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We have had to replace the alternator 3 times in 62k miles. The warning light just came on again and it looks like a fourth alternator may be needed. I am starting to wonder about this dealer. (We bought this car new from this dealer.) Two months ago we did the 60k service check and 3 days later the water pump went out. Two days ago the car failed to start and the dealer replaced the starter. Yesterday the light came on indicating an electrical problem. I plugged in a little diagnostic device into the cigarette lighter plug and it says the alternator output is bad. Has anyone had similar electrical issues with a Geo Prizm or a Toyota Corolla? Any Service bulletins, or other service warnings? Any similar experiences? How were they resolved? davemor@bigfoot.com
The Prizm, which is the same car as the Corolla can be had for better lease and buy deals because the hungry Chevy dealers are more competitive than the snobbish Toyota dealers.
Enjoy the new ride with its VVTi engine.
I did learn to live without the armrest, for short trips I don't miss it.
The Chevy dealer I bought my car from was easy to deal with and many of the others I talked to were good too. If the customer is completely uneducated before you shop, you will get treated like dirt. if you do your homework and are an educated consumer, you can do the deal quicker and for a mutually satisfactory price. And the Chevy dealer will be a lot less of a pain in the *ss than the snobs at Toyayta will be.
As far as sticks, yeah ya gotta hunt for them. Use gmbuypower.com to shop dealer lots before you even go out there. Its a fabulous feature.
GM cardholders make sure you use your cash back.. Free money!!!!
It was the same at Honda they didn't have a 5spd or needed to move stock so they immediately went into the upsell mode , going from a base to a mid-level trim with pwr everything and auto tranny. So I walked and got the Prizm.
People think its absurd on a motorcycle to have anything besides a standard transmission and a clutch but people think its not appropriate for a car.
I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I know men tend to be more receptive to the idea of a stick. Yet, much consumer research says women today hold greater purchasing power and are the decision makers for a majority of the auto sales these days.
Personally, I don't know a lot fo women who enjoy driving a stick. Guys I know are just indifferent.
The other thing that kills me is that in other countries, manuals sell at a higher percentage than in the US.
There is hardly anyone griping about their Prizms!
If we got rid of the gripes part, we'd get more posts!
Later,
L8_Apex
Sedans Host
Yes, you may gert grilled for your comments, but there is somewhat valid.
When I told an aqaintance about my new car with the 5 speed, she immediately stated in with "What is it with you guys and stick shifts?
My retort went something like this ... "Well, I get better performance and gas mileage with a stick. But the biggest reason is that my last car had an automatic that was slow to figure out what gear it should be in. Besides, buying the stick saved me $700."
What really drove stopped the discussion was when I said ... "Besides, this car is replacing my wife's car which had a stick."
May we always have a choice to come through in the clutch!
gearhead4
5 spds may be coming back in style now , with the introduction of some radical designs and bigger engines from auto makers and the rising cost of gas.Standard trannys aren't for everyone , but I'll never understand buying a car like a vette with an auto tranny.
Back on the subject of the Prizm , I only have 350 miles on it mostly highway and I am very happy with it.Merging into traffic is not a problem ( back to the 5spd thing again ) and rides great, still have the tank of gas I drove off the lot with.Great little car .
While there I picked up mudguards designed for Corolla that fit Prizm perfectly
Finally I bought armrest made specially for 95-99 Sentras - this is just the padding element - dealer takes ~55 and could be ordered on the net for as low as 42 dollars
Check it out
by the way I support manual shifter lovers - if not for 5 speed transmission I would not get into these small cars ;-)
popularmechanics.com has some information on 98 model cars - somewhere they say that Civics were sold 50 % configured with manual transmissions - maybe that was the reason why there was so many of them around...
I'm waiting for my silver Prizm (base) with 5 spd, ABS, side air bags, and CD player. Should get it tomorrow!
I was very encouraged by all the posts on this list praising Prizms ranging in age from brand new to 10 years old! Reliability is very important to me and it seems that the quality of the Prizm has been confirmed.
I saw a few posts on the list complaining about the availability of 5 spds. I told the dealer what I wanted, and there 2 (yes two) with a stick, ABS, side air and a CD player within a 150 miles (as the crow flies) of Boston! Now there is only one...
I drove a few Focuses and made the decision to buy a Prizm over one of the Foci. The Focus is nice and all, but I'm a little skeptical about it's reliability based on Ford's history. Maybe next time, if it proves itself. Plus, the mileage is not as good as the Prizm and the automatics, at least, have annoying engine noise at low rpms. Don't remember if the ZX3 had this problem.
Interesting, I went to the Toyota dealer first and was told that I could not get a Corolla with ABS for at least 3-4 months if at all, and that the current Toyota factory output for Corollas with ABS is only 1% of production! Then, the salesman tried to sell me a Camry, and when that didn't work he tried to sell me a CE Hello, Chevy, got a Prizm?
I'll let you all know how I like it after I drive it to Rhode Island this weekend.
Oh, one more thing. With the current $1250 rebate, I got the car for $14500, which is $300 over invoice. List was $16,160. I thought that was a pretty decent price, any comments?
Trev
I meant to say that I got the car for $300 over invoice (my cost was $15,700) and applied the rebate to get the car for $14450.
T.
Good luck and happy driving!
Well - it is not a perfect fit but better than nothing - say Sentras box is 3x6 inch - then Prizm is 3 x 6.5 - bit longer so it can slide back and forth a bit plus it sits kinda low - but I went for it and now could not imagine being without it
see picture :
http://www.nissan-accessories.com/PP.asp?PID=22
I think I got mine from www.nissanaccessories.com - without dash...
$42 was the lowest price I found
I did not see any suggestion to change timing belt at 60,000 miles interval.
Do I need to replace the timing place at all ?
Also, unlike most Honda and Nissan engines, all toyota engine except the now discountinued Tercel, uses a "free running" engine design. So even if the timing chain/belt breaks, there wouldn't be any engine damage. Timing chain easily last 120,000 without the need for changing. So rest easy, you have nothing to worry about.
A) No cargo net is available for the trunk
My fears about the center armrest (I have the base Prizm) were correct. They don't have a "drop-in" armrest...you have to buy the entire assembly (which is standard in the "LSI" model) from the shifter area to the rear cupholder... about $150.
C) The day that I picked up my car (the day it was purchased..it was used) I noticed that the paint job was damaged. The dealer tried to hide it by parking it in the rain for me to pick up and take home. Fortunately, the rain made the problem look worse and I pointed it out to my salesperson who said that I'd have to bring it back in and they'd take care of it. I didn't find out until last week (when it finally stopped raining for few days) when I ran it through the car wash how bad the damage was. What happened is this...sorry for the long post, BTW...the front and rear bumper had some dings and chips that I had requested be fixed. What they did was had somebody come in and repaint the bumpers (a very shoddy job since they painted over some sand and dirt and now there's raised 'pits' in the paint in those areas). They only masked a small portion of the front and rear of the car. They painted in the wind, which carried the paint to most of the car...which wasn't covered (windows, mirrors, even wheel covers got hit). It left an extremely dull finish on most of the car. After weeks of going back and forth with the salesman, after hearing him repeatedly deny that it was the dealers' fault and that it was a used car that was probably painted by someone else (and after me thinking to myself how much of a moron this guy is turning out to be), I finally talked to a manager yesterday who said it was obviously a bad job on their part and they'd make it right. I had it to a body shop (because after having a detail shop look at it, they said they couldn't help me), who gave me a quote of $350. They would use laqeur thinner and rebuf the car to remove the stray green paint. The dealer is going to 'cut and gloss' the car (basically, compound and rebuf the car). Don't know if that'll work, but I'm getting very tired of having to deal with Chevy dealerships already!
Enough gripes for now. I anticipate there'll be more...
very good car ( no problems yet) I have 61,000
miles on it... yes 61,000 miles.... I drove most onthe highway..... I put new tires on them..... theoriginals did not last long.... I have the 185/65R
instead of the 175's...... my only concern is my
MPG I get about 33 MPG... even when I'm on the
highway I get 33 MPG.... I drive about 75/78 MPH on
the highway...... on a full tank I can get about
330 miles...... ( is this ok ? ) (how can I get
better gas mileage?).... the AC is fine no
problems.... I need a new paint job on the front...
the bugs and rocks from my many trips have taken
there toll on the front..... I put a new CD in the
car the factory AM/FM had to go..... I get the oil
changed every 3,000 and I've had 2 tune-ups..... is
there anything else I can do to keep the car in
good shape.....? any additional comments to help
with my car will be greatly appreciated....
Since your paint is taking beating from all that highspeed trips, maybe you should invest in a nose bra. It's a small investment compared to a new paint job. Good luck.
Thanks for any info. tutu1
b) using your GM Card rebate will save you extra
c) Prizms sometimes have better factory incentives than Corollas. See Edmunds rebates and incentives page.
d) Chevy dealers are more desperate to sell cars, especially Prizms. They don't want them on their lot as long as they seem to have them.
I'll affirm what some others said already, that Toyota almost never has factory backed incentives on cars that are selling well or are not new models. GM, on the other hand, has several big sales events a year and more often than not GMAC is offering financing or rebate deals across the whole product line.
I just a bought a Prizm a month ago, and I paid $14500 AFTER the rebate. It's a base with ABS, side air bags, cruise, CD player, and the temp/tach cluster. To get a Corolla with side air bags I'd have to buy an LE (according to Toyota) and with comparable equipment, plus 3% over invoice, it would be about $15200.
True, the LE would have power mirrors and power windows; maybe that's worth the $700 to you.
The reason I went with Prizm over Toyota was availability. Toyota sells millions of Corollas; ironically that makes it harder to get what you want. They treat them as commodities, and expect you to buy off the lot. If you don't buy, plenty of others will so they don't particularly care. I was told that to get the Corolla I wanted, I would have to wait 4 months!
Assuming you order something weird, you'll also probably get a worse deal since they know they've got a tough-to-find option set. Supply and demand works against you sometimes if you do a factory order.
Prizm, on the other hand, seemed much easier to find.
A word about depreciation. I drive cars forever. You have to ask yourself, how long are you going to keep the car? If you're like me, depreciation is not an issue because by the time you give it up, it doesn't matter WHAT it is, you'll only get $1000-$1500 for it
You might want to give the dealer a shot yourself. I walked in, told him what I wanted, and asked him if he would give it to me for invoice plus $300. He said sure, and that was that. If you don't get an answer you like, just walk.
Best,
Trev
If so, that cost more money on fuel, right?
luvmyprizm: the Prizm is still a rebodied, rebadged Toyota Corolla bult at the same factory in Fremont, California as the Corolla. Same mechanicals, same manufacturing, same workers. You should never have to worry about reliability. And the new ones have VVTi (variable valve timing with intelligence), so they have a LOT more spunk -- you'll love 'em!
eeql: The Corolla is designed to run on regular gas. Running premium will simply cost you more money at the pump, as it is not designed to take advantage of the extra octane. Remember, it's an economy car, not a sports car.
Please Help, and if possible email me with advice at JTinCT@hotmail.com
thanks!!
Like I said, I can't imagine being happier...