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The good news about a Toyota Prius is that it's terrific technology. They are mostly reliable, and their gas mileage is stunning.
The bad news is, they're expensive, upwards of $40,000 a pop to buy, for a car that doesn't seat any more than a Ford Focus.
Well, at least after going thru the pain of spending a huge amount of money on an econobox, at least you can have the pleasure of using it, pay so little for gas etc.
But what if you spend all that money to buy it, and then never use it?
Twisted though that sounds, it's far easier to do when you're not spending your own money. If it's Other People's Money you're spending on them, hey who cares. And if a few get lost in the shuffle, well.......
Have you ever bought a brand new cars only to forget where you put it? How about 300 of them? Probably not – unless you're Miami-Dade County, which was recently reunited with 298 vehicles it bought brand new between 2006 and 2007.
The county "discovered" this fleet of no-mileage vehicles after reading about them in a Spanish-language newspaper there (see the source for more images). Most of the misplaced motorcade is made up of Toyota Prius hybrids whose warranties either expired with very few miles on the odo or will very soon.
Looking to save some face, the county has rushed at least 123 of the hybrids into service. The Toyota warranty covered the hybrid bits for eight years or 100,000 miles, but we're not sure if that covers cars parked for five of those eight. We're also not sure what that much time in Miami heat and humidity does to an unused hybrid powertrain, but it can't be good.
The county, as you probably guessed, is looking into how it lost so many cars. The leading theory is that they might be part of Carlos Alvarez's time as mayor. He was the mayor during the period the Toyotas were purchased, but a 2011 recall election successfully removed him from office. Apparently the voters "felt, among other reasons, that he had been behind multiple acts of misappropriation of funds."
We've tried to contact Toyota to see what kind of warranty support these cars will get but haven't had any luck so far. We'll update with their response.
The good news about a Toyota Prius is that it's terrific technology. They are mostly reliable, and their gas mileage is stunning.
The bad news is, they're expensive, upwards of $40,000 a pop to buy, for a car that doesn't seat any more than a Ford Focus.
Well, at least after going thru the pain of spending a huge amount of money on an econobox, at least you can have the pleasure of using it, pay so little for gas etc.
But what if you spend all that money to buy it, and then never use it?
Twisted though that sounds, it's far easier to do when you're not spending your own money. If it's Other People's Money you're spending on them, hey who cares. And if a few get lost in the shuffle, well.......
Have you ever bought a brand new cars only to forget where you put it? How about 300 of them? Probably not – unless you're Miami-Dade County, which was recently reunited with 298 vehicles it bought brand new between 2006 and 2007.
The county "discovered" this fleet of no-mileage vehicles after reading about them in a Spanish-language newspaper there (see the source for more images). Most of the misplaced motorcade is made up of Toyota Prius hybrids whose warranties either expired with very few miles on the odo or will very soon.
Looking to save some face, the county has rushed at least 123 of the hybrids into service. The Toyota warranty covered the hybrid bits for eight years or 100,000 miles, but we're not sure if that covers cars parked for five of those eight. We're also not sure what that much time in Miami heat and humidity does to an unused hybrid powertrain, but it can't be good.
The county, as you probably guessed, is looking into how it lost so many cars. The leading theory is that they might be part of Carlos Alvarez's time as mayor. He was the mayor during the period the Toyotas were purchased, but a 2011 recall election successfully removed him from office. Apparently the voters "felt, among other reasons, that he had been behind multiple acts of misappropriation of funds."
We've tried to contact Toyota to see what kind of warranty support these cars will get but haven't had any luck so far. We'll update with their response.
Buying things and never using them is far from a new occurrence for government. It's been going on for a long time and, though hardly excusable, is mostly a factor of the SIZE of the governments inventory. Nobody really knows what it owns or where it is.
For instance, literally thousands of travel trailers were bought for the victims of Katrina and never used. A lot of them still sit somewhere in Arkansas and we're paying to maintain them. On a smaller scale, I once took over a rifle company in the Army and found myself personally responsible for a supply and arms room which had over 30,000 individual items in it! Nobody knew what was actually in there until we did a top to bottom inventory. Even then, we found things unaccounted for or missing.
Any large organization will have similar problems. That all those Toyota's are sitting there unused doesn't indicate anything more than that the government needs to get a better handle on its accountability. Well...who didn't already know that?
Heck, we could ALL do that! I've got things right here in this house that I've forgotten even exist. I'll bet you do too.
Buying things and never using them is far from a new occurrence for government. It's been going on for a long time and, though hardly excusable, is mostly a factor of the SIZE of the governments inventory. Nobody really knows what it owns or where it is.
For instance, literally thousands of travel trailers were bought for the victims of Katrina and never used. A lot of them still sit somewhere in Arkansas and we're paying to maintain them. On a smaller scale, I once took over a rifle company in the Army and found myself personally responsible for a supply and arms room which had over 30,000 individual items in it! Nobody knew what was actually in there until we did a top to bottom inventory. Even then, we found things unaccounted for or missing.
Any large organization will have similar problems. That all those Toyota's are sitting there unused doesn't indicate anything more than that the government needs to get a better handle on its accountability. Well...who didn't already know that?
Heck, we could ALL do that! I've got things right here in this house that I've forgotten even exist. I'll bet you do too.
I think the Defense Dept loses about $100 Bil each year. They just lose it, no idea where it went. By the way, it would cost about $30 Bil each year to pay for all College tuition. Just a thought.
The good news about a Toyota Prius is that it's terrific technology. They are mostly reliable, and their gas mileage is stunning.
The bad news is, they're expensive, upwards of $40,000 a pop to buy, for a car that doesn't seat any more than a Ford Focus.
Well, at least after going thru the pain of spending a huge amount of money on an econobox, at least you can have the pleasure of using it, pay so little for gas etc.
But what if you spend all that money to buy it, and then never use it?
Twisted though that sounds, it's far easier to do when you're not spending your own money. If it's Other People's Money you're spending on them, hey who cares. And if a few get lost in the shuffle, well.......
Have you ever bought a brand new cars only to forget where you put it? How about 300 of them? Probably not – unless you're Miami-Dade County, which was recently reunited with 298 vehicles it bought brand new between 2006 and 2007.
The county "discovered" this fleet of no-mileage vehicles after reading about them in a Spanish-language newspaper there (see the source for more images). Most of the misplaced motorcade is made up of Toyota Prius hybrids whose warranties either expired with very few miles on the odo or will very soon.
Looking to save some face, the county has rushed at least 123 of the hybrids into service. The Toyota warranty covered the hybrid bits for eight years or 100,000 miles, but we're not sure if that covers cars parked for five of those eight. We're also not sure what that much time in Miami heat and humidity does to an unused hybrid powertrain, but it can't be good.
The county, as you probably guessed, is looking into how it lost so many cars. The leading theory is that they might be part of Carlos Alvarez's time as mayor. He was the mayor during the period the Toyotas were purchased, but a 2011 recall election successfully removed him from office. Apparently the voters "felt, among other reasons, that he had been behind multiple acts of misappropriation of funds."
We've tried to contact Toyota to see what kind of warranty support these cars will get but haven't had any luck so far. We'll update with their response.
Prob bought them from a crony with a Toyota car dealership
$40,000 for a Prius? You must be thinking about the Volt. A prius can be had for around $25k.
2006-2007, looks like the republicans liked to go green too, of course without their fan base not knowing which is probably why they sat so long.
I think the Defense Dept loses about $100 Bil each year. They just lose it, no idea where it went. By the way, it would cost about $30 Bil each year to pay for all College tuition. Just a thought.
And, if DOD can lose that much, just think of how much is lost by every department in total?
If we could just get a handle on the loss, it would go a long way toward solving our deficit problem, wouldn't it?
That would be the fed will pay list plus an additional.
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