Dept of Consumer Affairs bags on Prius!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(emtownsend @ Aug 1 2007, 02:46 PM) [snapback]488738[/snapback]</div>

They've done a decent amount of Prius bashing.

 

For a 'commonly reported' problem, there's very little to find when trying to google results for it. But then Consumer Affairs have taken a dislike to the Prius and show no real sign of competent journalistic skills, so this report is nothing much to be surprised at. Now if they'd mentioned all the OTHER cars that have suffered this problem too, I'd have taken this more seriously.

 

I think Consumer Affairs have an ax to grind against the Prius. They insinuated several times that this has been widely reported, but has been only reported on their site. And their comment "Much to the dismay of smug Prius owners....the little car...." pretty much highlights their agenda. Then they almost accuse the dealer of lying about this "despite reported incidents and complaints."

Pretty sad that CA is continuing with this smear campaign. Complaints about real issues (i.e. steering column, etc) are one thing, but this is just BS.

 

Please note that ConsumerAffairs.com is a for-profit site that is really just a front for a group of personal injury lawyers, namely Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates. The Horwitz firm reviews the complaints that come in through the website and then occasionally files a class action law suit.

ConsumerAffairs.com now finds itself a defendant, facing one federal defamation lawsuit from a New York car dealership and plans by a California pet supplies firm to file a federal patent infringement lawsuit against the organization. Both suits claim the site misrepresents itself as a legitimate consumer organization.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(emtownsend @ Aug 1 2007, 11:46 AM) [snapback]488738[/snapback]</div>

First of all, it's not the "Dept of Consumer Affairs." These yahoos are not a government agency in any way shape or form.

Second, that is not "a link to a woman who's car would not stop . . ."
It is a link to a cheap, voiced over, C-grade video of some panning of still images.

Thirdly, to call that dude a "reporter" is undoubtedly stretching the truth as much as the "information" in the "video."

TIME FOR DANNY AND COMPANY TO PROGRAM PRIUCHAT TO AUTOMATICALLY THROW UP SOME CAUTIONARY STATEMENT EVERY TIME
SOMEONE TYPES IN "consumeraffairs.com" . . . . MUCH LIKE TYPING IN THE "F" WORD WILL SHOW UP AS "F**k" WHEN IT IS POSTED.

f**k . . . see . . . it's that easy.

 

Why would they have such a bad agenda toward a great car....

It seems quite strange. I have dealt with Lemons. I own one. VW Beetle. That has issues. We also traded an
Mazda Miata Mazaspeed which was a lemon too. Mazda could not fix it. So to say the Prius is a lemon just blows me away.

It has been the best car I have owned. Knock on wood

 

This is likely absolutely unsubstantiated. You can bet they never even talked to the complaining lady. All they did was take information submitted on their complaint form and perform a Dramatic Reading of it with while showing stock Prius Pictures. They may have even stolen this from the Prius hating kid on U-Tube. If anything did happen, she probably did get her floor matt bunched up around the go pedal.

I think the article is Slanderous, as it makes a generalization that all Prius drivers are smug. This is similar to saying (none of the following represent my views) all Scottish are cheep, all blacks like fried chicken, Polish are not smart or whatever. I wish we could prosecute ConsumerAffairs.com for this hate crime.

Be ware of these types of charlatans. I was greatly offended by this web site that tries to masquerade as an official government agency by choosing a name that has long been associated with the US Department of Consumer Protection and similar state agencies. I guess the government must not have a copyright on this name.

First thing that gave me a clue was that they do not have an “About†link at the top of their web page like reputable web sites always have. Reading between the line, you can see it is some sort of poor magazine, which as was posted already, I am sure is mainly to farm contact information.

I wanted to fill out their complaint form to report them to themselves, but I don’t want them to have my contact information.

 

two words: "rug hooks"
.
_H*

 

I had a similar problem but it had nothing to do with the acceleration and more to do with the brakes being unresponsive while traction control was on. I almost rear-ended someone because of it.

 

While we're at it, let's not call them the "Department" of consumer affairs, as in the title of this thread---gives an institutional, government-run feel to the group "consumeraffairs.com" and may unintentionally lend them an air of solid credibility, just on the "serious-sounding" name alone...

They are an independent, for-profit, web-based consumer news & resource center, unaffiliated with the government, and any other consumer organizations.

 

I think this about sums it up:

"Consumers beware of ConsumerAffairs.com"

--- Oren

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Aug 1 2007, 02:25 PM) [snapback]488770[/snapback]</div>

 

Ah yes. "Department" - that's just precious. Makes them all official and legitimate, doesn't it?

Since this seems to happen so often to so many people, I'm shocked that they don't have video of a "stuck throttle" event as described here. Or maybe the carpet protector was in the way of the camera too...

 

Because there has only been a single fast Prius sold to Al Gore III, this alleged acceleration shouldn't be a problem. After all, this same company (not department) had the following statement on the Prius

Therefore, why should they worry about it accelerating out of control if it takes forever to get up to speed.

Do prius owners really call themselves prian?

The prius is just a car that people love to hate for some reason. We happy owners are just delusional because we need to justify our purchase. They should have had the prius owner in the video in a silhouette with her voice altered to protect her from prians who might get revenge because she revealed the terrible secret that the prius is a lemon.

Just like any bully they have to get tired of picking on the Prius at some point.