Bad, bad Luck

It's called birth mortality and is the result of manufacturing error: Bad ICs, bad installation of the circuit card, bad solder, accidental static discharge from a technician, et cetera.

When you look at a mortality curve it appears like a valley: Lots of failures in the beginning & end of life with very few in the middle.

 

I live inLawton OK and we have Jim Norton here. Big pain everytime we buy car. So when I got my prius last year, I went to Norman and was in and out in less then 2 hours. Jim Norton is always 5 or more. Hijack your keys to keep you there.

 

Call the police..... that's called grand theft (auto).

 

A lawsuit will reverse the sale (if your friend wants to do that). On the other hand it might be okay. I bought a new Mitsubishi that kept shutting-off. It only had 2000 miles so it was repaired (for free) and then continued running perfectly for 200,000 miles.

 

Going by what used ones are in my area, I would have gone for the deal if they would have given me 3000.00. I looked at a 2005 (IIRC) with 113000 miles, original battery, leather, NAV system, the works. Kbb had the private sale price at around 6900.00. I will be trading mine the day it is completely out of warranty. One of the Toyota dealerships in Atlanta didn't even have any used ones on the lot. The sales guy told me people are so skeptical of used hybrids that they sell them off to brokers when they take one on trade.

 

$3000 for a working Prius under 125k is a deal.......I would buy it. I just wish people would post on here before trading their cars in. Let the members take advantage first

 

Depends on the market. My sisters husband just bought a diesel Passat. He ended up selling his gen2 hybrid civic to his son because the dealership wasn't going to give him hardly anything for it and he just had battery replaced under warranty about a year ago. It only had 87k on it. My son totaled my wife's 2001 CR-V about 18 months ago. It had over 160k on it and the insurance Co. gave me 7500.00 for it. My BIL was floored when I told him.

The only reason the Toyota dealership even told me about how hard used hybrids of any kind are to sell is because his wife works for my wife and I know the guy.

You and I'm sure many here would have taken that Prius for 3000.00 but evidently not the average used car buyer in Atlanta.

 

Yes. Precisely. I frequently laugh at dealers & walk out the door. If only more people would do the same.

 

Priuses hold their value very well in my area. I bought new because the price difference of a used one was only a few thousand. When I sold my Mustang back to the dealer I bought it from they listed it for around $3,000 more than they gave me. There are so many Mustangs here the used market is big.


iPhone ?

 

When my son had to attend a private school I had just bought my Civic non-hybrid not 3 months earlier. I traded it for a much cheaper Corolla and the dealership gave me what was owed on the civic. Because of the internet I knew I was never going to be "upside down" on a Honda Civic. The dealerships know this as well. I have never traded or bought a car where the price I was given for my trade or the price I paid for the car wasn't dead center of what Kbb or Edmunds "fair market value" showed. Dealerships sell for what we all know they are worth. They make their money on factory incentives per unit at the end of the year. My late father in law said selling a vehicle for less than the dealership actually pays is not uncommon because of this. They also make more on the financing (as did he, he sold Accuras for about 10 years) than the cars themselves. For the informed consumer, there is very little wiggle room on price anymore when there is it's because the newer year models are arriving on the lot (after about 45 days on the lot it actually costs a dealership to keep it).

 

I was going to buy my Corolla used but with the difference in interest on new vs used, I actually saved money buying new with as good a credit score as I had.

 

I second this!

 

Yeah, there's that too. I got my Mustang new for the 0% and with the Prius I didn't get the 0% because it ended up being about the same with the low rate I was offered. I was going to re-finance at my bank if the dealer gave me a high rate but they ended up being lower than the bank.

 

Dealers typically give low Blue Book for a trade. You should sell the car yourself unless you just want to be done with it.

 

I don't like trading in my old car. A dealer needs to assume the worst, and has to warranty the car, therefore they play with the numbers, and end up giving you much less than the market value of the car in most cases. They rarely pay much regard to options and add-ons either. I'd much rather do my own detailing work and sell it privately.

 

Sorry to hear about your friend's unfortunate experiences .

In my area, used Prii hold their value quite well. It is not uncommon to see ads from private parties asking ~$1,000 over blue book value. Dealers want even more. It seems like most people around here keep their Prii for a long time, as they are very reliable cars. Consequently, many of the used Prii on the private market have salvage titles.

I concur that people should post their used Prii here on PC. There are many people on PC that fix up and sell them while paying the seller much more than most dealers would.

 

Quite possibly the best post of yours ever.

For those that are more graphically inclined:


At the beginning you have some that are DOA. These never leave Toyota, they just don't work. Generally the parts are tested before going in cars, and all cars are "driven" off the assembly line a few feet. This is the non-0 intercept with the Y-axis. Then you see this spike at the beginning, this is where your Prius died. There was a failure imminent but didn't quite catch it in the factory. They will be interested in taking your old unit back to make sure no more escapes happen, ideally flattening that part of the curve, although that is almost impossible to flatten completely. The shallow area is the normal failure rate which is extremely low. Then there is an uptick after things age considerably and things start breaking down due to use and time.