Somebody call CPS (car protection services)!

Happy Holidays everyone!

I was visiting my mother in northern CA for Christmas and she had an incident with her Prius' 4 wheel drive not working!

Ok, yes I know the Prius doesn't have 4 wheel drive, but she treats it as though it does! This poor Prius goes down so many rough dirt roads, scraping and bumping as it goes... She never washes it (she lives in the mountains). In fact, I think the only time it gets a wash is when I am visiting! HAHAHA! She is in Real Estate and is always on the go- never has time she claims.

I feel so sorry for this car! My Prius gets so spoiled compared to hers. I wish there was an agency to contact to have her Prius taken away from her abusive household! HAHAHA! Her's is an '05 model, so no back up camera; BAD THING! Even though her previous car was a Ford Expedition she still manages to back into things with her Prius! The black plastic piece below the rear bumper is hanging down

The only nice thing she does for it is keeps it in the garage at night. Although somehow rats got into the engine compartment and chewed on some wires; luckily my step-dad is very mechanical and could replace the wires that were ruined! That was Thanksgiving day before they drove it to so-cal - apparently whatever wires he replaced are doing fine because it's still going haha.

So, now to the recent drama. She was delivering gifts to some of her clients and went down a newly formed driveway that had just gotten its first layer of gravel delivered. Since the driveway was just put in, it had not been compacted, so after the recent storms, it turned into "soup"; my mom didn't think about it and couldn't tell because of the fresh load of gravel that was layed down. Here's the results:

 

Nope; the car does not get maintained according to the recommendations. I think the oil gets changed every 15k miles or so. The air filters have never been changed. The car currently has about 31k miles. They got new tires for it over a year ago and had never rotated them until this weekend when they had to pull the wheels off and get the mud and gravel out of them. Rock were lodged in between the brake calipers and the wheels, so when the wheels spun it dug out chunks of the wheels Darn it, I should have taken more photos!

 

I know! Everytime I see her and the car I am amazed at how she drives it and how well it holds up! We'll see how long she keeps it and how well it does. So far it has never needed to go in for repair other than a recall.