Spent $6,000 on the evil red triangle light and it is back on!!!!

I was woke up around midnight by one of my taxi drivers and he let me know that the evil red triangle light was back on 48 hours after I got the car back from Toyota after the cars 4th trip to Toyota to "try" to fix the problem. Everything is documented in my "Frustrated with Service " thread on this forum.

After 4 trips and a lot of lost income due to downtime and close to $6000 spent after I pay Monday for their latest "guess" which was replacing the compressor which fortunately I get at 10% over Toyota's cost I am ready to lose it on someone. I will stay calm until the service manager once again looks at me and tells me I have to wait a week before they can look at it. Last time they made me wait 9 days after I had been in 3 times already over this problem and had spent $2500 and need the car for earning income.

If they don't take it in within 24 hours I will be on the horn to Toyota Canada and if I don't like what I hear from them I will start my letter writing campaign to every major newspaper in Canada and the U.S. to give a review of how happy i am with pumping $6000 into a problem and getting shit on by the service department because they really don't want to tackle the problem because it takes away from their gouge the customer time where they get to charge 3 hours for jobs that take 1 hour to do because "THE BOOK" says so.

Figured I would do this thread now because I know I won't get back to sleep after being woke up with the "good news"

Time to head to the hot tub to see if I can "cool off"

 

Richard--- I had the accident 16 months ago and they fixed the car despite it costing 13,500. Ever since I have had problems with the car.

Took the car to the dealer today and the tech scanned the car and came up with the code P0AA6 which is Hybrid battery voltage system Isolation Malfunction
He cleared the code and the triangle was gone which we know will reappear of course. The tech said for me to bring it back once I have my back up taxi ready and he would start checking every wire in the inverter. He told me to call him direct and bypass the service desk guys so that he can get at it right away. He also went to bat for me as far as getting the hours I was charged for the compressor kept to a minimum. Apparently the compressor had a crack and was leaking and was most likely damaged in the accident last year.
He did tell me I could shut the car off if the triangle was not showing. That backfired when I shut the car off at home and it would only go into neutral when I started the car up.. Fortunately I had a fully charged battery ready and the car is mobile until that battery gets weak.

 

Patrick---------- My back up taxi is a Honda accord that will be too old for the Taxi commission soon so i may park this Prius soon and keep it as a back up mostly because in a couple of years we will not be exempt from our idling bylaw. If it were not for the idling bylaw I would sell the Prius and buy a cheaper back up car.

As far as a Crown Vic goes the price of gas in Canada is a killer. As it is my fuel bill for two of my Prius cabs compared to what it was for my old Honda Civic and Honda Accord has gone from over $30,000 a year to $13,000 a year. The drivers doe a lot of sitting and idling and with the much better fuel economy while they are on the move the savings are to great to pass up. My other two prius have been great with minimal work. Driver side axles and wheel bearings seem to be the most common parts that don't hold up all that well under the beating my drivers put these cars through.
If I am saving that much money when comparing to my honda cabs you can imagine how great the savings would be to a Crown Vic. When you put 150,000 km a year on each car you pay for a lot of fuel. Also when you factor in that my down time other than the Gray car that was in the accident is minimal compared to North American cars that keeps my drivers happy. I get a lot more work days out of my Prius cabs compared to the N. American cars and that adds a lot of income on top of the fuel savings. Less down time = less parts, less $80 and hour labor, more work hours, more income and happier drivers.
Also the North American cabs are retired at 350,000 km because they are sucking money out of you for repairs whereas we have one of our Prius cabs on the fleet at over 500,000 km and the owner says it still isn't costing him much for upkeep.

In Vancouver I hear they are running Prius cabs at over 700,000 km. In the city with all the gliding we do when the body of the Prius has 500,000 km the motor will have 300,000 running time and of course much less running time when we are sitting waiting for a call.

One of the owners that has 10 Prius taxi's has always kept real close numbers on fuel, maintenance and profits and he just smiles about how well he has done switching form Impalas (transmission eaters) to the Prius. The owner of the tow truck company told me that the guy that has 10 Prius cabs has cut his towing bill for the year by 80%

Taxi's are always eating transmissions and the transaxles seem to be holding up great.

Other than this one taxi that was in the accident I have been very pleased with my decision to put the Prius on. After these electrical problems I wish the Echo was a little bigger because I would get the Toyota reliability and less worries about issues like my Gray prius has put me through. I talked to one owner of taxi's that owns a few Echo's and he calls them his little tank's.

 

UART-- I just got of the phone with my broker who is going to talk to the insurer to see what the recourse is in this situation. I am sure they are not going to be to quick to offer to pay for anything but it will be interesting to see what they have to say before I take the next step.