The transmission on my 2001 Prius has burned out a 77,000 miles, and so is not under warranty. I've been told it will cost $5100 to replace. Has this happened to others? Any suggestions?
Transaxle failure has happened to others. The $5K price seems right if you are having a new part installed at a Toyota dealer. You might call the Toyota Customer Experience Center to see whether they are willing to offer any financial assistance on the repair given your relatively low miles. An alternative is to find a salvage part (on eBay, for example) and locate an independent mechanic willing to learn how to install that for you. However there's some risk that the salvage part may have a limited life.
Sorry CBS, first time poster with a big problem. Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market seems to be the most complete listing, and right now the used transaxle assy. are offered for $950 to $2550. The work would be generally similar to transmission replacement on other small, transverse-engine cars. It is definitely worth your effort to camp out at 800-331-4331 and see if they can be convinced to help with this. Good luck. Edit: for others, we hope this will convince you to change the transaxle fluid on an appropriate schedule. It may not prevent failures but there is really nothing else we can do to try to make this part of the machine happy.
CBS, sorry to hear about the tranny matter. This sounds like something that shouldn't happen with a Toyota with so few miles. Is maint or use (mountain, dirt roads, etc) a possible factor? Hope things work out OK for you.
Do we have any stats on failure rate for Classic owners who switched to using ATF-WS early enough in the car's life? . _H*
I think it has more to do with pan and input filter not being cleaned when the fluid is changed.... but I do personally use WS on all Prius transaxles. See my other post about fluid servicing on Gen1 transaxles for the full story.
