Glad I didn't buy a Gen 4

Our 2010 is shaping up to be our sunset car. I may rue that statement down the road, but all considered it's probably true. Hanging around here half my life, and letting others run the miles up, find the foibles, with both me and my wife in our 70's, about 105k kms on the odometer, and only adding about 3k per year, we may be good, till we hang up the "keys".

 

There are also several other options for hybrids within the Toyota lineup that get good mpg and offer more room and or SUV ride height (Camry, RAV4, etc).

My wife is getting close to 50 mpg in her Crown Signia Hybrid which weighs nearly 4000 lbs.

 

"Blush is off the rose" is a variant of the idiom "the bloom is off the rose," meaning something has lost its initial freshness, excitement, or appeal, becoming no longer new or attractive. Just as a rose's delicate blush or bloom fades over time, a person, situation, or product can lose its initial charm and become less desirable."

 

Mendel's point is Priuschat and Prius culture was in full bloom in the early 2000's when they they were selling 25K Prius a month at a price that would allow you to buy two Prius for what what the wealthy and privileged in this thread paid for just one "modern" Prius with "more power."

Lol... All ya'll Gen5 owners don't know of that which you speak.

 

Besides the price bumps from Toyota, I took a look at what our local dealership’s out-the-door add-ons are these days. The second through fifth lines are eye-watering:



these are Canadian dollars, IIRC US dealerships are even worse, charging sim numbers in US dollars? Lines 3 and 4 appear to be completely discretionary add-ons, ensconced in the “standard paperwork “, possibly illegal to be presented thus. Desperate times I guess.

 

That subtotal is so stupid... $45K? What sane person would pay that much for a glorified economy car when you can buy 3 different used Gen4 for that price? The whole world has been turned upside down!

 

For the US, the only real numbers are the first two. And maybe the documentation fee(if that's just the name for required licensing processing fees). For the 2026 Prius, the number would be $29,745 to start. Though I'd probably go $30,100 to get floor mats and parking assist. If the dealership wants to add a bunch of other crap to boost their profit margin, just find another dealership. Even if you have to travel a couple hundred miles or a few hundred km, it's only a single trip. You're not forced to service the car at the same dealership you buy it at.

I bought my car about 125 miles away from where I live. In the last 2.5 years, I've only been back there once - just to drive through the lot when I happened to be in that town for a completely unrelated reason. All my servicing has been done at either of my two nearby dealerships(plus one trip to TCCN in Chicago).

 

By "modern" you mean 18 years newer, and by "more power" you mean more power.

25kUSD in 2007 was not a modest price for a car in 2007. Adjusted for inflation, it's just short of 40kUSD today. Most of the last couple of decades has seen low inflation, but it hasn't been no inflation.

I too find recent inflation jarring. Many of my intuitions about what something should cost just aren't right any longer.

 

I agree, the prices of the new Corolla are just crazy. When my wife got her 2008 Corolla, I got two Toyota on-line salesfolks to compete with each other. MSRP was around $16K but I ended up getting $300 over invoice and a free set of all-weather carpet mats. (So just over 14K). She special ordered her 2024 last year so we had to wait about 2 months for it to come in. We were going to come pick it up with a cashiers check but they insisted we don't and we found out why. They took us into the "finance office" to do all the paperwork. (I kinda felt like we were in an FBI interrogation room!) They tried to sell me this and that and I took a mental account of it and it was over $7,000! But I did get the clear bra treatment (the deluxe, our Prius have tons of rock chips on the front and even the side mirrors) and I did get those windows tinted since the dealer gives a lifetime warranty on them. I was going to run to my bank to get a cashiers check but they said my person check was find....just under $30K.....ouch. So saving up for my new 1794 in 3-4 years will, probably be around 80K by then.

Oh that 2008 Corolla is going on 200,000....my ex son-in-law drives it now but I still do the maintenance for him since our grandkids ride in it....that dipstick on the transmission makes the tranny job as easy as an oil change.....the process of changing the transmission in my 2014 Tundra is just ridiculous.

 

I can attest to this. I've had a G1, G3, and a G4 Prime. Anybody dissing G4 in favor of G3 has no idea how slow and flaky G3 was. I think it is the worst of all gen. G1 actually felt as solid as G4.

Also agree with the other post about overpriced new gen. Price wise, G4 makes the most sense. But then except for the Prime (which looks better than the regular G4), it is also the worst looking heh.

 

On my second GEN III and I have no problem with power, rate of acceleration...or towing. Looks wise and otherwise...it's still a Prius. The GEN 5 looks best and is said to be peppier, but my ZR1 car negates any reason to buy another Prius based on said criteria.

 

Wow, sure glad I jumped when I did.

We were delaying buying a vehicle, but then as soon as 'he-who-shall-not be mentioned' won the election last fall, I pretty much knew that all the EV and PHEV federal tax credits were gonna be history asap, so in November of last year I found a new 2024 SE PHEV/prime out of state (in WV) with just 2 options: all wx floor mats and premium paint (combined, those added just under $1k to the price). After the toyota lease credit and a dealer discount too, before sales tax, we were able to buy it in the end for just under $29,500.

 

2005 Gen 2 Prius had a starting MSRP of $21,515 (~$35.5k USD in 2025 money).

2012 Gen 3 Prius had a starting Msrp of $23,775 (~$33.4K USD in 2025 money).

2017 Gen 4 Prius had a starting MSRP of $24,360 (~$32.1k in USD in 2025 money).

2025 Gen 5 Prius has a starting MSRP of $29,485.

So comparing apples to apples, the starting msrp of new Priuses have gone down each and every generation when normalizing for inflation.

 

Nope, not for us in Canada.

Year---MSRP------------ in 2025
2005 - cad $30,530 = cad $46,176
2012 - cad $25,995 = cad $34,567
2017 - cad $27,190 = cad $33,730
2025 - cad $38,165

 

you can't buy 3 different used Gen 4 for that price in Canadian dollars though.

Yeah the prius was 25k in the 2000s. But a used 2021 Prius (not the plugin kind) with 55k miles is 29k after taxes without any other fees like registration, inspection, dealer paperwork/delivery etc. My 2024 Prius prime without the anti-theft add on I got with a rebate from my insurance company was 39k after tax with all mandatory fees included bought new.

Cars are *all* more expensive now, and the CAD isn't worth what the USD is either, I think one USD is roughly 73 cents CAD, so apply a 25% premium to any USD price, then add 13% taxes, and that's roughly the sale price of a car here.

The prius is still an economy car, its just that the definition for "economy" has changed due to inflation over time. If you look at feature for feature comparisons, and pricing, most cars have actually been deflating. But the base price is higher on a lot of cars because they don't make the bare bones no feature vehicles like they used to. In part because people don't want them. And in part because financing - for almost 15 years after 2008 has been dirt cheap thanks to stupid low interest rates for such a long time.

 

Yikes, what happened to the Canadian market??

 

Besides the MSRP jump, the dealerships are getting increasingly nervy with the add-ons. Roughly FIVE GRAND CDN extra, before the sales taxes.

 

The base model moved up market. The previous base models included FWD and LE models.

The lowest trim prius you can get for a gen 5 in Canada is now the XLE AWD model.

The 2017 model had no AWD option.

In 2019 we got AWD models, and the mid trim there was $32,490. Which is probably a better comparator to what we have now as our lowest model. In 2025 dollars, that actually $39,106.

So it really is comparable to the US, they've just taken away the base model options available to the US.

 

msrp is one thing, but i never paid it until covid hit