Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Hundreds of 5-year-old municipal vehicles found in Miami that were never used

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.

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/04/25/h...miami-that-we/

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

I'm pretty sure the county can still use it even without the warranty.

It's either they use it, or they don't.

Gotta make the most out of the tools that they already have...

whoster

my city's small-car fleet is almost entirely hybrids. Prius(es), Camrys, and Escapes.

Toys4RJill

If I were Toyota in this situation, I would offer the warranty up to the 36k. Try to turn this into some sort of press thing they could use to their advantage.

JessePS

How can a city purchase more cars than they need? The city could literally start their own car sharing service.

Toys4RJill

I wonder what the used car price of these cars would be. Interesting story!

<VENOM>

Commercial fleet vehicles don't have warranties

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Wonder how many needed a jump

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

if they didn't need them for YEARS, they don't need them now, and should sell most if not all of them to local businesses to help both sides out.

i also bet the local toyota dealer gave a big 'thank you' to that mayor.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

gotta admit it is pretty funny.

"you remember that order of 298 Prius's back in 2006..." hahah

FrankReynoldsCPA

Nobody but the government could misplace 300 brand new cars. Somebody needs to be fired for that.

FrankReynoldsCPA

It's hard to tell how much the county paid for them, since it would have been a large fleet purchase for a cheaper price than you can pick one up for at the dealership. However, for curiosity's sake, lets say that the gov't paid sticker for each car. That's $6,474,050 in cars that just disappeared. They must have terrible accountants and auditors.

ba-b4

Sigh typical government waste... disgusting!

jadu

iTrader: (42)

6million dollars, misplaced, wow. Didn't even gain interest

IS350jet

LOL! With Carlos Alvarez, $6 mil. was just the tip of the iceberg. Thank God he was successfully removed from office. (FIRED!)