With all the frogwash flying, there's one statistic I haven't seen or heard. Has anyone indicated whether these vehicles are original owner cars? Around here there are lots of low priced, low mileage, Prius' on craigslist. That's what started me thinking about picking one up. However...most in the low price range turned out to be salvage title cars. Seems the insurance companies are quick to total them and there's a thriving underground picking them up at auction to kludge together, paint, and unload as fast as possible. This would put on the market plenty of cars of questionable reliability and it seems a few posting here have likely fallen victim. These same concernes could be held for cars being serviced by shops other than those with factory trained techs. With all the unconventional electronics, it would be easy to muck up things if you don't know exactly what you're doing. Seems in each case a search of the history of the vehicle would be in order, and actually may have been done but not reported by the media.
In the Sikes case the vehicle was leased from a Toyota dealer. Sikes doesn't "own" it, and it's a 2008 which may be nearing the end of its lease.
