So discouraged with my Prius

Did you buy your Prius from a Toyota dealer? Was it certified?

 

CR just listed Prius as the most reliable family car. It is inevitable that there will be a rare exception. Just as there will rarely be a reliable Ford F250 PowerStroke.

Buying used is often a good financial move. Unfortunately, you then don't know the life history of the car.

Sounds like you may should drive it and trade when the warranty is out.

Sorry for your trouble!

 

I commiserate with your frustration.

But I'd say, step back, try to relax and just evaluate. Nothing you describe really denotes to me that your Prius is "unreliable" despite your troubles.

A 3 year old Prius...might be about time for a 12 volt battery replacement. Also sensors going out? While I can see where it would be admittedly frustrating, that also happens.

Not having parts readily available in Mexico....also not necessarily suprising.

This isn't at this point, transmission, engine or some major HSD component. These are items that do wear out, and are useage based items. All while unfortunately deabilitating...not major.

If it was me? I'd just be patient. Try to allow Toyota to honor their warranty and fix the issue. But I'd keep the Prius.

It is highly possible that you get the sensor replaced and enjoy many, many miles of relatively trouble free driving.

 

Do you own a camera? Attach a picture of your prius in Mexico please. Then I will offer my opinions and recommendations.

 

Fuel injectors seldom fail, someone put in some bad gas, probably before you got the Prius.

The little 12v battery can easily be damaged by draining it or storing it with a low charge. It should have been less than $200 for a replacement.

There is no sensor for that, only a brightness control.

Its actually worse than that as you have to be careful not to leave any interior lights on. Manually shut them off if any stays on (including the one in the hatch).

My 2004 Prius has been very reliable for the 193,500 miles driven to date.

I would consider looking around for a new dealer to do maintenance.

JeffD

 

It sounds like you have a lemon and enough problems to qualify for lemon law protection. Check with the laws in your state.

Ohio Lemon Law Consumer Guide

 

+1 thespoils.....pics please.

 

it's mexico. next question.

 

While I understand that I am new here, why would anyone on a car forum ask for a picture of their car?

The OP is asking questions and it seems to me that you are bashing her unprovoked. So she lives in Mexico, would you prefer her to be here?

 

I own my 2004 Prius since 2007 and bought it with 25,000 miles. Now I'm up to 145,000 and can only say that I never seen any other car as reliable as Prius. All problems that I had was HID leveling sensor that was still covered by basic warranty, front wheel bearing that was covered by bumper to bumper coverage. After 100,000 I replaced another front wheel bearing myself (surprisingly cheap if DIY, around $80) and now it is again time for the first one to be replaced again. Also recently from time to time have code P0420 for catalytic converter which should be covered under 150, 000 emission warranty. Have to check exactly on that one. But it can also be a faulty oxygen sensor. I still have original brakes, battery, exhaust, shocks and actually everything else. Very happy with the car and highly recommend it to anyone else. All the "problems" described above are not that big of problems as most of it is inexpensive. I wouldn't call it a "lemon". Battery died probably as it was already was said, it was deeply discharged, maybe the car was sitting for too long on a lot. The switch could fail due to high humidity or just of its age. Everything else was already explained. My verdict is to keep the car and relax. Good luck!

 

She lives in Ohio. Very first post. We are just being cautious and our "Troll Patrol" instincts are kicking in. No offence to the OP, and welcome to priuschat.

 

Get the car fixed if it's still under warranty. Put another 200K miles on it.

 

With experience, you will soon see that the bashing is almost always the other way around. Like others on this forum, I have acquired a sixth sense when it comes to this "bashing". It is frustrating because there are legitimate posters/owners who are really looking for help and have real questions. Having to navigate through the BS is getting out of hand. On the other hand, no one is forcing me to read these threads, but if I am wrong on this one, I will offer my apologies.

 

On the other hand, if the OP were a glowing review, it wouldn't have mattered even if she lived on Mars ;-) , the OP would have been accepted here with open arms.

Anyway, regardless of whether the OP is real or not, looks like she won't be posting much anymore.

Is it good or bad for this forum when all negative reviews are suppressed ?

 

All negative reviews aren't suppressed, only unsupported negative reviews.

Tom

 

Just remember, at 100 posts, you're not far from newbie status.

We need to be more open, posters are innocent until proven guilty. A real troll would be bashing the hybrid system, there is none of that here.

She seems to have a series of bad luck with this car. None of that has happened with my car, so I don't understand The Electric Me's suggestion of being patient with an older car and saying que sera sera. This sounds like a poorly built car, however infrequently that happens, and it's way too young to experience multiple problems like this. Some might say it's unlikely to be a true story, but with thousands of people posting here, it can easily happen once. If you have problems with your Prius, where else are you going to go to find answers?

Unfortunately I don't have a better answer than for Verena except to get back to her original dealer and work things out with them. And document the trunk problem, in case the car gets stolen. Luckily the Prius is a hard car to start without the fob. (As we've seen, even some salesmen with the keys don't know how to start it!)

The good news is, these are completely unrelated items, and they've been fixed so far, and the next sensor should be easy to fix too, once they get the part. So there's no indication of a systematic problem or something they can't diagnose and are just throwing parts at. Some of those problems can get very expensive very fast. So hopefully this will be the last thing to fail for a good while now.