As the highest-mileage 2004 Prius on the road, Mr. Grant's cab will be shipped back to Toyota in Japan to be stripped down for research. VANCOUVER - The world's first Toyota Prius cab driver is sold on hybrid technology, which allows his vehicle to run on either a gasoline or electric motor, or both in tandem. Vancouver's Andrew Grant says his 2004 Prius paid for itself in less than 24 months through savings on parts, service, labour and fuel..... In addition, he said the vehicle costs only one-third the usual expenses on maintenance over a 24-month period because it has fewer wear-and-tear components. His current Prius recently surpassed 400,000 kilometres with no hybrid component failures.... http://autos.canada.com/green/story.html?i...13-8289842450df
There was no mention whether he is being given a replacement Prius or if he already had plans to buy a new Prius. Tell you what, if you take my car for disassembly you'd better be giving me a replacement.
Waitasec, this sounds like old news -- unless Toyota is repeating the lifetime experiment that they did with Grant's first car, but wasn't that a Classic? [In that case, they did give him a replacement, possibly even said '04.] . _H*
It does look like they're repeating what they did with Grant's first Prius. Near the end of the article, it mentions that it's being shipped back to Japan just like his 2001 model-year Prius.
wow.. history repeats itself! hehe. "As the highest mileage 2004 model on the road, it will be shipped back to Toyota in Japan shortly to be stripped down for research, just as with the 2001 model that Mr. Grant turned to taxi duty back on Nov. 1, 2000." The thing is, I thought he passed 400,000kms a long time ago? (possibly last spring) and that Andrew doesn't drive YC-15 any more?
I think it's pretty cool that Toyota cares about this. The only time I can think of anything similar involving a domestic manufacturer, was when Ford bought (1964 1/2 model year) Mustang #1 back from its owner...but they restored it cosmetically and put it on display. It wasn't analyzed mechanically in any way.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Dupuy @ Jul 13 2007, 10:08 AM) [snapback]478196[/snapback]</div> oh.. oops
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Dupuy @ Jul 13 2007, 12:08 PM) [snapback]478196[/snapback]</div> I thought I had heard that before. Meanwhile, on John1701a's site, owner Jesse has a 2002 Prius with over 285K miles on it. http://john1701a.com/prius/owners/jesse3.htm
Note to realtors: Get a Prius, hybrd Camry, or HiHi and drive it for 300K or so - get a replacement and publicty.
Just for completeness, although it's been posted in some other threads, we recently changed the PSD fluid for the first time that Jesse's aware of in his car. It may have been done once before he owned it, but who knows. Details here. Yes, he's still on the same battery pack and as far as he knows hasn't even had SSC 40G done. . Jesse will be hangin' out with us at Altwheels at the end of Sept. . _H*
Just forwarded that to a writer at the Chicago Tribune that I emailed back in May when Chicago was rolling out the first hybrid Escape taxi. At the time, some cabbies were moaning about repairs and reliability so I sent a link to the original story on his first Prius taxi. Sent this new story to her as well as a couple of aldermen so they know how things really are. Of course, this is a Prius and not an Escape, so TMMV.
