Buying Used Prius Agonizing over Details : }

welcome! why not a nice little corolla, yaris or a camry? life would be so much simpler.

 

1. Make sure you want a Prius.
They're great cars, and 10K ought to get you a good dependable one, but you ought to know going in that you're still looking at paying a little bit of a hybrid premium, even 50-percent through a car's life cycle.
Like Bisco said above, a normal, egg shaped, FWD, 5-pax sedan might be a little simpler for you to deal with until you're a single female with less limited resoruces.
A Prius will be cheaper in the long run every time, but you have to take ownership of the ownership experience.....ansd in a used car you have to rely on the hope that the previous owner did as well.

2. Your reliable local mechanic doesn't know crap about Priuses.
I'm not a toyota fan-boy. I don't even OWN a Prius, but I've got 87,000 miles in a work Prius and of all of the common complaints that I read about Priuses over the last 5 years, very few of them are purely electrical problems unless you count rodents chewing on wires or 12v batteries failing.

3. You're over thinking the battery thing.
They're about $1200, remanufactured and with a 2 year warranty.
That's not a cheap repair to be sure, but batteries usually fail well past the 150,000 mark, and the same $1200 would be required to repair more common problems in cars like HVAC, transmission, catastrophic brake, and engine failures.

4. Whatever car you buy?
Check the oil at least once a fill up when you first get the car, and once you're satisfied that you're not leaking or burning oil you can relax and do it only once every 1,000 miles or so.
There's a vast number of people in this forum that have maintained their Priuses well into the 200,000 mile range.
ASK QUESTIONS before you let "trusted mechanics" work on your car.

The oil thing really is important - especially for Priuses.
If your mechanic really knew what he or she was talking about, then you would have been told that high oil consumption is a known problem for some high mileage Priuses caused either by owner sloth or a ring problem - opinions vary.
The need to verify your oil is topped off is the same in either case!!!


If you're going to get a car - buy the car and not the options.
You're buying in at 1/3 of the average cost of a new car. Buy a base model car for $8-9000 bucks and start a repair and maintenance fund.
Add to it with the payments that you're not making, and the gas that you're not buying and pretty soon you can club up to a newer, used payment free car.

Good Luck!
Let us know what you decide.

 

I think ideally for anyone purchasing a used Prius, what you need is to have enough in the budget to cover the worst case scenario of a Hybrid Battery Failure.

Obviously with a new Prius you get the 8-10 years, 100-150K miles, depending on CARB state status.

If you are buying used? Then you get whatever is left of a warranty, or none at all, if it's already past the warranty.

I hate to say it, and others might call me out as being wrong, but I wouldn't even obsess too much about a remaining year or two on a hybrid battery warranty. Nice if you can get it, go ahead. BUT...IMO the battery is going to last as long as it is going to last. My way of thinking is 1 year left on a Hybrid Battery warranty is only going to give you peace of mind about that issue for 1 year. And it's only helpful IF the battery should happen to fail within that time period and below the maximum mileage.

Although Toyota has offered pro-rated assistance on failure that happen close to the passage of the warranty, but those seem to be handled on a case by case basis.

I would just try to get the best overall Prius you can find within your budget. And get it checked out as thoroughly as possible. And I would want the safety net of having enough budgeted to cover that Hybrid Battery failure IF you should have to face it.

I would have to say, that if your budget for Prius ownership is so tight, that a hybrid battery failure would be devastating to keeping and operating the vehicle? Then perhaps a different used vehicle is a better choice.

A warranty should be a luxury and advantage to used vehicle ownership. If it is a "necessity"? There might be a problem.

Also can you rent or beg steal or borrow a vehicle?
Many years on this planet have taught me being in a "rush" to buy a new vehicle-while it happens, is never a good thing. You don't want to be cornered into a "I Must Get This Car Now" scenario, if you can avoid it.

Best of Luck. I guess my advice boils down to...if you are absolutely sold on getting a Prius, just try to find the best one you can afford. And consider that a year or two remaining on the Hybrid Battery warranty "might" not be the ultimate deciding factor. With ownership, you should hopefully have the resources to cover nearly any possible maintenance/repair issue that could come up. And with a used Prius, nearing or past hybrid battery warranty, then that is an issue that could come up.

 

I agree to make sure you want one. They're perfect for many but not for all.

The ownership experience can go different ways. They can be incredibly trouble-free and easy to own (how it has been in my case) or they can be very expensive and troublesome for a few. Overall reliability has been very high, but if something does go wrong, it could be prohibitively expensive.

While owning a 2nd-gen since new has been extremely easy, and I plan on keeping it as long as practical, I'm not sure I would be comfortable purchasing a well-used one. I think I'll go back to my previous car-buying formula (private-party 4-cyl, manual trans, highly-rated front-wheel-drive wagon or liftback with timing chain, 100k-150k miles for $3-5k) if I ever need a replacement vehicle. I find the Scion wagons pretty interesting--the xA, first-gen xB and xD.

Shortly after I purchased, I found a custom-fit seat cover set that included the center console cover but the door armrests are prone to get grimy. A foaming upholstery cleaner seems to do a pretty good job on them.

 

I agree, that perhaps the OP is overthinking the whole Hybrid Battery "remaining warranty" scenario.

But after many years of hanging around Prius Chat, I'm hesitant to offer the $1200 dollar re-manufactured battery as a answer.
I'm more and more convinced the best replacement is a new Toyota battery. As I've read more and more troubled posts about people buying various re-manufactured batteries, from various sources, with varying degrees of satisfaction. I use to think if I kept my Prius 10 years or more, and had a failure, that I would go with a re-manufactured battery. But I think I've changed my mind. And I think the proposal that $1200 could solve your problems in this regard is somewhat misleading. Solutions for this amount of investment CAN be found. But I've just read too many posts where the rebuilt battery or replaced cell approach just becomes a snow ball of growing problems.
I've never read a post where someone claimed to have a NEW battery from Toyota installed and then had a problem.

I think you should budget for a Hybrid Battery failure assuming you're going to have to replace it with a new battery from Toyota.

 

Here is a LINK to CARB states and model year starting dates:
The 2014 list of CARB States in the US | PriusChat

All Prius are CARB certified so it goes by Toyota's policy rules which requires that you purchase/register in a CARB state, and that means the state had to be a member of CARB at the time of orig purchase. And you also must live in a CARB state at time of repair. Of course, use our data as a guide, the actual VIN check is a good idea.

So the advice you got sounds a little inaccurate, as most of the states in your region joined CARB by 2005 Model Year. NH dropped out so be careful there.

 

If you didn't mind dropping the money to maintain & repair the Vibe then why the angst over Prius ownership? On average there is no way a Prius is going to cost as much to maintain and repair over 147700 miles.

In 5 years your Vibe is shot. In 5 years a Prius isn't. Unless you are dating your mechanic he is going to see a lot less of you when you buy a Prius.

In 5+ years I have spent $0 on repairs for my 2010. Maintenance has been wiper blades, fluid & filter changes, and tires.

If you are comfortable in a Prius and it can haul all your stuff then buy one at a fair price.

 

Both cars are Toyotas are they not? My sister-in-law has a Matrix (aka Vibe), for maybe decade now, seems a bit clunky but otherwise fine.

 

With the exception of the comfortable seats.....I'd say you're going to be OK in the Prius.

I drive a G3 (2010-base model) and I've always had the center console, so it didn't really take any getting used to.
The only two times I had to leave the car parked at the office and take a truck were due to the 12v battery having died at the 2 year point and due to post hurricane street flooding.
87,000 miles of hard driving (nobody ever takes care of a company car!) and this car has had zero other issues.
I'm on my second set of tires and I've replaced a headlamp bulb and some wipers.

 

Yes, Pontiac Vibe is a Toyota Matrix with a GM body on it. I really like that pair. I'm surprised the fuel economy wasn't very good.

Another vehicle you might consider is the Honda Fit. They are very economical to operate, have nice driving dynamics and excellent cargo versatility.

 

Yup, the Fit is a very roomy little cargo carrier.

 

or a Subaru Forester.....

 

Well the Prius is a good idea especially in a CARB state if you have some decent time left on the warranty that mitigates some of the risk of buying a used Prius, whereas it sometimes seems the used cars take a little more beating that the ones people keep.

As far as I know, CT is full CARB all the way no funny special rules.

 

The OP is in CT, which is a CARB state.....but there are probably twists and turns in the additional coverage for that state.

 

If true re: CARB that means we have some inaccurate dates in our thread (JimboPalmer please note).
However, I previously checked Jimbo's date data against actual Toyota rules (Toyota was kind enough to send an internal memo to me). So Jimbo and I need to recheck our data. Unfort the Toyota memo was a little unclear so it's only partial help.

What we are dealing with is Toyota internal rules about Prius model years applicable to various CARB states. Since Toyota is basically the only company that uses these date rules (maybe Honda does too), it would be nice to have Toyota's list of applicable model year dates in the Warranty Guide along with the CARB state listing. The other auto companies mostly do not have this CARB date of joining rule.

 

I agree completely, and still hate the bulky console+"flying butress" obstruction. You're also correct about the inappropriate choice of material covering the console lid and armrests. Otherwise, the hard plastic interior bits, which many people criticize as cheap-looking, don't bother me much.

However, a Prius is impossible to beat for its combination of price, versatile interior space, fuel efficiency, and general reliability for most owners. That's why I bought it instead of anything else.