Heard something about the Prius. Sounds like BS.

Somebody was telling me about how "he heard" that when people turn in their leases on a Prius that they charge a stiff fee for whatever battery life Toyota calculated on the car. He said "some people say" that they've been slapped with fees of $12,000-16,000 on their lease returns.

Does the batteries need to be replaced on or about 70,000 miles at a cost of $20,000+, or is this guy pulling shit outta his ass?

Is there any truth to this, isolated incident, or complete horseshit?:shrug:

It's about $25,000 for the car with NO features. This is one of the problems I have with it - it costs too much for what it is.

That said, the battery isn't $20,000 either.

in January 2006, if you count the $3,000 tax rebate we received at the end of the year. We got the basic model plus side air bags for approx. $23K. (No blue tooth or leather seats or backup video camera). We like it and average about 50 mpg overall. It's hard to find any non-entry level, reliable car for that price these days.

Is there a reason no one says SUVs are too expensive?

It's 150,000 miles.

Can't find any news stories about being gouged on returning a lease. There are warnings about dealer scams that Toyota has discouraged though.

the costs are all spelled out of what htey have to pay at the end of the lease. if someone is claiming that, then they should have never signed the lease in the first place.

i think he is pulling it out of his ass.

Loved it.

But, I asked the salesman specific questions about battery replacement. He said on the originals, it cost about $6,000. Now it was down to below $3,000 and dropping. And he said the battery life was now up to about 8 years.

Does it have ANY power, what-so-ever? I've heard that they don't.

I'm driving a Mustang and hubby has a BMW. I think a Prius might feel as though it couldn't pull a greasy string out of a cat's butt to us.

Of course, I can't afford one, anyway, and don't buy Japanese cars (I didn't really want the Beemer, but it's hubby's money, so I couldn't balk too much - I'm an American car fan because of my engineering father's upbringing), but I might look at some of Ford's hybrid options when I get ready to buy again in five years.

But, I was wondering about the power hybrids have, if any.

P.S. Our cars get decent gas mileage, too. We kind of compromised - we got cars with some power and enough room for the four of us (two adults, a kid and a baby), but that also got mid-line gas mileage. No SUVs or mini-vans for us. I drive 30 miles round trip on most days - sometimes more if I have errands - and I can go a week - 7 days - without needing a fill up. Not too bad. Fill ups are about $35 for me.

electric motors are torque monsters.

In the not too distant future, virtually all "power" (hot rods, off roads, heavy equipment) type vehicles will be electric or hybrid, mark my words. Reason? They will make gas vehicles (and even diesels) look like milquetoast machines.

I think that is the question the poster is asking. Is the battery system, wiring, and motor built to be powerful enough to give the Prius some verve, or are we talking about glorified golf cart here?

any business driving a muscle car what with gas over $3 and climbing.

We don't need Earnhardt wanna-bes making our roads hazardous and burning up fossil fuels unnecessarily by trying to impress the ladies with their penis extensions.

you should be offering reason and gentle encouragement to get them to drive more efficient cars. attitudes like yours drive people away from the Dem party in droves. believe me, i'm a car guy. to all sorts of automotive enthusiasts "tree huggers" trying to tell them what to do are their biggest enemy.

"Tree huggers," as you call them, have been gently encouraging people to drive more fuel efficient cars since the 70s. Gentle encouragemtn isn't very effective.

People all need to consume less gas. If they are going to cry and blame the messenger when they are told that, so be it.

From where I sit, more people seem to be joining the dem party then leaving right now.

It takes at least 15,000 barrels of oil to manufacture a new car. I'll be keeping my non-Dem approved CR-V for a while, and just walk as much as I can. I am not running out to buy a new car.

I'm speaking to people who are in the market for a car.

And I can SAY whatever the fuck I want.

Here's what I am saying: Macho drivers racing their cars around just to impress others with their money and "strength" don't impress me in the least. They are just telling me they are SELFISH brats who don't give a rat's ass about anyone but them selves and anything other than their own pleasure and status.

I'm not telling anyone what to do. You go ahead and do what you like. Just don't expect anything but contempt and derision from me.

It's not ALL ABOUT YOU. You and your macho car buddies are not the center of the known universe, around whom the stars revolve and who we little people must worship.

If people want to do something about global warming, they have to make sacrifices. They have to give up their I need a fast car/I need a big truck for the dog/I need an American car type mentalities.

If you care about global warming, when you go to the dealer the thought process should be I need the most fuel efficient car I can comfortably afford.

I used to like driving 8 cyclinder pickup trucks. Now, I have a Prius. Easiest sacrifice I ever made. After a week in the Prius, I can't say why I ever thought I needed a truck.

I have a 2003 CRV, and it gets much better mileage than my husband's 2001 BMW 325. It also gets only 2 mpg less than my previous car, a teeny little VW Beetle.

I really would like a hybrid, but we can't afford a new car right now. I guess I am just tired of all SUV's being painted with the same brush. My CRV gets 27 mpg city/30 hwy, so it avergaes about 25 mpg. Not great at all, but not gas-guzzling, either. My husband's car gets about 22 mpg average, and my Beetle only got 25 city/31 hwy! For such a tiny car, I was amazed.

(and I do have kids, and won't ever get a bigger car than this. I'm actually planning on downsizing for the next car.)

My 325xi is a stick and I get 30 mpg on the highway, and about 23 city. I don't know if AWD has anything to do with it.

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

Costs a hell of a lot, but it does 0-60 in about four seconds and 200 miles per charge.

It's also an American company with a UK subsidiary.

Looks sweet too.

Had a great weekend tooling around Whidbey Island in it (our own car was in the shop at vacation time). It had all the power we needed. As Al Gore's kid can tell you, it will exceed 100MPH. My wife does most of the driving which is good because I was fascinated by the little display which shows where the power is coming from and going.

We're hoping our next new car will be a Prius.

like that in my agreement...No battery stories in my contract!

I looked it up, and heard from you owners/leasees. Why would anybody lie about a car? It's not like they are a political party or something. They're metal, plastic and glass.:crazy:

lie, that is.

They talk about the low monthly payment as if that is your only fee. When you are done with a lease, they sell it for what they can, usually at an auction where the buyers are bidding rock bottom prices, and charge you the difference between what they earned total on it--your monthly payments plus the final resale fee--and what they need to make a profit on it--the total price they paid for the car, counting principle and interest, plus their markup. In the end, you pay as much as and most often more than you would have paid to buy the car and resell it yourself.

You sign the lease up front. In a normal lease, you just turn it in at the end- no cost or rebate either way unless you have exceeded the mileage that you predicted when you signed the lease or the car is damaged. Or, if you think the car is worth more than what you originally agreed to, you can sell it yourself and just pay off in cash.

The concept of a lease is just that you are only financing the value of the car during the time you use it. At the end, the dealer gets it back and resells it, and that person pays for the remaining value. Of course there is profit built in just like there is in a purchase. It's not any better or worse than buying.

If you buy a car for $10,000, and after 4 years sell it for $3000, then your net investment is $7000. In a lease, that is what you are financing. You owe $3000 at the end, but if you turn the car in, you're all even. It just allows you to drive a slightly more expensive car than you might otherwise, or if you intend to get rid of it in 4 years anyway, it can be convenient to go ahead and make the deal with the dealer in advance.

I once had a Pontiac Sunbird on a 4 year lease that the dealer called up after 2 years and asked if I wanted to trade it in because the resale was so good on those at the time he stood to make more money.

Anything that upsets the apple cart and actually gives the consumer some CHOICE is what they can purchase is bad for corporate business.

and getting a hummer instead?

He did a specious side-by-side and deemed the Hummer H-3 more environmentally friendly than the Prius. He based that on 1970s problems at the Sudbury nickle mines in Canada.

Ru$h also failed to say that the Prius batteries use a minuscule amount of the nickle mined worldwide. Stainless steel manufacturing uses tons of nickle. How's that Viking range cooking, Ru$hbo?

just like the folks who ran the livery stables who told people their cars were instruments of the devil...

people love to try to convince others the opposite of what is true

The batteries cost about $3000. They have an 8 year, 150,000 mile warranty on them. No one I know or have ever heard of has had to replace one yet.


Another one I hear all the time that is complete bs: Raising the minimum wage actually hurts poor people because it increases inflation!!!!
Yeah, right. Giving someone a raise is going to devastate them....

with very low failure rates. They have a seven year warranty outright. I've spoken to people who have used Priuses for courier vehicles, and have run up over 200,000 miles in a couple of years with no problems, battery or otherwise. The engines wear less than an average car because the car runs on the electric motor half the time, and in fact the electric motor runs more at lower speeds around town, which is where most of the wear on engines occurs anyway. You can see when you change the oil at the recommended 5,000 miles that it looks almost as clean as when you put it in. That's on my Prius, which has 60K miles on it.

I drive a lot, putting about 20,000 a year on a car. I've driven that thing from New York to Austin (with three grown ups and two children), and from Austin to Florida, New Mexico, and all over the state of Texas. I make trips to Mississippi every month. I've driven in ice and desert temperatures. I've driven it loaded with hurricane relief supplies like ice, water and gasoline, to where the car was practically sitting on its wheels. The only complain is that it goes through tires a little faster than average, and I'm not sure why. The brakes seem to last a lot longer, though, maybe because of something to do with the brake energy reclamation system.

The car is a smooth ride at anywhere from 30 mph to 85, and I've cruised at 85 in west Texas for considerable periods. It has more pickup than the average four cylinder small car. I used to drive a Mazda 626 with a six cylinder engine that was no faster. Because of the high roof, it feels very roomy inside, and it has more cargo room than it seems.

They are great cars, and not just because of the cool tech.

As for the lease, the return fee on leases is based on how much money you have paid monthly plus how much money they get when they sell it at auction. They then use a formula to calculate how much they financed the car for, and charge you the difference between what they've gotten for the car (payments plus resale) and what they've paid for it, plus their profit. The higher resale value on a car, the less you will be charged. Priuses, and Toyotas in general, have very high resale values (check out EBay). So who knows what the dude's motivation was, or whether he really has heard about customers being gouged, but his story is not the norm.

We have a lot of prius' around Rhode Island.


And they seem very zippy at the low to mid speeds.

There really aren't a lot of places to get up to 85-95 mph where I drive but i have been passed by a lot of Prius on the hwy. (I drive like a granny)


As for the battery issue, if the Prius were a completely electric car i would go for the $3-5k battery replacement in a heartbeat.

Think about it. If the battery lasts 7 years, that is 7 years of never having to replace anything but the brake pads.

You won't need to replace fuel, engine oil, gaskets, hoses, filters, plugs, antifreeze, etc..

However with this hybrid motor......you will have to replace some of these things, but remember that you are only using the gas engine at higher speeds so the wear and tear on the gas engine parts will be greatly reduced. Also recall that this is a Toyota. I have driven one toyota 70,000 miles without having to do ANY replacing of parts except oil and tires (and i wasn't very good at doing that regularly).

...the warranty, cost of battery replacement, and the rest. I could've predicted that one.:rofl:

Can't have Americans think that falling for propaganda is a reason to keep lying.