Wrong things the dealer told you before you bought your Prius

i couldn't drive it before we bought it. that was stupid, but back when there was a months-long backlog they didn't give you a choice. DH had driven them and knew i would love it, so i trusted him. he was right

 

One of the dealers told me that the Prius was so pollution free and such little carbon monoxide was emitted, that even if you left the car on in the garage, you couldn't kill yourself no matter how hard you tried.

~S

 

My dealer told me he drove a Prius from Long Island to Florida on one tank. I supposed it's theoretically possible to get 950+ miles on one tank, but that wouldn't take you too far into Florida...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ez2bgreen @ Apr 30 2007, 10:13 AM) [snapback]432506[/snapback]</div>

Just FYI, only ILEV vehicles qualify for HOV in Colorado, and they explicitly say that hybrids don't qualify:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/progs/view...cgi?in/HOV/CO/0

However, some places consider the Prius an ILEV:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:jniw3...lient=firefox-a

So I suppose you could argue this and win in traffic court if you get ticketed.

 

My dealer wanted to throw the plastic plate that divides upper glove box to trash (he said it has been left by mistake and it is from some other car model).

He told me that Prius does not have smart key system because it is available only in Lexus models. I proved him wrong in one second

I bought the car over one month ago and have not received my Owners Manual so far because of "temporary problems". I have never had a car with auto transmission so without studying PC and other materials on the web I would stuck for a long time.

- Piotr

 

My sales rep actually told me after a few min of talking that I probably knew more about the car than he did as he had found most Prius buyers did that he had encountered.

Very few sales people really know anything about there product.

Most sales people are used for congeniality rather than technical knowledge.

Also, if you go up to a sales man trying to sell you something and you inform them that you are a salesman in a different field and know how it works, you will find that a lot of the cheese and BS goes away and you can get to the point.

For technical knowledge...thats what books are for and experience from people in places like this chat room.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ez2bgreen @ Apr 30 2007, 07:26 AM) [snapback]432514[/snapback]</div>

I always fill up before I get to the last pip on the gas gauge but even if I pushed it to the limit I would never expect to get 600 km, nevermind 600 miles! Why do so many people think 600 miles is suppoed to be do-able? I've seen that numerous times on priuschat. Are the American bladders bigger than the Canadian ones?

Thanks

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Apr 30 2007, 10:20 AM) [snapback]432604[/snapback]</div>

I actually got to take the demo Prius home with me from Saturday night to Monday morning. This was in November of 2003. I think later they sold the demo. I got in before the crunch got really bad, because I only waited 2 months, and half a year later they told me the waiting list was a year.

 

"The AC is all-electric, so you can run it as much as you want without impacting your mileage". When I pointed out that the energy had to come from *somewhere*, he looked at me quizzically. Basic physics, dude....

 

Nothing. She was very clear on things. Although, she keeps spelling it "Pruis" on ALL her emails.

 

I guess we are lucky to have such a good salesman at the dealership we buy our Toyotas from here in Tulsa. (Jim Norton Toyota) His name is Rob and he is very easy to work with. He is very knowledgeable about the cars he sells and has never made a stupid statement trying to explain something about a car that we were looking at.

That has not always been the case at other dealerships that we have visited in the past. We have heard some "good ones" at other dealers.

By the way, how does the Prius with it's traction control get along in the snow?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gotroot801 @ Apr 30 2007, 01:44 PM) [snapback]432619[/snapback]</div>

Well, looking at the map, it IS all down hill

My dealer told me the warrenty on the hybrid system was just increased to 150,000 miles (still 8 years). None of the paperwork says that and the Toyota websites does not say that (still says 8 years/ 100,000 miles).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jewelerdave @ Apr 30 2007, 02:22 PM) [snapback]432652[/snapback]</div>

Now if we could just get the Toyota service people to admit the same thing...

- Doug

 

My sales person was surprisingly knowledgeable. My local dealer is one of the highest volume Prius sellers in the state of CA, so that's likely the reason. What DID happen however, was a silly conversation about the last car I bought from them - my Rav4EV. During an idle moment while some paperwork was being hustled around the office, the sales manager decided to strike up a conversation with me (He is who I bought the EV from.)

He asked how my Rav was doing these days. I replied that I was sorry to have to be buying a car that used gas this time around. He laughed like that was the best one he'd heard in ages. Said, yeah, you'd be smart to sell the Rav while prices are so high. Now that we have the Prius that is so much more advanced. I asked what is more advanced about a car that uses gasoline to provide the only significant energy for the motive force (OK, I didn't use such big words, I admit). And his expected reply: "Because you don't have to plug it in!"

 

The only "incorrect" thing my dealer told me was that it was impossible to turn off that annoying reverse beep.

However, expecting accurate unbiased information from any salesperson seems a bit naive to say the least.

 

Ours didn't tell us much of anything since as he put it "They pretty much sell themselves. People come in looking for a prius, there isn't going to be any haggling/back and forth. They know what they want."
This was in nov 05 when there was a ~3 month wait.
They also didn't have any in that we could test drive, though the toyota rental desk had 2 of them. We had a weekend trip to upstate new york planned, so we rented one for 4 days and drove the snot out of it :lol: We got to learn all its quirks and make sure we really liked it before placing an order, which we did.

 

I have no real bad info to discuss with my purchase. I did have a weird experience where the first Sales guy on the test drive proceeded to tell me everything the deal closer Sales guy was going to do with respect to sales tactics. Sure enough this guy was telling the truth about all of the ploys he tried and I had all of the right answers. I think the first Sales guy was getting ready to bail on the dealership.

During closing one of the guys (I think the finance dude) did tell me I needed the extra maintenance package cause my regular maintenance would be out of this world. I was educated to know if I wanted to purchase this maintenance I could through other means.

b

 

The sales people for me were fine. I had issues with the Service Dept. After reading about the engine block heater on Priuschat, I bought one on line and called the local Toyota Dealer and asked if any mechanic there had experience installing them. "Toyota doesn't make block heaters and if you bought an after-market one you probably would have to drill out a freeze plug!", so needless to say I'll shy away from such arrogance and ingnorance from my local dealer. I plan to take the pictures posted on P/C and my "Toyota Canada" box the block heater came in to the service manager to help educate him.