Continued from part 2:
Here is the big picture for future Prius owners: - Be prepared to pay a $4,500 for the main battery before 150,000 miles. Of course, you can buy a decent used car for the same price. Tough choice... - The car is loaded with electronics and solid state controllers. Be prepared to pay outrageous prices for diagnostics and repair (very rarely you will walk out with a bill costing under $300) - Do you know you will pay nearly $150 for having a duplicate key made to your Prius? That is because the key apparently has an anti-theft chip which has to be programmed by Toyota. Quite frankly, I am done being a maverick. I am not buying another hybrid car. When is hydrogen powered cars coming???

Margaret of Northlake Il IL (02/10/08)
I bought a preowned 03 Toyota Prius. The tires said 50# pressure which I thought was odd. I emailed Toyota with 2 questions and they answered one but ignored my question about the tire pressure. My dealership acted ignorant about it also. So I emailed Toyota again and said What tires came standard equipment on the 03 Prius? This time they responded and said We have no way of knowing that and told me what tires I should use. So I see all these problems people had on your website that people had with their Prius tires and realize now that Toyota was probably lying to me i.e. that they know there was a problem with those tires. And that the tires I have on with the unusual 50 psi are probably replacement tires that the original owner had to put on.

Matthew of Dayton OH (02/09/08)
This is a comment on the reports of traction control failure in the Toyota Prius during snowy conditions on hills. I live in Dayton, OH and have driven a Prius here since Feb 04 (35,000 miles). We get perhaps 20 snowy, slippery days a year.There are some steep hills where I live and the driveway to my house is fairly steep. I have never had any problem with power shut down as described. The ABS part of the system works perfectly.

Robert of Fort Mohave AZ (02/06/08)
Our Toyota Factory Navigation System in our 2008 Prius Touring Does Not Function As Advertised By Toyota. My Dealership Anderson Toyota in Kingman AZ. has done everything possible to assist in this matter. This Mavigation System Does Not Recognize and will not allow input of our listed home street address. Consequently, we are Unable to use the turn by turn navigation to any addresses or back to our home address? Toyota Customer Care blames this on the Navigation System Manufacturer, and the fact that this is considered a 'rural area' and is NOT mapped in detail by Navteq=System Manufacturer. Toyota stated to me just yesterday; Although you are experiencing continuous difficulties with your Navigation System, Toyota does not have a solution to the problem. You will need to PURCHASE Update Discs as they become available from the manufacturer? Toyota WILL NOT Supply you with these update discs as they are considered 'customer pay items'? The Factory Installed Navigation System Does Not Work As Is Advertised. My Dealership AND a Toyota Senior Field Tech BOTH Tried to Input my home address BUT Neither could get it to accept the address. The subdivison I live in has been in existance 15 years. All streets were mapped and platted out at the time of inception. County Maps, as well as the Local Phone Book Maps BOTH show this street! I asked for system update discs to be provided for me due to system failures. Toyota REFUSES to send them to me. WHY? That is the ONLY Solution making sense! UNLESS Toyota Wants To Refund Me The Price Of The Navigation System? As a sidenote; My wife was at Office Depot and input our home address in both the Tom Tom and Megellon aftermarket Navigation Systems. She HAD NO Problem with both accepting the address as well as providing Turn by Turn Directions Right To Our Home! It's a SAD Commentary when a cheap aftermarket system works much better than the VERY EXPENSIVE Factory System!

Heidi of Spokane WA (02/03/08)
I bought my 2007 Prius just over a year ago. It has been in the shop MANY times for various problems that seem like quality control issues, (ie: bolt missing on chassis, defective seat lock, rattle in dashboard, etc.) The biggest problem is that it is sitting in my garage and won't budge whenever there is the slightest bit of ice or gravel. Either the VSC or the Traction Control cause the brakes to lock. What good is a car that is unusable for many months of the year!?! Isn't that what buying a Toyota is supposed to prevent? My friends with Prius's are able to drive their cars, so I'm guessing that mine is a lemon. Also, my husband has the same problem, so it is not driver error.

L. of Milford DE (02/03/08)
I was driving to Strasburg, PA. It started snowing and there was about an inch of snow on the roads. Everytime I used my brakes to slow down, my car became a sled. I had to resort to driving around 8 - 10 miles per hour, not brake and do a lot of praying. I thought I was going to wind up spinning out of control and getting into an accident. At one point, I thought of parking the car in an available lot and calling my family to come and get me. Thank God that the vehicles behind me were patient with my inching along at such a slow speed.

Cognoscenta of Spring Valley CA (01/29/08)
I just want to respond with info re. the problem Dale and others had with fuel and fuel economy on the Prius. Here's my experience and what I found out today: I am getting great mileage, but about 4 months ago (at about 10K miles on my 2007 Prius), I noticed that I was getting fewer miles per tank than before. I had been getting 410-425 miles without breaking a sweat. My mpg was even improving at 42 mpg. I was completely dissed at the dealership when I went in to get this explained/fixed the first time.

The service specialist wrote down my complaint accurately (driving range but not mpg reduced), and after waiting 4 hours, he told me to replace the air filter. As I expected, this did nothing to affect the issue. However, today I called to find out about the fuel capacity of the tank and the fuel reserve that is left once the light starts flashing. I got a very helpful woman from the service department who told me that the gas tank is actually a bladder! This means that it collapses as it empties!

Furthermore, IF YOU ALLOW THE TANK TO COMPLETELY EMPTY, IT FILLS WITH AIR AND WILL NOT COMPLETELY FILL WITH GAS AFTER THAT. This is undoubtedly what happened in my case. This is something that is still under warranty and can be fixed, and I have high hopes of this being done. I have a service appointment tomorrow, and I will let you know what happens. I thought you might be interested to know what no one else, to my knowledge, has noted: That indeed the gas tank should be filled before it reaches empty to maintain maximum fuel capacity.

We might question the wisdom of putting a bladder tank in the car, but that's what's there, and there you have it.

Jeffrey of Los Angeles CA (01/29/08)
Yeah...the Japanese didn't bomb Pearl Harbor and the Toyota Prius gets 60 mph in the city...yeah. Try 35 if you're lucky...

Cynthia of Mandeville LA (01/28/08)
I purchased my Prius in Oct of 04 and approximately 6 mos later the gas mileage fell dramatically and I started having problems with electric system. They then replaced gas tank to no avail. I took it in multiple times, even between the hurricanes and never did they remedy the problem. I went from ~60 mpg to ~ 40 mpg. Lots of times they would say that I was wrong and so I took the gas mileage by keeping data gas tank to gas tank and indeed the mileage had fallen. I kept taking it in and had my mileage documented. One service man told me that Toyota falsely sets the initial gas mileage. Katrina hit our community and there was much delay in getting my car serviced, over and over again. For this reason the warranty and all should be extended. I recently had to replace the battery and despite having the big 100K warranty I had to pay for it.

J of Napa, CA (01/28/08)
I have a 2007 Toyota Prius I bought it as I believed the 60 MPG ads...which are a lie. I moved to Wisconsin and am lucky to get 42 MPG. I live 8 miles from work and then only get 38 MPH as the car doesn't warm up. The interior of the Silver Mica color shows EVERY tiny dirt spot and is impossible to keep clean. Aren't there agencies that watch dog these outrageous claims???

Mike of Medford OR (01/28/08)
I am a seasoned driver in the snow. I can drive front wheel drives, rear wheel drives and four wheel drives. I am a forester and have been driving in snowing conditions for 28 years, 22 of those years on the job. I just had my first experience driving my Toyota Prius in the snow today. The engine cut out all power anytime the wheels slipped at all. It made controlling the vehicle on an uphill climb almost impossible. It was very dangerous as you had no control as other vehicles came toward you, and once I lost momentum and could not start again. This was in 2 inches of wet snow on a 6% incline. I finally inched my way home and ended up putting chains on to back into my flat driveway with 2 inches of wet snow. This absolutely is a design flaw in the traction control on the Prius. The car seemed to perform better with tire chains on as I backed in my driveway but I was too afraid to take it back out on the road to test it because I thought I might hit somebody. This is a very poorly designed traction control system and if anyone denies it I would love to take them for a test drive tomorrow morning, or anytime there is a bit of wet snow on the road. I will be contacting toyota about this. It is just a matter of time before someone is injured, killed or stranded because of the cars performance in the snow. It's too bad because I have really enjoyed the car up until now.

Peter of Brookhaven PA (01/19/08)
My 2004 Prius w 49000 miles on it runs like a top! No problems whatsoever. I bought an extended bumper to bumper warranty just before the 36 K warranty ran out in case something does goes wrong but so far so good. I'm good til June 2010 or 75 K miles.

Andrew of Milwaukee WI (01/17/08)
I own a 2006 Toyota Prius. It has a very serious design flaw which Toyota denies and refuses to fix. In slippery conditions, if there is any wheel slippage, the car shuts down all power to the wheels leaving you without any control. When pulling out into traffic power to the wheels just dies if it's slippery (especially in snow) and leaves you helplessly exposed to oncoming traffic. I'm afraid to drive it in anything less than perfect conditions. Additionally, the car can't even climb a hill in snow. Other cars drive past me on both sides while my car refuses to apply any power to the wheels. People are going to get killed.

S. of Norco CA (01/13/08)
I bought 2007 Prius in Jan. 2007. Since I took it home, I noticed (1) it has rattling noise (when starting engine and stopping on traffic, (2) engine shakes, and (3) 44 miles on Hwy instead of 60 as promised. False representation and fraud. I took it back to Toyota dealership 4 times for the same complaints, but I was harassed and refused services under warranty. The manufacturer rep showed up at dealership and told me the 2007 Prius was as designed and refused to service my 2007 prius. He also refused to give me Toyota's corporate address or to file arbitration for resolution. The dealership managers and GMs are very hostile to threaten me out the door. I got a Toyota lemon. I do not recommend Toyota to anyone.

Maureen of Langley WA (01/13/08)
Dec. 1 snow, Prius stopped engine/battery power totally on medium uphill approach to driveway/garage resulting in car falling off driveway into ravine of trees.

S of Greenville SC (01/12/08)
My 2008 Prius is getting a very disappointing 35mpg around town. My dealer says it checks out fine on their computer. What am supposed to do now???

Rick of Williamsport PA (01/12/08)
My Prius gas gauge is stuck at 5 out of 10 bars. Filling it up makes not change, driving it makes no change. I see others are complaining about the accuracy of the gas gauge and the difficulty of completely filling the tank (both of which I experience), but not too many mention it getting stuck. Any Help?

Sam of Loomis CA (01/09/08)
Summary: After a series of problems with the Prius engine Roseville Toyota informed me that I needed to have the cars transmission replaced. The estimate for repairs is around $7,000, almost the value of the entire vehicle. I am disappointed that the quality of the Prius has been so poor, and naturally the vehicle is no longer covered by its warranty. Back Ground: 2003 Prius, Odometer reading 116,289. On 12/22/2008, I started the car and the Check Engine light appeared. I tried driving to the dealership, but the engines power failed after several miles, and I was towed to the dealership. The dealership informed me that the gasoline engine shut down and the battery ran out of juice. The dealership checked the sparkplugs and coils, detected slight misfire until warm but could not reproduce the problem. The cost of the service was $123.77.

On 12/27/2008, I started the car and the Check Engine light appeared again. The codes on the display looked as they had on 12/22, so I had the car towed to Roseville Toyota. The dealership discovered oil in the intake manifold as per a TSB. The dealership did not charge me for part of the repairs. The cost for the remainder of the repairs performed at this time was $126.44. On 01/04/2008, I was driving when an intermittent grinding noise began on both braking and acceleration. I found that the noise disappeared if I braked and accelerated extremely gently. I immediately drove to the dealership. When I went to the dealership, I was told that the problem could be as simple as a shim in the braking system that may have slipped out of position.

I authorized an estimate of $52.52. The following day, Michelle of the dealership called and told me that the brakes were fine but that the problem could be resolved by changing the sparkplugs. I orally authorized an estimate of about $150.00 (I dont remember the exact amount.). Michelle called me later that day (1/5) and explained that my problem wasnt really the sparkplugs but that the cars transmission needed to be replaced. The estimate for the parts and labor for this repair would be approximately $2,000. Michelle informed me on 1/6 that a mistake was made and cost of the new transmission alone would be $5,000, with other parts, labor, and the cost of a rental car, the final estimate for repair was around $7,000.