What Toyota doesn't want you to know

So the OP did what he should have done all along, instead of going into hysterics (enjoyed the delightful irony of his "get a grip" comment. )

It's a fairly smart move by Toyota. The battery cost for them is likely about $1500 based on typical dealer markup. I doubt the rate they will pay the dealer is very high. Basically they are foregoing a profit on the battery replacement.

Whether or not that will translate into another sale with such a fickle customer is debatable. :glare: Wouldn't be surprised to see the same basic post when the next major part fails. But hopefully, next time rather than posting such an oddball poll he will directly ask for help or advice. Those aren't hard to get around here.

 

I have no idea how much he has into other repairs but if this is the only major repair I wouldn't complain.

My 97 Volvo 960 I replaced all the hoses and plastic parts in my cooling system including the radiator. It needs to be done every eight years before you get a catastrophic cooling failure. Heat and time weaken many of the plastic components, $800 installed.

You get cheap and something goes south and the car over heats your looking at a $2,000 repair replacing the cylinder head. AC two hoses at $600 and a compressor at $1,400. $200 to repair the parking brake cable between eight and tens years of age. I have 110K miles on the car. Every 70K timing belt with tensioner and idle pulley need replaced at around $300-$350. This is another skip it and kiss your head good bye with in 10K miles.

If all I have to do is replace the rotors and pads at 7-8 years and the battery at 100K I'd be way ahead over routine maintenance costs on most cars. One factor in purchasing my Prius was the minimal maintenance needed for the first 100k.

 

Batteries are guaranteed for 150,000 mi in California. This is required by the Air Resources Board.

 

Thanks.

Great minds think alike eh?

 

Wow. I'm sorry but I don't follow this logic at all.

 

I believe the last new one (G951017020) we sent out was under $1900.00, but that was sent UPS freight to a business. UPS does have a $76.00 residence fee if you want one sent to your house, but you have to have a way of unloading it.

 

Hi All,

So the original poster got 105 % of the Toyota promised performance, and by crying and moaning that his first mass-production Hybrid car was not living up to the expectations of what, a 10 th generation traditional Honda Accord has bitched and moaned his way to get another 50 % out of Toyota?

Where is the common sense? I see none.

On a purely economic basis, the battery saved him at least $1000 in brake repair work (unless he does his own), and some gas as well. The Gen 1 Prius does about 45 mpg, and the Accord about 30. At 105K miles that works out do a differnce in gas of 1167 gallons. Over the past 8 years in California say $2/ga average. That is $2334 in gas savings. So the battery paid for itself. This is a first generation, and expecting more than break-even economics is just not realistic. Altough some lucky people do. The goal here was to avoid sending bucs to the middle east. That was accomplished. That money went instead to Japan.

If that was the best the Prius could be developed too, it would be a less pleasing car. This OP is running on the high resistance cells, in warm weather, that had a recall to be resealed. Still, he got 105% of the promise. Subsequent Prius batteries have better cells (with less internal heat generation at high current), are sealed for life, are smaller and less expensive. We should expect to exceed break-even with these cars. And with gas averaging more like $3/ga since 2004, even with the old technology performance it does.

 

Let me take a crack at it. When it comes to the cost of repairing and maintaining an item, there are two factors: 1) The cost of a typical repair, and 2) The likelihood of having to make that typical repair (often called the Mean Time to Failure or something of this sort). Those two factors multiply against each other to produce the average cost of maintenance or repair.

For example, a wood saw might use an ordinary steel blade, or a more expensive carbide blade. The carbide blade costs more, but will also last longer. Which one is cheaper to use? It all depends on the cost of the blades, how much longer the carbide blade lasts, and any consequential costs due to blade failure and replacement.

For electronic devices there is an additional factor. Items made to be replaced require sockets or removable connections. Each connector is another point of failure, so making an item replaceable also makes it less reliable. Tubes and transistors are a good example of this. Older consumer vacuum tube designs always included sockets for the tubes, as tubes failed with regularity. It wouldn't have been cost effective to toss out a TV set when the first tube burned out.

When transistor designs started replacing tube sets, the transistors were often socketed just as the tubes had been. It didn't take too long for designers to realize that the transistors were much more reliable than the sockets. Once this came to light, the sockets were eliminated, making a less expensive and more reliable product.

The downside was that you couldn't easily replace a failed transistor. A skilled technician could unsolder one and solder in a replacement, but it took a lot of skill and training. Companies such as Quasar countered this by producing modular designs, where each subsystem was on a separate circuit board. Quasar called their design "Works in a Drawer". With Quasar TVs you could pull out a front mounted drawer and access all of the major circuit boards. A failed board was pulled and easily replaced.

As the reliability of electronics continued to improve, the Quasar modular system met with the same problem as the socketed transistors. The connectors on the circuit boards added cost and reduced reliability. It made more sense to put everything on one big circuit board and eliminate all of the cost and complexity of the modular system.

The lack of modularity meant that the entire circuit board had to be replaced with the failure of a single component, but the components were so reliable that a failure was unlikely. The average cost of ownership was lowered, even though to cost of repair was raised. Frequent, less expensive repairs were traded for infrequent, more expensive repairs.

This trend has continued to the point where most consumer items are no longer repaired. They either work or are replaced. Higher levels of integration and miniaturization have furthered this trend.

The Toyota Prius is a modern, highly integrated electronic device. Because of the complexity and distributed nature of the Prius control systems, the electronics is modularized into a number of ECUs. Each of these ECUs, however, is considered unrepairable. Like most modern electronics, the overall cost of ownership has been lowered by making them highly reliable at the expense of being unrepairable.

What does this mean for the average Prius owner? It means the cost of owning and operating a Prius is lower. The downside is that repairs are expensive for the unlucky few that experience failures.

Tom

 

Yep, he's a real gem isn't he?

 

California currently gets a 150,000 mile warranty on the battery.
A $3000 repair at 100k hurts but there are many cars, such as the Honda HX that I just replaced, that require costly maintenance at that time point (e.g. replacement of serpentine (Sp) belts that the Prius does not need - Prius's timing chain will probobly last 200k). Also you need far fewer brake jobs on a Prius so don't feel to bad.
I'll make you feel better -
Repair record for my Honda Civic HX -

93k - tranny failed; Honda picked up some of it but it was still $800.

105k - voltage regulatory failed for the second time; $300.

110k - gas tank nearly fell off of car due to a defective weld on one of the straps securing it. Bolt was sent back to Honda; they apologized and reimbursed the $250 to find and fix the problem but still - scary. If air hadn't got into the fuel line and caused the check engine light go on I wouldn't have known there was a problem.

120k - $400 failure; can't remember the component right now.

125k - eating of tires linked to worn front compliance arm bushings; $500 repair.

127k - fuel pump fails causing car to roll to a stop without warning. I had just come off of a busy freeway. Second failure with the potential to cause death/serious injury to myself or others. $600 repair.

130k - gave up and bought a Prius.

 

Compare hybrid at 46mpg to non-hybrid at 23mpg

103000 /46mpg= 2239gal used * 2.69 per gal = $6022 + $3000=$9022

103000/23mpg=4478gas used * 2.69 per gal = $12045

You saved over the years $3023.

I do agree that if they are guaranteed for 100,000 they should last longer that 103,000.

Maybe this will help relieve the pain.

 

Well, I don't know about that. The market today - and in 2001 - was full of non-hybrids getting mileage in the 30's. No one concerned with gas mileage would buy anything that gets 23mpg.

 

This is probably a silly question...but was this a CA built and sold vehicle? And if so, would the CA warranty still hold because those are the terms it was sold under?

 

Unfortunately this calculation doesn't take into account the 'hybrid premium' we all paid when we bought our cars. I believe it was around $5K for the Gen II.

 

There was no hybrid premium for the Prius. There is not a non-hybrid model.

 

My thinking too. The price I paid for my 2006 was on a par with similarly equipped conventional cars.

Tom

 

yadax3 & F8L,

I agree with F8L that there was no "hybrid" premium. What I would call it, however, was an "I have to have a Prius right now" premium or an "I'm happy to let this Toyota dealer rape my wallet" premium. If you went to a lousy dealer then the premium that was normal for them to ask averaged from $3,000 to $5,000 over MSRP. I walked away from one such dealer back in 2005 who said he could get me a Prius in 4 weeks when MSRP dealers couldn't deliver for close to 6 months. I asked how they could get one so quickly when others couldn't, & that's when they said "because you are going to pay us $5,000 extra". And that's when I said "No I'm not, goodbye!!" Some people posted here or over at PriusOnLine that there were some dealers asking $10,000 and $12,000 over MSRP.

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)

 

Looks like you overpaid. My GII didn't come equipped with the "hybrid premium" option. It was comparably priced to the midsized sedans it was up against. The only "premium" was that due to limited availability I could not negotiate down below MSRP the way I normally would, so I paid sticker, minus one of the promotional credits.

 

Actually I didn't pay any premium and got a 3150 tax credit so my savings would be more yet. I used the current avg mileage for all cars. I have a 2006 which I could sell within 2k of what I paid for it. (with the 3150) You will have to look a long time to find a US car with that kind of resale value.

Just my thoughts....