Robyn of Alameda CA (2/7/05): My 3-month-old Toyota Prius has decided to jump gears infrequently, when I am starting or stopping the car. (I put it into Drive, for example, and it jumps into Reverse.) When I took it into the dealership --under full warranty -- they claimed there was nothing wrong; it was my fault for handling the gear shift roughly. Actually, when "Master Mechanic" Tony showed me how to gently handle the gears, it jumped from 'drive' to 'neutral', and a friend of mine witnessed this as well. Tony argued with us and denied seeing this happen.
Also, my car makes a clanking noise infrequently, as a piece of the front side passenger panel was obviously put in wrong and is not secure. Two "Master" mechanics did not see this problem, which is pretty obvious to anyone's naked eye. I have been waiting for two weeks to hear about the possibility of an investigation, once Toyota figures out that I've already been through my local dealer (they didn't catch on to this fact despite numerous messages I left to this effect). In the meantime, I am told to simply drive the car and count to three when shifting gears: their solution to my problem!
This is obviously a potentially very dangerous problem -- given that I cannot trust that the gear I put my car into is the gear it will stay in. I would think Toyota would want to address it immediately for liability reasons. A recall may be in order. But -- as of now -- they don't seem concerned.
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