Prius v: 300,000 miles club

As long as you don't think I was talking about you.

 

Why ? $2000 to put the car back on the road is 1/10th the price of replacement.

I sympathize with 2Fas: the man wanted to finish his route, so he kept driving despite warnings. I hope his company values him highly. They should.

That said, the Prius is not a car that will take abuse and come away with a dent that is fixed by a hammer.

 

with 350k miles on the car, I would probably not fix the head gasket, I would just do an engine replacement for around the same price. I believe 2Fas would have an issue with the downtime it would take to repair/replace the engine. Not sure how this will play out.

 

That sounds like good advice if he can find one. Is the G3 Prius ICE a drop-in replacement ?

 

Provided it really needs a head gasket.

 

I believe it's the same engine and should be a drop in replacement. But you have to think at 350k miles, a car past it's sell by date, should you be putting good money in it or cut your losses now? It still runs so trade it in before it stops running. Trade in value should be right at $6000

 

If I remember 2Fas' story correctly, he drove the car while overheating, and it caused the coolant to blow through into the engine head. At least that is how my admittedly limited mechanical knowledge parses the story.

 

JC,
We have another PC member who is also a courier in Texas. He replaced his ICE around 400k miles due to oil consumption and has been going strong ever since. I think he now is past 600k miles.

 

Yes I know all about the other member, they both have amazing stories on these cars.

I was just speaking if it were me and my job required me to drive insane amounts of miles to deliver medical supplies....I would want something that would keep going without having me worry about it potentially breaking down when I need the car most. IF the customer could wait, they would choose UPS or FEDEX.

 

Are you saying you would replace the car because it has 350k miles regardless, or because you would not trust an ICE replacement ?

 

I personally think a car that's reached 250k miles is the end of the life of the car's components. Anything can fail at any given time, causing lost time and lost productivity (if it's work related).

can this car get a new engine and go to 600k miles? possibly, but there are no guarantees. The GenII's are proven to go the extra mile, not so much the V yet, it's still a very new model.

I personally would not put $2000 in a car with 350k miles, especially when most of it's components are all original. 350k miles is a lot of wear on the car in 2 years. Transaxle, HV battery, Inverters, etc......they are all worn.

 

Not so fast ...

• The battery is two years old, and lightly used since all the miles are flat highway
• I don't think any of us have a good idea how inverters 'wear', but they sure have been reliable and are an easy and inexpensive replacement with a lightly used part
• The transaxle would seem to be a 'miles' part, but maybe not. The few failures to date do not disclose an obvious pattern

A car that was 10 years old and had 350k miles ? I'm with you.
2Fas' car ? If it was my money I would repair at $2000 without hesitation

 

The OP said he still owns 4 years of car payments on this car.
It will be better off to spent $2K to fix it until the loan is paid off before dumping it.

 

I think the $2000 repair is smart money because the car is so new. But this is used for business, it has to be reliable. If you save the $2000 and add the trade in for $6000, that's $8000 for a new one with 0 miles. Let's say you finance $20,000.....for another 350k miles.

If you look at it by adding $2000 for the repair, you are hoping to get another 350k in 2 years. Can a courier deal with the "what if I break down in the middle of nowhere with important deliveries"? Surely the next 350k, we are probably looking at the following.

Used Transaxle - $2000
Used Inverter - $1000
New battery?? for reliability - $3500
Shocks/struts - $1000-$1500
+ Initial engine repair $2000

That is already $10,000 for the next 350k (if it goes that far), with repair downtime.

So the money we are talking about is $10,000 to start new to get another 350k (hopefully trouble free)

 

I forgot about that aspect.

Right you are. Back in the day, I tried to convince 2Fas to stay with his original Prius until he could buy a car with cash but oil consumption, a great trade-in allowance, and the allure of a Prius vagon led to his current car. As you say, now his choices are more limited by the debt.

 

Well it's completely different if you have 4 years of debt on the car.......but you transferred the debt before, it can still be transferred again to the new car. You'll then be driving around in a $50,000 2014 Prius.

 

IF $6000 is offered in trade-in I might waver in my opinion, but read Bedrock8x's post.

 

Surely $6000 will be offered on a 2012 V. It's still running and has no problems I wouldn't buy a 350k mile car for work purposes, but for a project, I wouldn't mind it.

But as Bedrock8x mentioned, the 4 years debt really kills it. Looks like fixing it for $2000

 

It is far from obvious that a loan would be offered, and even less obvious that 2Fas should take it.

 

His only way out, if someone steals his car and he gets paid from the insurance company for a 2012 V with 24,000 miles on it, the average an american drives in a year.