Used Prius with no servicing till 40k?

I'm just checking to see if there's confusion over the generally accepted definition of a "well serviced car".

I'd say at least half of the active posters here do not bring their Prii to the dealer for oil changes (unless it's free), tire rotations, air filters, 12 v battery replacements, brake work, etc... They either do the work themselves or they bring the car to their local mechanic. Personally, I avoid bringing cars to the dealer because their hourly rate is higher than most local car shops.

In these cases, carfax would not show the maintenance being done. But it doesn't necessarily mean the work wasn't done.

 

It's still unclear what type of Prius he is looking for. 100K miles for $8000? 150K miles for $5000? 50K miles for $12,000?

I reread the OP and it sounds to me like he is being paranoid. That maybe it is a 100K mile prius or so....And that there was nothing on the carfax from 0-40k miles. That would be a very poor reason to pass on a car.

"Sorry sir, your 150,000 mile prius checks out great...Drives flawless, looks amazing, serviced every 5k miles on the carfax from 40k-150k miles. But, I'm going to have to pass because I don't see anything on the carfax from 0-40k miles"

 

With no maintenance history of a car I would judge by the general condition of the car. If it looks good as far as paint and the interior is
immaculate generally people like this change their oil.

 

On my first Prius, at trade-in time, I discovered that even one service at a Toyota dealership -- away from home on a very long road trip -- was not recorded on Carfax.

 

All it took were the 2 “free” oil changes to lose that door for our 2010.

But oil changes are a breeze now.

 

Tell that to Pedellogic...(gasket)

 

I’m just glad I was able to apply the correct force to “persuade” the filter housing off.

See you next weekend.

 

Hanslee of Davis CA has a lot of the Prius C with 30K or 40K miles without any maintenance schedule performed when I looked at their prius last year. Carfax reports showed that majority of previous owners were company firms.

Guess what happens when I am in a rental? Find an open road with no radar gun and floor it.

2 reasons I would walk away from any 40k maintenanceless vehicle.

 

On a vehicle that is practically indestructible to 250K miles....Who cares what happened in first 2 years?

But, I would think rental companies take very good care of their vehicles. Washed weekly no matter what...Always clean. And they probably go above and beyond with maintenance would be my guess. Doubt a billion dollar rental company buys a brand new car and refuses to change oil. They can't be that dumb. I don't know maybe they don't take care of them, just speculating that they do.

Then again, I buy second-hand priuses for under 5k that have 150-250k miles on them. When they get to me, they have wear/tear, multiple owners, dings/dents, but always still drive like new.

 

Ex-Rentals are the worst cars to buy, better only than salvage titled or flood damaged.

 

Just want to b sure. What you can do (me-not much), sometimes is better to do it by yourself and get that confidence, that everything was done right. Not to blame official mechanics, but it´s always “we did this, we did that”.Yes, dealership service is great, if you cannot do basic maintenance things, and more greater if some weird failure occurs..

 

Yeah, the clues are there. If something's hanging loose on the underside, if there's unresolved cracks, rusty dings, lotsa leaves under the hood, and on and on.

 

my fourth mechanic ashamed to ask for a bill

 

My thoughts: (FWIW)

(1) I have three cars with zero service history. That simply means that I did the service myself. All three of them came with "free" oil changes which, after travel to the dealership, and a post-oil-change inspection to verify that the oil-change-person didn't screw anything up----were NOT going to be worth it.

(2) Never....EVER buy a rental car!
They're lovingly maintained my the cheapest possible (maybe....) mechanics using the cheapest possible materials, and I would not be surprised if many of the checks are gun-decked until juuuuuust before the car is auctioned off.
These cars are driven on short trips, by people with zero incentive to take care of them, and many of the repairs are NOT performed at a dealership to inflate the auction value by keeping such repairs out of databases such as CARFAX, etc.....
Rental car owners are gauged by ONE metric.....how cheaply they can operate the car until it's auctioned off.

(3) If you've never, ever worked on a car in your life, then you're probably going to be BETTER at maintenance items than somebody who has been wrenching on OTHER PEOPLE's cars all of their life because (a) you won't have any bad habits to un-learn (b) you won't be pressured to do (or....NOT do!) 10 oil changes in an hour to inflate your paycheck, and (c) since it's YOUR car you might just be tempted to seek instructions from quaint, little-used resources such as...........the factory maintenance manual.
You also will not be tempted to sell yourself unneeded maintenance (anything that's not in the maintenance manual!)

Good Luck!

 

All was said here...

 

Once in a while when we've had a rental or loaner, I've popped the hood just for a look see. It always feels like you're tending to a neglected orphan.

 

What are we talking about. 40K mile cars only? Or does it extend to higher mileage cars? I'd take a 200K mile rental company vehicle all day over personally owned. It would guarantee that the car was mechanically sound and clean. The billion dollar corporation can at least afford the repairs along the way to keep it going. Plus it would be vacuumed and washed weekly throughout its life.

You should check out some $5000 and under cars on Craigslist and you'll see the worst types of cars to buy! It is from invidual owners. Some of them are filthy and neglect all repairs until they pile up. Accidents multiple times a year, dings and dents everywhere, rust, pure filth on the inside, carpet stained, dash cracked (maybe from being angry and punching it?), every light on the dash, all glass with multiple layers of grime, shot tires, suspension gone, and they drive it every day with the steering wheel sideways (but in the sideways position the car drives straight!).

You'll just never in a million years walk into Enterprise and find a car in that type of condition.

It varies everywhere but at the dealer auction that I personally attend on a weekly basis, the worst cars are from Credit Acceptance. They are worth about $6 billion and lend to everyone. They specialize in sub-prime loans for cars. These are cars that are mostly in shambles, in which the type of owner referenced above defaults on their loan, and it gets reposessed back to Credit Acceptance.

Hertz sometimes runs a lane but I can't comment cause all their cars are basically brand new with less than 50K miles and out of my budget! I'm in the cheap lanes @ 5k and under. The banks and finance companies are generally the worst. Actually, there is no doubt they are the worst. After that it's a case by case basis. The reposessed by the bank vehicle is very similar to a foreclosed home. You do your inspection and it will be full of surprises!

Here's an example from this weeks auction. Seller is Credit Acceptance. They have a 2012 Toyota Prius with 92K miles that I was interested in as a project to fix up if it went for cheap enough (I am talking about maybe $1000-$1500). The car is so trashed.

 

I would just need more information about who is selling these used Prius you are citing.

Are they indeed rental vehicles?
Fleet vehicles?

Those factors might influence my response a lot more than the fact that no maintenance history is being shown until 40,000 miles.

 

I'm not saying you are wrong.
In fact this USE to be my default answer to anyone considering buying a used rental.

But to be honest?
With the big rental chains? I've read a lot of threads where people are very happy with their vehicles. The bigger chains are now selling their rental vehicles themselves. And they do cycle them out, at a very early mileage. Most purport to do the basic maintenance.

I don't know if my recommendation to NOT consider them is as strongly felt as it use to be.

There is always risk with any used car purchase. But is buying a low mileage used rental any more intrinsically a risk then buying a 1 or 2 owner used vehicle with similar or more miles?

Different people, all driving with different agenda's necessarily worse than perhaps a single owner who never gave a damn?
Since you can never really know? I think the risk evens out. If you can trust the rental agency, and believe at least some of the basic maintenance was done, most of the vehicles sold are 40000 K or less.

And for me? The few times I've been driving a rental, my fear of a disaster resulting in complicated auto insurance claims, actually has me driving them very conservatively.

 

More info in this thread: Prius : 2008/120k/$4.5k or 2014/70k/$12.3k | PriusChat