Just bought a 2010 w 26k

Kronos 316, Welcome to the "club"! You will enjoy the car, gas mileage is tremendous. Depending how young you are you may get family or friends who will give you "their take" on such a car. Most of it will be negative, and you just have to learn to ignore it. This is a great forum for an exchange of ideas. But my advice is to NOT hang out on it. Get what info you need & stay free of such info you don't need. All I'm saying here is "don't look for problems you don't have". I have 87K on mine, (bought new), and there are a few things to know about. I would imagine that any 2010 has had the "flash" update on the brakes. After all you know you are driving a computer....... Other than that there is/was an issue that Toyota didn't see fit to admit to early on, which was the "rattle" on startup of a cold engine. Sounded like it had no oil in it or something. They now have a service bulletin that 32colors put a link in about. I have not had anything done about mine, regards that knock, since I have not had it occur for many "K" miles, or time, figured it was a symptom more of a new car. Other than that one post said to watch out for the oil change, (under panel door), breaking and the leading edge dropping to the ground & it getting chewed up by the ground! The first time I looked under my car when it was new, (the whole underside is covered in several pieces of plastic), I saw a simple "crease" for a "hinge" for the oil change opening. I took mine off, rather it fell off one night after dark at a resort we were at & one of the maintenance men got the "push pins" out from the other side, and dragged it out & gave it to me. Brought it home and put a piano hinge on as the hinge, using pop rivets, + some new push pins, that has taken care of it for some time now.
Don't use any oil in the engine except what is called for by the manufacturer, which is the 0-W20 weight Mobil 1. That is just my advice. It is like what I call "Fairy pee", water seems to have more consistency than this stuff, and it is expensive, but then so are the oil filters, for no more material than there is there! But I use the "proper" stuff and everything works just like it is suppose to! No problems! Also oil change intervals ARE at 10K intervals, weren't when I first got mine, but Toyota later changed their minds on that. That's what I do & it works for me......... Enjoy your Prius! They are great cars.

 

That method works for the Gen II but not the Gen III. You'd have to get it disabled by the dealer. Many won't do it for liability reasons.

 

Welcome to the party. Got mine 4 months ago (180 000 km) ! Really satisfied with it! 57 mpg! can't believe it! | PriusChat

The only glitch is the oil door thing that I plan to put something else, because it was lost before I got the car.

Just get Toyota 0W20 oil, best thing for this car and price is all right.

 

Manual says 0W20 synthetic. Says you can use 5W20, but then you've got to change it every 5K miles and your mileage will suffer.

For those who say that Toyota specs 5W30 and such in some places.. Well, those places often have different specifications for oil than the U.S.. If you're buying that oil over there and using it here, sure, I guess. Otherwise, don't.
Those Who Disagree With The Engineers Who Designed The Thing Usually Find Out Sooner Or Later That The Engineers Meant It. (Air pressure on tires excepted: Using different values than what the book calls for seems to be a national sport around here.)

KBeck

 

How do you know what oil it was designed for? Decision on oil viscosity could easily be in the hands of the bureaucrat responsible for compliance with CAFE. We know of many examples how engines are "backspecified" later.

 

Or if you have a friend with a ScanGauge they can use an xgauge to reduce the beep to 1 warning.

I actually suggest leaving it for a few weeks anyway because the self-centering shifter can initially make you shift wrong occasionally. Saved us from hitting a wall in a parking garage in first couple of months we had it.

 

Welcome! (myself as well, to PC at least). I bought a 2010 with similar mileage around 4 months ago.. but for 18k$. Prices seem to have dropped recently (KBB decreased by around 1.5k during this time!) so you chose a great time to buy!

 

Back in the day I owned a true-blue VW Beetle, air cooled engine and all. The manual specified lots of different oils; 30W fixed over one temperature range, a 5W-something for when it got cold, some other viscosity when it got hot, and, $DIETY help me, some blame super-low viscosity oil if one planned on driving a Beetle around in Antarctica. (Air cooled engine - no coolant required, so it would actually run in -65F temperatures.)

Since then I've owned or maintained a Datsun, a few minivans from various manufacturers, and so on.
Until relatively recently, they all specified the use of various oils, usually over a certain temperature range. And, as I'm sure everybody knows, characteristics of the oil (SB, SD, SF, etc., etc.) have been changing over the years as both the auto manufacturers and oil companies work together to make engines and oils that work.

I've read a few reports over the years on how car and oil manufacturers validate their decisions. Putting an engine on a test stand and running it for ridiculously long periods of time at various temperatures, breaking down the engine afterwards and looking at bearings, weighing parts for metal loss, analyzing the oil before and after the fact, and so on. As it happens my wife (then girlfriend) worked a summer at a bearing company; she'd come back with all sorts of tales about bearing pitting and testing to destruction. Not to mention reports of road tests and bringing standard consumers' cars back for oil and wear checks.

Fine, long stories. However: the thought of some dumb-as-nails bureaucrat changing the oil type without the approval of the engineers who test the engines doesn't sound right. Nor does it jibe with the people running around with cars with 180K Miles and normal operation.

KBeck

 

You can still die or get injured in a low speed crash. Hitting another car head on, when both cars are traveling at 30 mph, is the same as running into a concrete barrier at 60 mph.

Here's a good example of why you should wear your seat belt:

http://www.hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/carcr2.html

Note the example of a 160lb driver who crashes at 30 mph while not wearing a seat belt. If the driver slams into an immovable object, the force on their body is 24000 lbs! Hardly insignificant, wouldn't you agree?

SCH-I535

 

Definitely your choice but why take the risk? Is that so annoying to buckle it?

 

Point #1: Most fatal accidents happen close to home, not on freeways. Freeways tend to be designed for high speed travel. While deaths on them tend to be spectacular when they occur, they're relatively rare.

The point is that once you're traveling above 10-15 mph or so, you are now past the point where evolution has given you the reaction time to Handle Things. Look at it this way: If you're running at full tilt and trip, most people can get their hands up so the hands get scraped rather than their eyes/noses. Those people in the past who couldn't do that aren't ancestors, they didn't have kids because they died first. Now, go skiing, a relatively recent invention. At anything beyond what is considered in skiing as a dead slow crawl, if you trip, one instant one is upright watching the ski tips cross and, without any discernible passage of time in the next instant one is face down in the snow skizzing along. Which is why ski goggles are vitally important, never mind the helmet.

So, hit another car/a tree/a post/etc at 20 mph and one is not going to have time to use muscle contractions anywhere to keep from being flung around. At that point one is simply a sack of cement without volition, moving along at, say, 20 mph while the rest of the car comes to a halt. The driver will come to a halt, too - straight into a steering wheel at 20 mph. Believe me, it won't do a person's chest any good.

My Mom, before she passed away, was a perfect example of this. She grew up in the 20's and 30's and never wore seat belts; when they became available, she didn't wear them either, swearing that she didn't like the restriction. This is also the same lady who said that in an accident she would put a arm or leg up to keep the kids from moving.. Right.

So, one day, she's moving along in medium traffic in downtown Newton in the middle of a violent thunderstorm. A branch had come off a tree and was in the middle of the road, so, naturally, she looked at it. When she looked up she saw that another car had stopped short just past the branch.

She didn't have time to hit the brakes. At a relatively slow downtown speed, her car crunched into the rear of the car in front of her; she came up off her seat and planted her forehead right into the middle of the windshield, which cracked. Luckily, that was it. She did get knocked out, do not know if she was diagnosed with a concussion or not (I was 'way out of town).

After that, she wore seatbelts. No more accidents in her lifetime, as it happened. But it's not like people go looking for an accident. They sneak up. Somebody stopping when not expected. Something coming out of a side street faster than can be reacted to. Some idiot with an expired license trying to run a yellow light with an obstructed view forward who runs into somebody who's been waiting to take a left. (Close relative, car nearly totaled, she survived. And the cop across the street eating a donut at a gas station saw the whole thing, nice touch.) And the one I really like: Waiting in line at position #2 at a red light. The guy in front of me pulls out like the light just changed; I start to follow, look up, exclaim to the wife, "The light's still red!", and watch the guy t-bone a car going from right to left. The idiot's car does a 360 going to the left and ends up in a ditch on the left; the car with the lady in it flies off the right side of the road on the far side of the intersection into the support of a telephone pole. Shook up, but she had her seatbelt on. As did the idiot. For a fact, she had no time to react, she might have been doing 25-35. Nobody knows why the idiot did that. (I asked the idiot's insurance company, they called me as a witness. They didn't know, either.) And you tell me you don't wear seatbelts local? You keep on doing that, but make a point of getting your will set up and a gravesite bought and paid for, you're going to need them.

The last three above are stuff that I either witnessed or heard from people I trust. You want stuff to make you puke, I can tell you stories I had from my Navy days from a guy who used to work for an ambulance service.

And it's not just you, either. Get whanged on the side or something - without a seatbelt, you're Somewhere Else, but you're not in the driver's chair. If you're wearing the seatbelt, you're still possibly in control and can avoid the lady with the baby carriage. (Which makes me cringe, a bus driver took down a pole in an accident earlier this week. Not good.)

Wear the seatbelt.

KBeck.

 

You need the electronic key or the car won't start.
Computer MPG usually is 3-5% in the positive in comparison to the real. You can have a look here: calculated vs. computer MPG - Please post your results | PriusChat

 

Regarding the key. Even if the battery wears out, there's an RFID transponder inside the case that the car will power up and recognize. The instructions are in the manual: you basically hold the key next to the ON button and can start the car. You get into the car so you can do this with the manual key.

So, if you did drop the key in water and shorted the blame thing, opening up the key (Easy to do, you have to be able to do that for a battery change), taking out the battery, rinsing it out in clean water, and drying the heck out of it with a tissue or paper towel will probably get it functional enough so the RFID will work.

Wouldn't do the above as an experiment, though: Minimum cost through funny channels for a new key will set you back $150, $400 and up if you go through a dealership.

KBeck.