Mechanics hate the Prius and Fusion hybrids
Too reliable for a mechanic to make a living.
Reliable hybrid cars
Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers have picked the ten cars they hate the most for being too reliable. “Yes, the cars we hate most, as mechanics,” claim the brothers, “are the cars that provide us with the fewest repair dollars.”
The list is mostly Japanese and includes 2 hybrid cars: the Ford Fusion hybrid and the Toyota Prius.
Regarding the Prius, the brothers note, “From our point of view, the Prius is terrible news for mechanics — not even the brakes wear out, thanks to the regenerative braking system. All we get to install are wiper blades. How are you supposed to buy a pair of Jet Skis on that money?”
And the Fusion, it’s one of the “few American cars that really approach the reliability of the Japanese brands.”
I think most are about 8 years, 100,000 miles, although some states have extended the length of such warranties.
What is the current battery warranty for a new Prius, Insight or Civic Hybrid?
But there does seem to be some worry in the auto industry that lithium might not be quite as reliable as NiMH, especially initially. So I don’t want to jump too far ahead.
At let’s not forget that even the current li-on batteries have an expected life span of 8-10 years.
And who knows what’ll show up by that time? The old li-on batteries used for cell phones used to last, what, 30 minutes? Now they last 3 or 4 days before you need to recharge them. So who knows what we’ll see in 8 to 10 years?
Not really. There are far more than a million Prius hybrids on the road, many of them around a decade old and some with hundreds of thousands of miles on them, yet only a few percent have needed battery replacements and almost all of them were under warranty.
Recently, Honda has had some problems, due to a software defect, but even those are mostly repairable and under warranty.
Now, when we switch to lithium from NiMH, there could be some long term reliability questions, but we’ll have to wait and see.
My mechanic keeps telling me to avoid hybrids “becuase at some point you will have to replace the battery which will cost you a fortune” Is this true?