[tlmcca]

Hi everyone,

I'm a prospective buyer and this is my first post on the site. Many thanks for the wealth of information to be found here.

My overall opinion on the Prius, gleaned from reading this site and various reviews, is very positive. However, I do have a concern regarding some posts I've read here and elsewhere about sudden loss of power. My understanding is that this has been known to happen after stopping and while the vehicle is moving.

My wife and I have driven Toyota products for 18 years (500K miles) without a single breakdown, and I would like to believe that that record would continue with the Prius.

I'd like to ask the members of this group with the 2005 model to relate the number of times they've had to take their vehicle to the dealer after one of these voodoo failures along with how long they've had the car and their mileage. I think this sort of anecdotal data will help me and others on the fence to determine which way to jump.

Thanks,
Terry

 

[mrv]

My 2004 Prius -
check engine light twice in the first 200 miles - didn't bring it to the dealer because we already knew about the TSB for it, where all the dealer would do is drive it on the highway for a while to burn off some initial exhaust components that were triggering the O2 sensors.
SSC 40D reprogramming, SSC 40E weatherstripping, and SSC 40L brake switch recall all done at regularly scheduled service visists (oil/filter change and tire rotation), so no harm done there.
I'm waiting for our next service visit to do the SSC 40J Navigation DVD update...

so, no problems here. (you do have to remember the nature of the online boards - people will gravitate to them when they're looking for answers to a specific problem they have, and rarely will you find lots of people joining just to say that everything is fine and wonderful...)

 

[Sanny]

2005, 6 months old, 8000+ miles.

Everything is fine and wonderful. So there.

 

[Astrowoman]

2005, 3 months of driving, no problems. The recently publicized "incidents", if accurate, represent a TINY fraction of Prii on the road. I wonder what comparable incidence of stalling in other cars is.

 

[evander]

2005 Prius with 2 1/2 months driving and 2000 miles---no problems.

 

[efusco]

I had one episode of the car going into "limp home" mode prior to SSC 40E upon hard acceleration. After a shut down, reboot, and multiple trips/restarts before taking to the dealer no problem was found, but shortly there after the 40E SC came out. No recurrances.

Edit---I'm at 24k miles and ~20 months into ownership. This occured somewhere around 3-4k miles (if memory serves)

 

[galaxee]

05 Black Pri, 1900 miles, 10 weeks of driving. (manufacture date Feb 05)

No problems.

I think it's mainly 04s and early 05s. By now that has been fixed.

 

[An04Prius]

2004, 22,300miles, one check engine light, that did not disable the car in any way.

See my post here, under General, "check engine light, everything working fine" for details.

Consumer's Reports April 2005 issue page 10:

"The Prius drew near unanimous praise: 94 % of the 1640 survey respondents who own or lease a 2004 redesigned Prius said they would definitely get one again."

besides the cubs love sliding down the sloped roof/rear hatch when I wash it

 

[An04Prius]

2005, 6 months old, 8000+ miles.

Everything is fine and wonderful. So there.

that's funny, you sound older than 6 months, spell pretty good, too. :?

 

[Sanny]

that's funny, you sound older than 6 months, spell pretty good, too. :?

And I smell pretty, too!

 

[quietman]

had my 2005 since jan 3 2005 and no problems at all. runs fine

 

[Lefty]

2005 Prius, a bit more than one month old, 1500 trouble free miles, average of 53 MPG on "non-mountain driving" tanks and 46 mpg on tank that included driving over mountain pass to Eastern WA. and back again. The smile hasn't left my face yet 8).

 

[Isabelle]

04 base model.

32,000 miles, give or take.

kids scratch paint. That's the worst of it.

 

[Victor]

12,000Km, Only problems:

1. steering wheel not straight on delivery - fixed.
2. one red warining triangle whilst 1000km from home. Called dealer and explained wheat had happened. Was told to continue driving as therre were no error codes. Never happened again. May have been related to TC kicking in on a very steep gravel junction.

 

[DanMan32]

near 30K, almost a year. Only had the O2 problem as described above. Solution? Just drive it, have code reset.

If you are just getting the car, then you should have the latest programming, which means you shouldn't have the ICE fails to start issue. That's right, it isn't that the car stalls, but ICE fails to restart. You still have electric mobility, and the condition should recover itself by 'rebooting' the car (turning it off then back on) once safely pulled over. There is a TSB to fix this problem, but the newest vehicles should already have it. I think Toyota is still tweaking the tables and codes, and that may be why they haven't issued a campaign yet.

 

[Jonnycat26]

I've had my prius a year, and I did have the engine shutdown problem after owning it for 4 days(1 day after the return period). Toyota resolved it in a week, but driving a Scion rental for a few days wasn't exactly a lot of fun.

Now if only they could fix the craptastic interior, the car'd be fantastic.

 

[dgstan]

'05 with ~6500 miles.

Not a single problem. I love this car! Couldn't be happier, especially now that I see my color is being discontinued.

 

[coloradospringsprius]

At 3500 miles, nothing remotely resembling a problem - like Lefty, the smile has not left my face.

However, my old 1981 Nissan Stanza shut down unexpectedly on the freeway at least three times. The cause of the problem was never discovered, and it never occurred to me that it might be worthy of national media coverage.

 

[jeff_kash]

I had the red triangle once. It was only a loose gas cap. I also had to have my display replaced as it started going wonky. Other than that, no problems. I have had the 40D TSB done with no problems.

 

[NWOhioPrius]

2004 Package #9 - 28,000 troublefree miles! Picked up the car one year ago today. Had NAV and brake switch recalls done, but no problems. I would buy another one of these in a heartbeat!