My Prius has just clocked over 120,000km on the odometer, which means that it is now past its extended warranty. So far the only thing I have used the extended warranty for is a new water pump, which saved me $160. Unfortunately, the extended warranty cost just under $2000, so it turned out to be a pretty bad investment. So for all you new Toyota buyers out there, don't count on anything going wrong in the first five years!

Of course, once my warranty expired, I started experiencing an annoying problem: It started becoming difficult to shift gears. Basically, the shift lever would get caught on something and I would have to force it over to the "drive" position. This struck me as quite odd, since the Prius shifter isn't actually attached to anything. It is just a joystick that sends signals to the main computer, and the computer decides whether to "shift gears" or not. (The Prius doesn't actually have multiple gears... but that is another story.)

Since it is just a joystick, you can imagine my surprise when Toyota wanted to charge me $890 to replace my gear shift! (That's $722 for the part, and $168 for labour.) I did a bit of searching on the PriusChat forums and found that other people have experienced similar problems with their gear shifts. So one morning before work I spent a few minutes taking apart the dashboard, removing the gear shift assembly, opening it up, and taking out the dust cover.

Here you can see a photo of the dust cover from inside the gear shift. This cover fits over the shifter, forming a protective barrier so that dust and other debris doesn't get into the shifter assembly. When you move the joystick, the dust cover slides back and forth (and part of it slides up and down) along with the shifter. This dust cover is made from very flimsy plastic, and over the course of several seasons of alternating hot and cold weather, it eventually warps. You can see from this photo that it is quite warped now, and the left side was catching on another part of the shift assembly, making it difficult to shift.

For now I have just removed the dust cover completely. It is not really needed. Maybe if I feel like it I will try to straighten out the plastic, or maybe visit the local wreckers to see if I can salvage another dust cover or shifter assembly from a wrecked Prius. Or I could probably just replace it with a stiff piece of cardboard cut to the right shape.

At any rate, my Prius now shifts like a dream again, all for the low price of $0 and ten minutes of my time. By the way: It literally takes less than ten minutes to replace the entire shifter assembly in a Prius. I wish my job paid me one thousand dollars an hour, like the Toyota techs seem to charge. ;)

Technical details: This photo was taken with my Rebel XT + kit lens at 48mm, ISO 1600, f/5.6 for 1/40th of a second.

Comments

Ah the tech. doesn't charge or make $1k / hour.  You're thinkin' like a working
man.  The shop pockets the difference.	Come to think of it, thats the way to
riches.  Charge $168 for something it takes another guy 5 minutes to do while
paying that guy $30/hr.  You do nothing but rake in the profits!

Indeed... that reminds me somewhat of my job:  Some sales guy convinces a
potential customer to buy our product by telling them it does magical feature
X.  When said customer finds out it doesn't do feature X, they back out of the
deal and threaten to spread word that our products suck.  I get a frantic email
saying "please implement feature X by tomorrow or we will be out of business!" 
I stay late, eat lots of sugar, listen to fast music and code like mad, pulling
off the near impossible task just in the nick of time.

Do I get overtime?  No.
 Bonus?  No.  Does the sales guy who sold nonexistent software get the
commission and kudos for the million dollar deal?  Yes.  This seems to happen
every six months or so.

Maybe I think like a working man because I am one...
just a well paid working man.  :)

Good job!