Problem with Jungle Motors

The moral of the story is to check the VIN first. Hope things work out. Thanks for sharing.

 

wow. sorry to hear about this. carfax next time??

 

For me, CarFax is a necessary step in buying a used vehilce, but not sufficient.
I always check CarFax first, then, take other steps.

Hope you get your money back, and thanks for sharing.

 

Well, there must be some method to get a title on the vehicle. Is there a lein against it or something? I would think it should just be a matter of looking up the VIN and finding out who the state believes is the owner and getting the proper paperwork to change it. Right?

 

The first thing to do is decide whether you want to keep the car or not. If you feel you overpaid for a rebuilt car, then you try to get your money back. From a practical point of view, that may be difficult. The car probably has a salvage title. You will need to bring the car in for a level III inspection at the DMV. The locations are listed here:
Motor Vehicle Division
Jungle motors should have given you the title, or sent in the paper work to get the title transferred to you. If they did not, the DMV can pull their resale license.
Good luck in getting it resolved. However, it is better to have a vehicle that you can use, then to lose all your money because it is stuck in your garage. How did you get it home?
You say they never had a title? Who does CarFAx say holds the title?

 

I noticed that "Jungle Motors" is selling at discount their famous PHEV kits in Ebay, probably to recoup some lost money in their former transactions with plug-in supply?
I got the filling that a lot of people will get stuck with warranties after their purchase.
Certainly, I will NOT be one of them.

 

You might need to check your paperwork that you signed when you bought the vehicle. If a vehicle has a "Branded Title" of any kind, it has to be disclosed IN WRITING at the time of sale. Even if you were told, it doesn't count in court without that disclosure form.

And, if you did not sign one, you are entitled to 100% of your money back plus interest and legal fees.

 

What ever the moral of the story is, we don't know. Any attorney worth their salt will tell you that, because they, above most others hear ONE SIDE of the story. I've never been to Jungle Motors, but live just a few miles north of them. Often I've wanted to go by there to check it out. Instead of buyinig a "someday" factory job, they mey get my business. I'll see what I think about them when I get there. They have a great software/hardware hack that lets their system move the Prius along at 60mph. Not bad! Whenever I've had a chance to meet folks in the aftermarket EV/PHEV world, they are very pasionate and honest about their stuff. You start up a business, and the LAST thing you want is for someone to put out a bad word on you. There may be some cheese balls in the industry, but I'm still lucky enough to have missed 'em all.

 

Hi Hill,

I value your optimism, though I believe it may be slightly misplaced...first, their "hack" (which is nothing new and most certainly not unique to them...it was discovered by Caroline of Luscious Garage's awhile ago and it is my understanding that Plugin Supply effectively started selling it as their own without contacting her) "allows" you go up to 52 MPH (big difference between 52 and 60--52 is below most highway speedlimits) in a forced EV mode that does not allow you to use the gasoline engine without restarting to vehicle (which, as you can imagine is extremely dangerous if you're ever in a situation where you /need/ the gasoline engine). If you ever forget to turn the car off and back on to get the gasoline engine going you could potentially run out of the OEM battery while driving (which not only hurts the OEM battery but also leaves you stranded potentially on a busy road...). There is also some discussion as to whether or not it is entirely electrically safe to use this "hack" because it causes the electric motors to spin at an RPM beyond what the factory was intending them to spin at...there's more, but people are probably tired of hearing me rant about it =P (PM me if you want more details).

Just because someone sells a PHEV conversion kit doesn't necessarily mean they are in it for the love of the industry...some people are just in it for the money (not pointing fingers or anything at all like that, just saying that it's hard to know who to trust).

Andrew

 

If they are crooked, they are crooked. I do not care what they do. If they ripped the OP off, and it sounds like they may have, then they do not deserve our business.

PS - I am pretty sure that their name would have caused me to reflect twice about even stopping at their business.

 

Well, sometimes you may need to stop and look at it from the business standpoint. And no, I'm not defending them if they did something wrong, but they may be in a tough position.

I run a laptop computer refurbishing business for Apple laptops and sell 90% of my products on ebay. I won't bother saying who I am so that I won't appear to be spamming or promoting myself. I offer a 30-day warranty/refund policy. I decided long ago that refunds are the best policy because my product is in high demand and so if somebody doesn't want it, I'd rather just take it back and sell it to somebody who does want it than to listen to them complain for the next 6 months about it.

However, that policy works fine when we're talking about 1 or 2 returns a month. Because I have to have enough positive cash to be able to pay them back $600 or more and still operate my business. I have lots of expenses to pay as well as I have to continue buying replacement parts and new merchandise in order to keep the business going, as well as paying my own salary.

The trouble is, when Christmas comes along I always get a rush of returns right after. So far I think I have about 15 returns coming in and there may well be double that in the next week or two. So that works out to about $10,000 in returns. I really don't have that much positive cash to pay for all of that, so I will have to dig into credit just to cover it until I am able to re-sell those systems. It is very hard on me. If I didn't have credit, the returns would possibly put me out of business, or I would just have to refuse to take them back.

Now.. I imagine if I was selling cars, especially plug-in Prius' that I'd probably have a lot more invested in merchandise. And if the business is operating on as little positive cash as I do, they probably have to sell a car or two before they can buy another one. So if they end up with a return that could be a serious problem, especially if they know they cannot sell it to somebody else for whatever reason and recoup that cash. In fact, it is entirely possible for a small business to go out of business over a single piece of merchandise like this.

To put things in perspective, if I had $10,000 of laptops being returned to me and for some reason I was not able to re-sell them again but had to refund them anyway.. it would definitely put me out of business.

So I sort of feel for the business owner in this situation. Despite that, I think if I were the owner here, I'd try to figure out how to do the right thing.

 

Interesting choice of names. Like they say - be careful, it's a jungle out there.

Reputable firms take good care of customers.

 

So the Protheroe clan has now changed their name/identity twice
in a relatively short time? Hmmm, what are they trying to put
behind them as fast as they can get their lawyers to run?
.
_H*

 

My advice is to stay on top of the DMV & file complaints with the Consumer Affairs office with jurisdiction at their location as well as with your local office. Winning is only the first step. If they don't have any cash hopefully you can get the car certified & titled.

 

So you got your money back. That's not bad at all. I say that because (putting my attorney hat on) often, hearing one side of the case does not a case make. I've heard one side describe all the elements of fraud, only to find out down the road, the opponent had an iron clad defense ... not to say that is/was your case. I'm just saying . . .

I enjoyed your thoughtful post. Yes, I know that Luscious Garage uses the Plug In Solutions type-system, but I never heard any one say that Caroline was the discoverer. And Plug in solutions "using it as their own" ?? I suppose whom ever copy wrote the hardware hack (if they even bothered) ought to see to it their intellectual property is protected, if in fact it was never intended to be open source.

In any event, regarding the scenario you mentioned, "turn car back on to get the ICE going" ... yes killing the pack that way may be possible, but you can simply put a REGULAR Prius in neutral ... exit with ignition on and kill the traction pack ... so that fact that both a regular & PHEV Prius can get the traction pack killed is what it is.

As for, "52(mph) is below most highway speed limits" . . . is that a problem? The speed limit IS supposed to be the LIMIT. The fact that many use the limit as a minimum doesn't bug me. Heck, in So Cal, one is LUCKY to hit 50mph during gridlock - Monday thru Friday. So again, for some ... a non issue. As for the HSD "spinning more that designed"? No, actually the HSD IS designed to spin up ... and that's why you can do warp stealth in a non PHEV ... you simply can't do it for 20 - 30 - or more miles ... because you don't have the extra 20 or more Kwh of batteries. Anyway, I guess one might be able to tell I worked for the Public Defender at one time ... sounding like I'm coming to the aid of Jungle, and all.

I still haven't gotten down to Jungle Motors ... maybe after we get back from MT next month. It'll be interesting to hear the other side ... especially after the jury ... I mean, 'other-posts' seemed quick to render their decision(s).

btw from the Jungle web site:
https://junglemotors.com/Home_Page.html

I see something VERY interesting. They're advertising the Plug in supply system is instalable in the other Toyota-type hybrids:

- in particular OUR other hybrid ... the Lexus RX SUV. Now i'm REALLY going to have to check it!