Corrosion on my Prius' Wheel Rims
(Resolved 8/14/03)

Update: (originally posted on 5/12/03) I am still waiting for word on when the Toyota rep will be visiting my dealership to approve warranty service or replacement of my corroding wheel rims. I have been calling every week or so, but still no one seems to know when this rep will be visiting. Obviously I am not happy with this delay. There have been cases of the same type of corrosion posted to the Yahoo Prius Technical Stuff forum and the UK Prius forum, so I still have confidence that the matter will be resolved positively. Watch this space for further updates on the matter.

Update (originally posted on 5/21/03): It turns out that I'm not the only one who is waiting for the regional Toyota rep to show up and approve warranty service. I called Toyota and they said they will have someone form the regional department give me a call in the next few days and hopefully speed things along. Stay tuned...

Update (originally posted on 5/30/03): After a little over one and a half months (and some phone calls to Toyota and the Toyota regional people,) my dealer finally got approval to provide service on the wheel rims. I may post more details later on the whole unfortunate process, but right now I've got other things to do today. There is still one hitch though: my dealer got permission to refinish the current wheels (requiring them to keep the Prius for a while when that is done), not to replace them. After speaking with my dealer they seemed happy to request a replacement instead. Stay tuned for the final (I hope) resolution...

Update (originally posted on 7/7/03): After contacting the regional rep one final time, my dealer's request to replace my wheels was denied. The dealer told me they would have been happy to replace them, but were told that Toyota would not pay for them to do so. I called Toyota customer service to pursue a formal complaint against the regional representative, but the phone rep was very unhelpful. She stated that the wheels were authorized to be re-finished as a "good faith" effort and that this problem would not normally even be covered under warranty! When I mentioned that other Prius owners in the US had their wheels replaced without question under warranty, she kept repeating that she was not authorized to diagnose the problem. I was told that my only remaining option was arbitration. I will be looking at the arbitration terms under my warranty and will decide if this is worth pursuing. 

On a plus note, I was randomly chosen to answer a customer satisfaction survey, and a supervisor is supposed to contact me by phone as a result of my answers. I will post the result of that conversation here.

Update (originally posted on 7/11/03) : The supervisor who called as a result of my phone survey has so far been very friendly and helpful. She requested that I FAX her the various information I had gathered on this matter from the Yahoo! Prius groups as well as my own e-mail correspondence. I warned her it would be a long FAX (it ended up being 13 pages!) and she cheerfully said that was fine.

I received a brief follow-up call today to let me know that my FAX was received and she is still working on getting in touch with some people. Thanks to a fellow internet Prius owner, I now have in my possession a copy of an invoice proving that this problem has been resolved by replacement for another owner elsewhere in the US (in a different region). The supervisor gladly accepted my offer to FAX this copy to her as a supplement to my previous submission. I also sent a copy of my own invoice with the dealer's noting of the corrosion on 3 of the 4 wheel rims of my Prius.

I was told that the information I had sent was helpful and this will all hopefully be resolved within a week or so, although I was cautioned that it is unusual for Toyota to reverse the decision of a regional representative. I sincerely hope that the preponderance of evidence I have submitted is enough to do so in this case.

Update (originally posted 8/4/03): The Toyota customer service supervisor was unable to convince the regional representative to change her mind. This left me with two options: settle for having the wheels recoated or attempt arbitration on the matter. The supervisor offered to send me some information on arbitration to help me make my decision. After well over a week, the information had still not arrived, but I made my decision anyway. I have an appointment for Monday, August 11 to have the wheels sent out and recoated. The process should take two days and during that time my dealer has offered to look into a rattle that has developed in my dashboard. I'll of course let you all know how it goes, so one last time, stay tuned....

Here are some pictures of the wheels that I took today while washing my car. As of this post, my Prius is 16 months old and has roughly 7600 miles on it (Click a picture for a larger version in a new window):

Front Passenger-side wheel:

Rear Passenger-side wheel:

Front Driver-side wheel:

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