Amazing Prius Facts learned at Portland International Audo Show.

That document, like the Info-Sheet, were created to help out as an introduction to Prius... stuff that I too could hand out.

Frustration later emerged from the very same reason as this post. Those without the benefit of a Multi-Display to routinely monitor would sometimes have absolutely no clue. So other documents, like this and this one, were added to the collection.

Hopefully, the amazing facts won't get too crazy. But from reading the assumptions Volt enthusiasts are making, it's probably going to get worse better it gets better. At least they have an excuse. Salespeople don't, their spreading of such misinformation is terrible.
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very entertaining

 

A Zenn dealership opened recently in Post Falls, ID, about a 20-minute drive from me. As there was already an EV club in Post Falls with several backyard EV conversions, they got together and invited the public to a "meeting" of the EV club at the new dealership. I attended.

The owner of the dealership (not any of the EV club members) provided these "Amazing Prius Facts":

The Prius deep-cycles the traction battery, charging it to 100% and then discharging it to 0%. As a result, the battery only lasts for about two years. Thus there is a glut of used Priuses on the market, which you can buy for next to nothing because all the owners are sick of them and nobody wants them.

I got up and said that I've driven my Prius since January of 2004 and everything he said was utterly wrong. I explained how the battery is held between 40% and 80% of full charge, about the Prius taxis that have exceeded 200,000 miles, and that there have only been one or two battery failures in the 8 or 9 years of Prius that were not caused by a collision. He asserted that his information was correct.

This was not a Prius salesman, though. He was a former Chrysler salesman and is now owner of a new Zenn dealership.

Considering how stupid people are, it's surprising we ever invented the wheel, much less cars.

 

Defending the Salesmen!

I've decided to come defend salesmen that give faulty information about the Prius. You should not single these individuals out for special treatment. Salesmen have been giving out faulty information on ALL cars long before the Prius. (I remember the Toyota salesman pointing to the EGR valve in a 1988 Camry and telling the customer how easy it was to get to the oil filter there!)

The Prius is special since there is SO much to bugger up in a sales pitch or an anti-sales pitch.

 

Car sales people are just that, sales people. They don't really need to know anything about the car; they could be selling any product. And most buyers know nothing of engineering technicalities so why should the salesman even bother himself. But this may change as we enter a new age of automotive craft. My experience is that salesman just make up stuff to sound proficient.

 

i work customer service and i get the wrong end of a "lied to" customer several times a day. its just salespeople in general where a small segment of them are simply nothing but legalized scam artists.

i hear just amazing exaggerations from customers and think "no salesperson would have told them that" but then after hearing it from a few dozen customers scattered all over the country...it begins to dawn on me that these people will simply say anything they feel they need to get a sale.

and besides, with all the misguided crap about the Prius in the news and on the net, its little wonder where these people get their information from

 

Re: Defending the Salesmen!

Yup, I found that out back in 1993. My salesperson had done almost no studying of what he was selling. Simple questions resulted in answers that weren't correct, even when verifying facts with others. That car purchase was an awaking experience for me.

Prius brought to light just how diverse the salesperson staff can be. Some are experts, doing all they can to be a genuine help. Others couldn't care less.

Thank goodness the internet came along. Now people easily do that studying on their own, including information shared by owners. It's quite empowering.
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One of the things that steered me to Honda and away from Toyota when I bought my second car (a 1989 Civic wagon) was that the Toyota salesman lied to me about the Civic! I knew next to nothing about cars, but I had read up in Consumer Reports at the library, and I knew that the Toyota I was considering (maybe a Corolla, if that existed then) had a carburetor, while the Civic was fuel-injected. I dropped this bit of information in conversation with the Toyota salesman, my only bit of car information, to try to look less ignorant than I was, and the Toyota man said the Civic was carbureted as well. I said no, that I had been researching, but he insisted. I figured he was lying to try to make the competition look bad, and I did not trust him.

In contrast, the Honda salesman was absolutely honest about every aspect of the transaction, even saying that both the Toyota and the Honda were excellent cars. So in the end it was the salesman and the dealership that decided me, with an eye toward how I'd be treated after the sale. And I was not wrong. That Honda dealership treated me like a VIP for all the years I owned that car, even though it was just about the cheapest model they sold.

 

They may be selling Toyotas this week, but who knows, next week they may be selling Fords.

 

or fridges and microwaves.

 

And you wonder why I have developed a generally poor attitude towards the human race. Sadly, a larger proportion of the human race will lie, steal, cheat, even quite literally stab you in the back, just to make $5 off you

So in the improbable event that aliens landed on earth and their first human contact was Yours Truly, I would be brutally honest with them

Alien: "So, what are you homo sapiens like?"

Me: "We're evil, sinister, selfish backstabbing trash of the galaxy"

Alien: "I see ... um, any good qualities?"

Me: "We're quite tasty if after gutting and skinning you roast us precisely 17 minutes a kilo at an ending temperature of 166 Celsius. Do you have any weapons capable of vaporising the planet?"

Alien: "um ... yes we have a weapon like that. What were the cooking instructions again?? I'm trying to write this down ..."

As far as salescreatures of any kind (Car, computer, microwave, vacuum cleaner, etc) always assume they are lying their a**es off. They have generally recognized legal protection, it's called "puffery"

 

Have you ever seen the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man"?

 

Using a temp of 166C for the oven (330F) makes sense. But the ending food temp would be much better at 166F.

You Canadians must've learned to cook from the Brits back in the old days...