Don't lose your Prius smart key.

[LWM]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41536376#41536376

[WanderingTs]

Seems like a set of wheel dollies, combined with a XK and winch could very easily solve this. The dollies will lift the wheels while the vehicle is in place and the XK provides the muscle. Even a dolly ready floor jack would take a long time, but work. Maybe we should just tell her to go buy a jeep as rescue vehicle and charge that to the insurance!

[Sal-XK]

hahahahah thats stupid, really no one has enough imagination or ingenuity to solve this problem. The dealer should go next store to there body shop get the dollies they use to push car's around on a tow strap hooked to a car for safety a couple of day laborers and push the thing out. What has america come to man no one thinks outside the box anymore LOL

[Adondo]

"What has america come to man no one thinks outside the box anymore LOL"

Ain't that the truth. A set of $49.95 Harbor Freight wheel dollys popped into my head while I was watching the video.

Now... you'd think... when they design and build a multi-level parking garage such as that, someone, somewhere has got to realize sooner or later, a car is going to croak out after being driven in under its own power. It's gonna' happen. We can build mining equipment that can move tons of earth, yet be only 40 inches tall, so why the heck isn't there ALREADY some kind of special tow rig just for parking garages?!? If someone could build a low-boy style flatbed rig, they'd be busy in any large city just dragging out dead cars from low ceiling parking structures.

And, if nothing else, why can't Toyota do a new smart key on-site? What does it take? A 30 foot diameter, 5 ton Cray supercomputer? Give me a break.

Then again, why does the car's owner have ONE (1) (single) (uno) (ein) key in the first place?!? I have a spare for my XK, and they can be had from eBay for $70.

One last (rhetorical) question: what happens when the Prius sits long enough that the batteries go dead? After all, the doors are power locks. There's no keyhole or ignition switch. The lithium batteries are 400 volts. (I repeat: FOUR HUNDRED VOLTS) Who's going to jump start THAT?

On edit: Alright, one MORE thought:

So... they ''total out'' the car because they can't get a key made and/or the car to the dealer. Then what? IT'S STILL THERE!! Walk away? Allow it to slowly rust into oblivion over the next 20~30 years? I'll go out on a limb here, but if it gets totaled out, someone will figure out how to remove it from the garage, guaranteed.

[NeilSmith]

Yeah, it's b.s. Put on wheel dollies and push it out. The dealer should do it if a tow company won't. This is actually a serious problem. If the thing dies in traffic, there is no way to push it out of the roadway. They can not be put in a neutral gear. We work on them all the time and the batteries die and they have to be jumped. The owners manual has specific instructions to do it but a typical jump box will do the trick. The fire marshall wants us to have the keys readily available to them in case of a fire so they may be able to move a vehicle if they need to. Most of the time you can just pop it in neutral and push, no so with the electrics. I am not even supposed to run the bake cycle after painting one for fear of burning up the batteries. The paint pretty much has to be baked though so we do it anyway. No problems as of yet. As far as the key goes, they are expensive to replace on most new vehicles, BMW being in excess of $400 and you need to sign over your first born child just to get one. :)