Mark Wilson

My wife bought a Prius new in 2006. Drove it to 170,000 until she wanted something newer a couple years ago. Her 20 year old son needed a car so she sold it to him. He drives to crap out of it to 220K until last week when codes showed up and the brakes started acting up. Takes it to dealer - brake actuator @ $2100 and they show the battery pack bad too @ $3800. So the kid without any research decides his best option is to go to a tote the note lot and buy some POS.

I start doing a little googling and find a company in Houston called Hometown Hybrids. They have a guy in Dallas(where I am) that can do the battery pack, but they can only do the brake actuator on Houston. Total for a 2 year warranty battery pack and the brake actuator is $2100!!! So I start thinking about trailering the car to Houston. Ten minutes later, the owner of the company emails back and said for an extra $300 her tech will drive to Dallas this weekend and do the work. Bam!

Jose gets to my house @ 7:45 this morn and reads the codes. Turns out he's a factory trained Toyota tech doing jobs for Hometown on weekends. The inverter water pump is bad too but he happens to have that part with him. I saw the code so know it's real. He calls Jessica and she calls back and tells me they will do it at cost - $175. Bam! Jose gets out a medium size tool bag and starts in like a bumble bee. I left him alone for an hour and the battery pack is done and he is halfway through the rest of it. He knocks on the door at 10:30 and asks if I'll help bleed the brakes. 15 minutes later, he has the car all back together, tests it out, tools packed and credit card charged.

This is truly the best experience I've ever had with a mechanic! And the kid has a good car for another couple of years...