Robski

If my memory serves me correctly the price of the battery used to be much higher. It must have gone down in price and that's great to see. Hopefully, that will be the case with most of the other hybrid components or else these vehicles could prove to be a very costly endeavour for second or third hand owners. The Prius has been around for longer so I would gather that there must be a good deal of them which are out of the warranty period. If people aren't having issues quality wise with them, then perhaps we will be ok as well. Only time will tell how this will play out.

First I read about a $6000 battery and now a $7000 inverter! I find it very disconcerting that we are driving around in cars that may require a leaking $7000 part to be replaced. Owning this vehicle could turn into one giant nightmare after the 100k hybrid warranty runs out. I'm scared to even think what is going to happen to the resale value of the these vehicles after the hybrid warranty runs out and the flood of complaints about uber expensive replacement components starts streaming in. So much for the long term aspiration of recouping this vehicle's initially high cost through longer ownership. I mean these are electromechanical devices, of which a certain percentage is bound to break sooner or later, so the more miles we put on these vehicles the higher the likelihood that something eventually will break. Doesn't anyone else worry about the potentially disastrous economic impact looming overhead? Is it fair for Toyota to be charging $7000 for an inverter? IMHO the high cost of such parts could send current owners to the cleaners and effectively kill the hybrid's future after the public catches on.

I'm also planning on bringing my 400h to Poland within a few months and have also looked into this issue as well. It turns out that the warranty is definitely not honored in Europe. Unfortunately, the bad news continues since the Nav system will not work either. As it turns out the European model uses a different reader/computer which is even made by a different company, so simply switching the DVD will not suffice. Btw. there also is no way to switch the display from miles to kilometers and the climate control from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Something I haven't been able to find out is whether the auto turning HID lights need to bee replaced to meet the asymmetrical European standards. If someone has gone through some of these issues please respond.