My Gen2 was Totalled, hesitant to bite on a Gen3.. persuade me

Insurance companies tend to total cars very easily because of their own maths. That is fine and good, but also can be leveraged by a person that does not intend to sell the car. If the damage can be repaired in a frugal way by using used parts from salvage yards, you can often save a lot of money by buying the totaled vehicle back from the insurance company and fixing it yourself or having it fixed by a reputable shop that does not mind using salvaged parts. You will have a salvage title which will make the vehicle more difficult to sell, but more often than not you will have a totally functional and good looking vehicle and some change left over from the insurance settlement. I have done this. It works, but you will need to put in some time and effort.

My wife once hit a deer with her Volvo wagon and the hood was bent, not to mention grillwork, lights, etc. Insurance totalled the car, paid us, I bought it back (for $200) and drove almost 200 miles to a salvage yard that had the exact same hood in exact same color as our car. I took that to a very good body shop that agreed to install it and do other necessary work. In the end I had a car that did not look any different than it was before the accident and it drove for another 150K miles after that. Just another option.

 

If you just changed it recently, with 500 miles or less on it, it's tough to get a good visual of it. For mine, there's an island patch of oil that sits on it own like half an inch above the fill line. Have no idea what that is about.

 

I read a dipstick by pulling the dipstick out and carefully rolling it onto a paper towel and using the oil on the towel in relation to the lines on the dipstick as my guide to where the oil is because you sometimes can't see it on the dipstick or can't tell if it is thick oil from the pan or splash oil from lifting the dipstick.

 

The advice I was given for the most accurate oil level reading was to pull the dipstick out, wipe it off, and then set it aside for 5-10 minutes while the oil drains back out of the dipstick tube. Then, re-insert the dipstick, remove it, and read it - it should give you a clear oil line.

 

One option I noted on the gen 3 was the solar roof package. Letting you use the remote to cool the car before you return to it. I considered it as my wife parks outside in 100+ days. Ultimately she got a 2009 for 11,000 w/86,000 miles.
My 2006 with 120,000 was only worth 9,000 to the Insurrance company after an small accident like yours they wrote a check and sold it back to me for $1000. I have been using it ever since to supply parts for my 2005 w/490,000 miles and my mom’s 2005 with 60,000.
My advice is take adjusters check and repair it elsewhere with used parts. Lots of black prius out there to choose parts from.


iPhone ?

 

Not meant as a smirky question but how accurate is the measurement when people check their engine oil at the gas station then? Ive heard that here many times.

 

Not that accurate (should read low), but a whole lot more "accurate" than not checking it at all!

 

As far as I can tell, when you pull the dipstick out of the tube, it drags some oil with it as it moves up the tube. When you put the dipstick back in the tube right away, some of the oil left on the side of the tube gets transferred onto the dipstick as you pull it out. This can give the appearance that there's more oil in the car than there really is (that's where the splotchiness comes from too). It doesn't work the other way around, though - there is no possible way that there is an indication that there is less oil than there actually is.

What this means in practice is that if you do a quick check at the gas station, and it looks like your oil is exactly where you should be, you might still actually be 1/2 a quart or even a quart low. BUT...if you do a quick check at the gas station, and it looks like your oil is a quart low, you can be confident that you are AT LEAST a quart low. Your oil level might actually be lower than that, but there is no possible way it could be higher. Add oil, and check the level again later.

For those of us too young to have taken shop in high school, please note that as you drive, the oil gets sloshed around on your dipstick, so that whatever the oil level on your dipstick reads when you first take it out is ALWAYS wrong (unless there's no oil on it at all, and then you have bigger problems). You MUST clean the dipstick off before you attempt to read the oil level.

 

As an auto parts store employee I am flabbergasted/amazed when people come in and buy 3-4 quarts of oil and pour them right in their car. I’m thinking “Who does that?”. Apparently 4 in 10 people who visited my store this week.

 

Thanks for insight, i agree with you on all points. When i check my engine oil just few minutes of driving mostly out of EV range, oil is almost everywhere up to tip of stick so how people check oil to be at proper level at every fill up at gas stations makes me wonder.

 

I don't know what's scarier - the idea that some people drive around to where they know they are 3 or 4 quarts low. or the idea that there are a lot of people who think that they can put 3 or 4 quarts in their cars without needing to know how much is in there already.

 

Why is it that the people that can least afford a major car repair are the ones that don't check their oil.

 

The law of averages.

 

I didn't know that the second gen use it's the same battery as theI d When I looked for a battery for my 2010 they said that it's the same battery through October of 2011 but after that the third gen has a different battery so which one works on the second gen

 

Battery - Toyota (28800-21171) Battery Marked S46B24R.
This part fits your 2004 Toyota Prius (You can change to any year 2004-2008)

This Part Also Fits

Make Model Year Body & Trim Engine & Transmission
Toyota Prius 2015 Five, Four, One, Persona Series, Three, Two 1.8L L4 - Electric/Gas
Toyota Prius 2014 Five, Four, Three, Two 1.8L L4 - Electric/Gas
Toyota Prius 2013 Five, Four, Three, Two 1.8L L4 - Electric/Gas
Toyota Prius 2012 Five, Four, Three, Two 1.8L L4 - Electric/Gas
Toyota Prius 2011 Base 1.8L L4 - Electric/Gas
Toyota Prius 2010 Base 1.8L L4 - Electric/Gas
Toyota Prius 2009 Base, Touring 1.5L L4 - Electric/Gas

McGeorge Toyota Online Parts
S46B24R is with SKS, S46B20R is without, in Gen 2.

 

What's sks

 

Smart Key System
Wireless Entry and Starting (Key fobs with the silver logo), optional on Gen 2, standard (I think) on Gen 3.

 

Our Generation #3's have been dead reliable ... both over 200k. They are 2011 fives -- the G3 is a better car in all respects over the G2. Ours being fives -- we have the 17" tires -- we never found them to be any harsher or louder. The Prius is not a great high speed vehicle on bad roads regardless of rims/tires.

 

Yep, always pull the stick out, wipe it, re-insert it, and pull it out again to to get an accurate reading. I know we're supposed to check it after every fill-up but I've found that once every four weeks to a month is often sufficient.

Agree, I have a v wagon with the 17s. They aren't bad it all, but I'm younger so I probably have a higher tolerance for a harsher ride. I'm not running Ecopias though, I'm running Yokohama Avids.