2002 Prius Adventure

I bought a 2002 Prius with 159K miles July of 2012 and have since gained a lot of knowledge from this forum.

Thought I should share a few things that may benefit others.

First let me restate a comment that I've made in another post (thanks Bob Wilson for using it in your post): Owning a high mileage Prius is not for the faint of heart.

I am an ASE certified technician but not working as a technician at this time - so I have some level of mechanical knowledge but the Prius can still be a pain to own for someone like me.

I bought this Prius because it's from California and was well maintained - I live in Chicago and the salt used on the road in Winter can eat a car alive in a few years.

So the Prius ran really well for a few months after I bought it - no problems. I changed out some of the fluids (coolant, trans...) as a precaution. The fluids that drained out were in like new condition.

My adventure started in November 2012 at 163K miles when the brake booster accumulator started leaking - bought a used one and had it replaced by an independent shop. Cost: ~$660.

My traction battery then started to go December 2012 at 164K miles, replaced it with Adopt A Part upgrade using gen 2 cells (Eric the owner is a great guy - they are very busy though so expect some delays in shipping as well as refund for the core). Working well so far. Cost: $1,400 plus $200 for installation.

A couple days ago, the ABS and BRAKE warning light came on with the buzzer sound in the morning cold start, the lights and buzzer went away after I tapped on the brake pedal a couple of times. Has not recurred since that one time. No codes stored. No leaks. Hopefully it was a fluke due to the cold temps and the car sat for a couple of days in the snow.

So basically I now have a 10 year old car that is valued at ~$4.5K that cost me ~$7.5K including purchase price.

The positive out of all this is the knowledge I've gained after paying the tuition. Also the traction battery is really an investment because the gen 2 cells have value and I have 38 of them.

For those considering purchase of a gen1 Prius, caveat emptor.