cases of apparent lack of success at aligning the car and then proper alignments did not remedy the lack of responsiveness issue.
4. The car seems to have gone from solidly 52 MPG before new tires, to 46 or 47 after new tires, to 56 after 3rd realignment, to 47 to 49 again.

The above is a list of questions, without any inherit order of importance.

 

Can you advise as to how I can test something to make sure precisely what is wrong and then fix it and make sure it is fixed?

 

My tires are not so new anymore. We put them on in the beginning of June. The problem started immediately after the new tires were put on. Immediately. It caused immediate desperate attempts to get help. I've written about this problem in the past, and ended up answering all of the questions that people had, which caused me to write as much in several different posts as I wrote in this one huge one. I was tired of answering all the zillions of asides and losing the possible help I might get if I put all the information in at once.

Tires were put on
Alignment was off and then supposed fixed at the same time
Problem began
Alignment was deemed to be off and was fixed and the pressure changed from 45 to 30 at the same time
Problem continued
Drove to Luscious, changed pressure and got new alignment, experienced an immediate increase inMPG
Husband stll hates the car.
I think the steering issue exists, but doesn't seem to me to be obviously dangerous. Maybe he's right and I'm wrong.
I could not leave out the issue of alignment or the issue of pressure or the issue of new tires.
These issues are ALL connected. I have spent months on this in some way or other (listening to complaints at a minimum.)

Thanks everyone for your help. I will keep on pressing on. I do not believe that I should dump a car that initially worked perfectly and seems to have become junk, at least to my husband, merely because it received new tires.

Don't read the questions if they are annoying. I am sorry, but I'm seriously worried that we are going to be forced to give up a perfectly good car, just because we have some sort of problem that nobody else can detect. I think my husband may be imagining this or exaggerating it, but it might instead be very dangerous. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, this issue needs a solution, so I went out on a limb and retold the story, knowing people like you would be angry, but wishing that someone would finally get what it is that is wrong. I guess I blew it. I'm sorry.

There is absolutely NO DOUBT that this started when we got new tires.
There is absolutely NO DOUBT that we received at least two bad alignments
There is a possibility we received three bad alignments.
At each alignment, the tire pressure was drastically changed.

I'm sorry, but these facts need to be kept together.

 

I really appreciate your time and effort to help me. Its ust that the car was PERFECT and then they put tires on it and it was lousy and that's really the way it was. The things that played into it being lousy all happened at once tires, pressure, alignment. I get what you are saying and I want to make progress. I'll read this again in the morning. There's also my husband's perceptions.