Should I buy a 2010 prius with 140+k miles

That's just getting into territory where the Exhaust Gas Recirculation components and intake manifold really should be cleaned of carbon build-up. My 2 cents: neglecting to do this has been leading to engine head gasket failure.

I would want to do a test drive, starting when the car's completely cold. If it's got any unusual sounds, rough idle or shaking, I wouldn't touch it.

Toyota's pretty much soft-pedaled this, btw. The acknowledged it with a Warranty Enhancement, but have done little to remedy, and dealerships are not offering effective preventative maintenance. Bottom line: a regularly dealership serviced car will very likely be getting these problems, given enough miles.

 

there are a lot more potential problems than just the battery. are you a hybrid mechanic? do you know one?
i would get the accord, parts/systems are cheaper and anyone can repair it.

 

Your doing the right thing by asking before you buy. Normally asking a bunch of Prius owners will get you fanboy responses. Even from owners like me that have had Prii (plural) since 2008. We bought a gen3 in 2012 thinking the 2010 redesign issues might be worked out by then. Actually, it took until the 2016 redesign to finally fix the multiple problems built in to the 2010 design. 2016 or newer is recommended for reliability.

Buy an Accord of most years. Hopefully its not a 1998-2002 which had tranny issues.

I would even buy an older low mile gen2 Prius over a 156k first year 2010 Gen3 Prius. Normally anyone would say buy the newer car. Not in this case because of gen3 flaws. Both a gen2 or a gen3 may need a battery in your ownership. Pretty much guaranteed. However the high mileage 2010 is very likely to have an expensive head gasket, brake booster and battery. Plus egr repairs and cleaning is about $800 at a dealer. There are oil burning gen3 issues as well particularly with high miles.

Buy the Accord or a Civic and get decent mpg without $5k-$10k worth of repairs on a $8k car. On the Hondas, take it to a good Honda mechanic for a check before you buy. Unfortunately an equivalent check on a Prius is hard to do.

 

Instead of the Honda Accord, would you consider a Toyota Camry of a similar year? I'm looking at the Consumer Reports reliability rankings for both of the Accord and Camry and the Camry is clearly a more reliable vehicle for the model years around 2010. Depending on the year, you could be looking at engine or electrical issues for the Accord.

 

I would consider 2012 and newer Camrys. 2007-2011 Camrys often have excessive oil consumption much like the Prius from 2010-14.

Some say it starts in 2006 as the new 2007 design was sold in March 2006.

 

As others have pointed out to me, there are certainly MANY gen 3s that do not experience these issues until way over 200k in mileage…just go look at all the gen 3s on the road. There are also a bunch of gen3 taxi cabs with 300k+ miles on them.

I bought my 2013 recently and was aware of some of these issues. Just take Mendel’s advice and you should be fine. I also bought a cheap Bluetooth obdii scanner ($6) and the Dr. Prius app (~$15) to check the condition of the battery on-site before I bought it….it will do fairly complete diagnostic of the HV battery.

I’d be curious if anyone can chime in on the reliability of the different gen 3 years. I know 2014 introduced upgraded pistons but i wonder what the differences between a 2010 and 2013 are…if any.

 

Agreed- I drove into London the other day and the number of gen 3s on the road (inc taxis) that neck of the woods is huge. The UK forum doesn't really have anything of note on HG failure being prevalent, or even an issue really. I've taken Mendels advice and cleaned EGR/intake manifold etc. Not really too much build up at all- 104k miles. That said I wouldn't buy a gen 3 at 140k miles where no preventative maintenance has been carried out- which I'd imagine is highly likely to be the case.

 

The intake manifold was revised, somewhere in there; I'd suspect at the 2012 model year "refresh". There's a loose consensus the revision revised the EGR channels (within the intake manifold), from one-into-four configuration, to one-into-two-into-four.

Also the EGR valve was revised, and I believe the later version was slightly longer, requiring a slight mod to wiring if the new valve is installed in prior years.

A few years back there were reports by owners (of pre-rev 3rd gens) that their intake manifold and/or valves were replaced for free by dealerships. That seems to have stopped, and I'd speculate Toyota found the efficacy of the revisions didn't significantly reduce the carbon clogging.

 

The large (traction) batteries in Priuses tend to last well over10 years, probably closer to 12-15 years and a self-installed OEM replacement is around $2000.

However (comma!!!)
If your research to date leads you to believe that the traction battery is the thing you need to worry about in a 12-year-old Prius then I would advise you to get the Honda.

I do not mean for that to be as snarky as it probably sounds, but Any vehicle you get in the <$10,000 category is going to require you to think about maintenance and repair.
Those are different things and if you do not have a plan for them you might very well be facing a large repair bill.

ALL cars in the $10,000 and below price range will have items that will need to be addressed.
Priuses tend to be much cheaper to operate and maintain but much more expensive to repair unless you DIY or have a trusted (non dealer) mechanic.

Non hybrid cars under $10,000 will also require maintenance and repair, and you can expect that you might see a large repair bill for transmission, suspension and tires, brake work, HVAC, and others.
If you don't live on free soil - you may expect to add VET fees and perhaps a catalytic converter theft to those.

Hybrids have all of these maintenance issues PLUS regenerative brakes, inverters, AND a $1500-2000 traction battery that will need replacing about every 10-15 years.

Good Luck!

 

Sorry, no coffee this morning: what does that all mean? "VET" in particular, and "free soil".

 

VET, in the US is Vehicle Emissions Testing, or a place to take a sick pet......and the rest can be noodled out contextually.

Sorry bout that....

 

Generation two hands down an '09 and '08 short nose '06 all great cars you can find them from old people that have kept up the maintenance and they're just really old or whatever their kids don't want it something they're out there there's lots of them you'll people try to get paid for them too you have to know what you're looking at and negotiate hard but a Gen 2 is the way to go. Hands down even over all the Corollas I've owned the Prius is almost the maintenance-free equal to all those cars The Gen 2 you find will probably be on 10,000 mi oil changes be close to $200,000 on it The hybrid battery will have probably been dealt with once and pretty much should be it Make sure you have it tech streamed the codes read whatever. Make it a sensible purchase try to find the color you like and a leather interior say something like that look around a while unless you're in some kind of big hurry

SM-A715F ?