[David Duchesne]

How many mechanics does it take to start a Prius- 2 ! I had to start my Prius because the employees did not know how- with 2 different employees.

I had it in for an oil change.

The dealershio sells 3 a year. It can only bring in pre sold Prius's. No demo to test drive. Needless to say I bought it elsewhere.

The dealership has only one trained prius tech- although he has won a national tech award and is very knowledgeable.

My local (non toyota ) mechanic says he has received warnings from (transport canada?) on the servicing of hybrids. He says its regulation that the mechanic working on the Prius has to wear a special grounding harness and a teather (non conductive i assume) is held by a second tech. ready to pull his away in case of shock!!!

Our local Toyota dealer only has 1 trained Tech. They obviously can't follow this rule.

Are there similar regulations in the USA?

 

[DanMan32]

I doubt that. If they are working directly on any system dealing with the high voltage, especially the battery pack, using electrical gloves is prudent. But even then, the battery can be rendered virtually inert by removing the safety plug/fuse, which electrically splits the battery in half, with the 'split' end safely disconnected. Working on this car is no dangerous, safer even, then working on municipal transmission power lines, just before the final transformer at the customer site. Do you see THEM tethered? heck, I've seem them work alone.

And working on the HV electrical is a pretty rare event. Most work needing to be done is stricly 12V, mechanical or programming in nature. Even the latest LSC involves a position sensor which operates on low voltage, even if it is a sensor for one of the MGs.