Featured Toyota Falls In Brand Loyalty Rankings After Customers Defect To Tesla

I respect the Consumer Reports owner surveys ... numbers and methods are fair. But I have no confidence in their 'professional' staff reports. My skepticism started with their abuse of the Prius and has not improved.

My specific criticisms:

1. Excessive low MPG reported on Prius - the only way I could replicate their numbers was to cold soak the Prius near a road I could drive directly on and floor the accelerator and emergency stop the car. Their highway numbers are accurate but the original MPG is not documented and hard to replicate.
2. Undocumented 'score' - I once spent an afternoon at the local library reviewing several months of Consumer Reports to try and reverse engineer how they generated their score. It looks like driver creature comfort plays a disproportionate roll while efficiency has no effect.

We dropped our subscription in 2012 but I periodically bought their annual summary issue on the news stand. The last time, I regretted the few dollars wasted. I'll catch them at the local library in the future.

Bob Wilson

 

"In an unofficial ranking of all brands by reliability in 2021, Tesla was rated 30th out of 33 manufacturers for reliability by JD Power."
Tesla Model 3 Reliability | The Drive

I have no means of testing each and every car out there. But "having 100 fewer moving parts" doesn't prove anything.

If I had a Tesla and it broke, where would I get it fixed? The closest service center is 4 hours away from my house, and it has a 2.5 out of 5 rating on Yelp. Within about an 7 hour or 400 mile radius there are only 7 service centers total. Yet there are hundreds of traditional mechanic shops and dealers within that same radius

 

Parts you don't have can not break.

There are Tesla parts that break and I've repaired mine: wheel bearing after impacting curb; front control arm ball joint; dump truck and construction gravel impacting windshield, and; underbody panels from road debris. So far, no oil changes, PVC valve, spark plugs, timing chain, transmission oil, brake pads, coolant antifreeze, exhaust valves, muffler, or catalytic converter issues.

Bob Wilson

 

How many engines or transmissions did you have fail on your Toyotas?

Parts that don't break don't need to be replaced.

Cars that aren't broken don't need to be replaced.

Most Teslas also have some 6,000 to 7,000 cells that any one of them could start a catastrophic failure even though they don't move.

I'm not saying that Tesla doesn't do some awesome stuff and that EV's aren't cool. But there have been plenty of people who have needed work to be done on their Teslas and have had bad experiences trying to get that work done by Tesla.

 

Perhaps you are unaware of my previous posts in:

• Generation 1 Prius Discussion | PriusChat
  
• Gen 3 (2010-2015) Toyota Prius Forums | PriusChat
  
• Prime Main Forum (2017-Current) | PriusChat

For Tesla owners and curious, I recommend: Tesla Owners Online Forum

Anyone interested in EV charging: Inside EVS Forum

Bob Wilson

 

I'm trying to find where you had all those engine and transmision failures but I can't find them. I did find this:

 

Well that is a dang shame.

Bob Wilson

 

retrain legacy mechanics after they are laid off due to low gasser sales

 

you can't take it personally. tesla is not for everyone, no single model/manufacturer is. looking around at all the available ev's, none of them are for me yet. but that's not a problem for most of those buying them.

you're lucky you haven't owned a gen 3, read the head gasketbrake actuator/egr threads

 

I wouldn't be buying a new one anyway. Way too much. Even if I bought a Bolt today I would probably go for a 2017 with the new battery that isn't going to catch on fire.

But curse Chevy for stopping production on the Bolt. Like most automakers they are discontinuing entry level cars in favor of SUVs with higher profit margins.

 

Same here. All I can afford is $15,000, and that's with a substantial downpayment.

Personally I've lost trust in used cars. People don't take care of them and manufacturers are bent on planned obsolencense.

I'd probably get a new Nissan Versa if I suddenly needed a car.

I can't afford $26,500 for a Bolt. And in my personal circumstances I would be paying about that as I wouldn't get hardly any tax credit for it.

 

As a society, we "poor" are doomed.

I keep telling myself that my next car will be an EV or at least a hybrid. But it looks like that isn't an option anymore. Maybe I should try 9instead to figure out how to live without a car. That would be even better for the environment and wouldn't kill my wallet.

 

i agree. society holds no love for the poor, and in some ways, works to keep them down.
around here, the closer you get to public trans, the higher the real estate prices

 

Funny my DIL's 2013 Prius v just got a $8k engine repair quote. $3k to investigate and another $5k if it is the head gasket. Notorious for failures at 175k miles and up. It is in that range. Looks good, just not worth fixing at that price.

 

End of lease EVs should be in this range but finding one is not trivial. The leased ones tend to have better maintenance and can come with some warranty left. Hang out in eBay Motors.

Bob Wilson

 

The Gen2s proved to be very reliable as have the Gen4s (only heat exchanger issues). Luckily I skipped over the Gen3s and their severe engine issues.

JeffD

 

No cat converter issues is a big one. I think electric is the way to go. Only I need to be able to go at any second night or day, New Years eve or not, to family if something happens, and it has happened. I can’t be looking for a charger. It will get sorted out, already is moving pretty fast.

 

Sharing my experience:

• Arrive home with typically 100 miles range.
  • Rarely, as low as 50 miles. Typically after running benchmarks.
  • Only for battery maintenance, as low as 5 miles.
• Default charging at home to 75%, 161 miles range, reaches Superchargers in all directions.
• Normal home charging 100 miles to 161 miles ramps up in less than 2 hours.

Bob Wilson

 

Yipes! Ok, so maybe @bwilson4web is right. This kind of thing isn't just a problem with certain Prius. A friend of mine got a newish 100k mile Ford Escape for some $15,000 or so. Two months later the transmission blew and they were quoted $9,000 for the repair.

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it in mind. But with reports of the first Teslas having batteries fail I'm a bit weary about buying a used EV right now. I guess it depends on how old it is. The cheapest I can find are from around 2012 and going for $20,000 or more.

Maybe I should get around to fixing my Gen 2. At least I know what I'm up against. I hate newer cars that go: oh no, here's a $9,000 repair that can't be done at home for any less.

But I'm also tempted to go get the 1985 VW diesel. That car is immortal. And even if I had to rebuild the engine and transmission it wouldn't be that hard to do.

 

i wish i had