2011 prius 2 with 58k miles

There's a saying, "if you can't afford a new luxury car, then you can't afford an old one". The Prius is a neat but complex car. Getting one with low miles will certainly increase the odds that there is less likelyhood of problems, but some systems are as sensitive to age as to total use. Prius has in general good reliability for the first 10 years. After that is when the pattern failures show up. Also given the number of possible problems that can happen to a Gen3 Prius, a normal car such as a Corolla or Civic might make more sense for the type of use you want.

All it takes is one expensive repair to negate any fuel savings gained. If your budget allows to have 2-3k set aside for possible repairs and you can deal with the possibility of having the car down for work (or you have DIY attitude and ability to fix it yourself if there's a problem), then an older Prius might be for you.

You should spend some time looking through the Gen3 forums to look at some of the common issues that affect these cars (head gasket failure, EGR clogging, brake actuator or inverter or HV battery failure).

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

With 59k miles you should be ok for the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (clogging up with carbon and leading to raised engine temps and head gasket failures). OTOH, driving 50k miles a year you’d want to be prepared to deal with it, in about a year. It’s best to DIY this, the path is well-trodden but not that easy. More info:


Bad Flywheel | PriusChat

 

I bought a 2010 in March 2019 with 115K, intended for mostly Uber use. Well maintained and had traction battery and brake booster replaced by Toyota at 5 year mark. Did all maintenance myself (plugs, inverter fluid, trans fluid, radiator fluid, brake pads and rotors, front and rear struts, water pump) and especially the EGR cooler/EGR pipe/intake manifold/PCV/oil catch can routine. Put 44K on car in first year before COVID shut down my Uber gig, with zero issues. Easy car to work on, lots of YouTube videos and great advice on PriusChat. The money you save on gas you can put aside for when you need a new traction battery. Good luck!

 

For the record, however often that supposed chain of causality gets posted here as if it has been established, it hasn't been; large gaps in the reasoning would have to be filled to make it plausible, which its proponents have been endlessly invited to do and never bother.

This is not to discourage anyone from doing the EGR cleaning. It definitely won't hurt anything (as long as nothing goes wrong in doing it), may give some peace of mind, and may be useful on an "if there turns out to be anything to this claimed causality business" basis.

There also isn't a forced choice between "total unconcern with the EGR" and "jumping into full disassembly and cleaning because it might be needed". There's a middle ground some might choose to take, where you can do things like ask the car what its last EGR flow self-test read, or poking into the "easy" end of the EGR system (intake manifold passages and pipe elbow, maybe even the valve) to get a sense of how carboned things are, or both. Results from the easy inspection might prompt, or might not, the further, tedious disassembly and cleaning.

We also have a thread going to collect those flow test results together with physical inspection results so as to eventually improve our ability to predict one from the other. Anyone who has an opportunity to run the Techstream tests and also physically inspect the EGR is invited to contribute on that thread, which will help everyone.

 

Of the many posts concerning the EGR on this board, this is probably the best IMO.

 

I'd say no to this particular model because of two reasons: You live in NJ and you are looking at a 2011.

The hybrid battery is the probably most common costly repair that faces a Prius owner of a 10+ year old model. You are lucky to live in NJ, where Prius have a longer battery warranty, compared to other states (CARB state). I believe the warranty is 10 years/150 miles. The warranty on your particular car either has expired already, or will later this year. One reason why you might find a Prius on the used car lot is because the previous owner detected a weakening of the hybrid battery and traded it in, letting the next owner deal with the costly replacement.

My advice is to look at a newer model year with miles that will allow you to take advantage of more warranty coverage. Also, to receive the higher warranty, the car should be a NJ car- as opposed to being previously registered in a non CARB state and being bought at auction by a NJ dealer.

 

the money you save on gas will go right back into the car when the hybrid battery has to be replaced. The battery pack starts to show signs of unnormalcy after 10 years. Saving on gas cost a lot of money.

 

I hear you. I did oil changes and tire rotations on our daughter’s Pilot, and sometimes I’d be a nice guy and fill the tank on the way back to her place, especially if it was running on vapour. By the time the pump shut off it was well over $100 CDN, ouch. Our Prius, albeit with low use, we typically top up up when it drops below 1/2 full, which amounts to $25~ CDN, once a month at most.

 

when my dte is -25, that’s when i typically gas up after the work week. Give me a mile and I’ll take 25