Toyota once said that the Prius is “harmony between man, nature and machine” but that all sounds a bit out of tune to Greg Reynante. Mr. Reynante filed a lawsuit alleging Toyota deliberately misled consumers about the fuel efficiency of the 2004–2007 Prius.
The lawsuit says the manufacturer ignored factors such as weather, air conditioning and other things that can hurt MPGs. Toyota says it followed the EPA guidelines.
Manufacturers can sometimes drag their feet when it comes to issuing recalls. But whenever there’s reports of fuel leaking out of cars they start to move like someone lit a fire under their butt. That’s because, well … there might actually be real fires soon. Last week Volkswagen recalled 26,000 cars for fuel injectors that leak. Just a couple days later they expanded that recall to include an additional 45,000 cars.
The Prius Plug-in doesn’t do much to excite. It has a sub-par electric performance and issues with the brakes. No wonder sales are lagging.
Ford has to revise the fuel ratings on six of its popular cars, and not in a good way. The company says they over-estimated the fuel efficiency on these cars and then reported those inflated numbers to the EPA. And now they've been caught.
Ford says a software error in the restraint control module of the 2013–14 C-Max Hybrid can delay the deployment of the side-curtain airbag.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes your Ford or Mercury Hybrid SUV just needs a timeout? You know – a period of time to shut down, cool off and reset? Hmm, sounds like my toddler actually. Unlike my toddler, however, these timeouts are actually happening to owners in the form of a stalling engine and sometimes in very dangerous situations!
Now Ford says they know what the problem is and are issuing a recall to fix it.
After receiving nearly 60 complaints of sudden assisted brake failure in the 2007-08 Toyota Camry Hybrid, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation to figure out what's going on. 24 of those complaints happened while traveling over 40 mph with 2 leading to crashes.
Does the the Toyota Prius have a 'shrinkage' problem? A class-action lawsuit claims the gas tank in the 2004-09 Prius can shrink when it gets cold outside.
A few years back Honda was hit with a class-action lawsuit claiming they knew the rear suspension could cause this problem but refused to inform consumers about it. The problem was so severe in some cases that owners reported not only having to replace their tires, but busted control arms as well.
Ford is recalling 23,000 model year 2012-13 Focus Electric and 2013 C-Max Energi and Hybrid vehicles equipped with the 'intelligent access' push button start system. The reason? A missing door chime.
Just in time for Halloween, Toyota is recalling over 803,000 cars because they are haunted by spiders. Yep, spiders.
Ahh, that new car smell. The smell of burnt out electrical components, that is. Turns out your brand new car is likely to have an electrical short in the wiper switch.
Your vehicle may soon enter limp home mode and that's if you're lucky. Toyota recently announced they're recalling 235,000 vehicles because they could have trouble operating or, in some cases, just stop working in the middle of the road altogether.
The head protection in over 33,000 Ford C-Max Hybrid vehicles is insufficient. This headache (pun fully intended) was discovered during testing of the 2013 models, when it became clear the head protection was not up to federal standards.
Two recalls for the price of one! That’s what some of you lucky Prius owners from the 2004-2009 model years have to look forward to. Toyota recently announced the steering intermediate extension shafts in 670,000 Prius cars sold in then U.S. need to be inspected and possibly replaced. Of those 670,000 vehicles, 350,000 will also need to have an electric water pump replaced.
Eight months ago the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation of smoke and fire coming from their driver's side doors in some Toyota vehicles. Cars nowadays come with all sorts of fancy features, but an in-door hibachi is not one them.
Last month we told you about Heather Peters, an angry Civic Hybrid owner who claimed Honda purposely mislead customers by stating the car gets 50mpg, a number many owners claim is a fantasy. Instead of participating in an existing class-action lawsuit with a minimal payout, Peters decided to take on Honda directly in small claims court.
If you’re a Civic Hybrid owner who has been underwhelmed or downright pissed off about your car’s MPG performance, you have a couple options.
A federal court has approved a class action lawsuit settlement against Honda after the popular automaker failed to fix or warn owners about defective sun visors. The settlement affects over 2 million Honda Civic and Civic Hybrid owners and lessees. On CarComplaints.com alone there have been nearly 150 complaints about this problem by 2006, 2007 and 2008 Civic owners.
