Big orange cable under the body... Safety concern?

Thanks, it's been a nightmare. I did contact Toyota Corporate as well as file an insurance claim. Insurance investigated and found the corrosion of the cable to be under "normal wear and tear" and would not cover it. The dealer managed to get the part from Toyota Corporate but would not submit the repair under warranty unless I brought cash to the dealer to be refunded "when they were 100% sure it went through".

I wish I had been able to get it to another dealer, but the car did not start and I was 2.5 hrs away and would be paying $300 for another tow. They kept insisting I try to take it up more with my insurance company "Are you sure you weren't in an accident?" Even after I provided the denial letter that their investigation concluded it was normal wear and tear. I ended up paying $970 for labor and trading it in to another dealer 80 miles away for a hybrid rav 4 :/

I made sure to fill out any surveys they sent me and mentioned I felt like they were trying to get me to tell insurance I had been in an accident, which would be fraud since I definitely was not. The car was running perfect, I parked it and then it just wouldn't start again. I got a phone call back from Toyota Corporate today wanting all the details, so maybe something will come of it. One interesting tidbit is they had told me if I traded it in with them and got my insurance to cover it they would get a check back to me to reimburse for the deductible.

I've got to say, I miss the Prius c a lot, but the rav4 LE hybrid is not shabby at all. Mileage is not great, but its really hard to say with the weather being barely above 0 for the past week!

 

maybe you hit something but didn't feel it. should be more protection down there.

 

WOW! What a stinky deal. I can't imagine any way that that picture shows wear and tear damage. My guess would be either rodents or maybe a foreign object on the road hit it and your insurance company is doing what insurance companies tend to do.

But is it normal for the HV cable on a c to not be tucked up into some sort of channel so it's not exposed like that? That looks really vulnerable.

 

Same thought here. And yeah, looks like, found this:


(It's "semi" sheltered, there's the pinch-weld seam to the left, and a rail to the right, but kind-of out there. Brake lines too, it looks like.)

My Super White Prius c One (with various undercarriage pics) | PriusChat

 

I live in Northern Vermont and the roads here are not great, I can recall a few times Ive bottomed out on speed bumps and the like, or steep parking areas, but nothing recently or anything that would cut a cable. Does the regular Prius have the same cable placement, or is it run through a conduit built into the chassis. I remember someone telling me the prius c was sort of like a hybrid Yaris, does it use the Yaris chases and they retrofitted it, maybe?

 

Here's a regular 3rd gen Prius picture. There's next to no exposed cable (flagged with arrow), due to the underbody panels:

 

I wonder if the Prius c has weld-nuts (or holes for plastic fasteners or plastic screw-in blocks, whatever) on the underbody, and optional under panels? Our previous Civic Hybrid was like that: US cars got the panels; in Canada they were optional.

 

For your environment RAV4 works better anyway.

 

Yeah, maybe it was meant to be. When it was time for my '07 Yaris to pass on, they didn't sell a hybrid Rav, at least not by me because I was definitely interested. So far it is great even with stock tires. Had 4 inches of snow or so on the roads on the way home tonight and it did not miss a beat. The prius c was no slouch with a set of 4 nokia hakkapeliittas, I must say, though.

 

Those panels remind me a little of the bottom of a Tesla. I assume they don't put panels around the middle area with the exhaust due to heat concerns (not an issue on a car with no ICE)

 

interesting how different the c underbody is, i wonder why. menders shot doesn't look anything like yours though.

 

Cutting corners? The lack of panels that is.

 

could be, but the bottom looks smoother than lift back without panels?

also, his wire enclosure looks corrugated instead of smooth.

 

The pic (in post 24) has corrugated zone too, if you look close. There's smooth plastic housings at ends, but corrugated in the middle. The pic is from further back, a little hard to discern corrugations.

 

i trust your eyesight.