Should I buy a used Prius Two with over 100K miles?

Your bad luck with engine issues will continue if you buy a 2010-2015 Prius. They were the worst Prius engine ever built and blow headgaskets and have failed piston rings at 200K. Buy a 2009 or 2016 or something newer or older than that and you'll probably get 300K miles without anything but basic maintenance.

 

Whether a Prius is sluggish or zippy is 90% due to the software mode it has selected.

ECO is sluggish. PWR is zippy.

Keep in mind that a new drive battery will set you back $3k.

I have a 2011 Gen 3 with over 200k miles, and it has no problems.
I also have a 2017 Plugin with ~130k, and no problems.

Over 200k there is an issue of head gaskets for maybe a quarter of the vehicles.

You pay your money and you take your chances.

 

I mean if you used to K swap engine Hondas and what have you yeah coming to a Prius might be pretty lame of course it depends how long that transition has been I used to drive all kinds of blazingly fast Toyotas that weren't available in this country for years and years and years and then all that speed and nonsense was just so commonplace it wasn't fun anymore Just didn't really matter but 45 miles to the gallon kind of did The Prius is plenty zippy once it's moving you can whip in and out of traffic like you own the mess No problem If you're willing to take those risks I do it all the time I drive like an idiot oh well You won't leave any stop lights in any kind of record paces lots of people aren't doing that these days that's kind of costly You watch your gas needle go down some of these cars many people just let the Prius go because they don't want to step on it to just keep up with that to pass me and then have to take the foot off the gas and slow down and whatever just depends where you are and who you're running with me now with nobody so there's always that too. Find a nice generation 2 with leather buy it and enjoy it and laugh all the way to the gas pump I guess if you want buy a generation 3 and you may be in semi-car hell or be there very shortly and then be doing this all over again or something similar.

 

Or if you just want to spend money and have something possibly nice try a CT 200h from Lexus they sell for considerably more for some reason I don't notice them having the head gasket problems that the generation 3 Prius has but then again my friends are out of them by 150,000 or so. because they can be in the trade-in values are high and now they can do I don't know what after that a few of my friends that had them went from the CT 200h to the RX or the bigger hybrid SUV type thingies I hate the bigness and the look

 

I wouldn't go for it.

Just not enough upside left in a 10 year old/100k car to justify that price. The low cost of operation and low repair incidence that the Prius is famous for is strongly tied to those first 10 years.

By and large, the 3rd generation cars that are worth keeping are not the ones available for sale. People trade in their problems.

There are always exceptions, good luck either way!

 

Used Gen 3 are flooding the market right now. They are clearly a problem people are trying to trade in. There's literally only one person on PriusChat who has got their 2010-2015 Prius to 300K miles and it took more than one engine to do it. Meanwhile there's endless people with Prius that are both older and newer than that with 300K miles with no issues.

 

you should drive one yourself to decide if they are sluggish. it depends on what you're used to, or comparing it to. it has to be one of the slowest cars on the market i would think.

a 2015 with 100k could be a good car, but you want to jump on cleaning the egr circuit asap.

 

First, most of the gen3 Prii problems may occur on higher mileage cars, 150k-200k typically. However age has an impact on cars as does heat. Stop immediately (off the highway) if one of the overheating lights come up. The hv battery may get old on your watch.


#1 HV Battery - Clean battery fan and screen. Heat kills. Avoid long idle periods of over 10 minutes as it will drain the hv battery and the system will cycle it at a low state of charge during this time.

#2 Inverter - Be sure your car has the inverter software update and ensure Toyota has you as the owner. There is a free inverter "customer support program" like an extended warranty for this part but being stranded without warning sucks.


#3 Brake Actuator
These are increasingly failing. It used to be covered for everyone but coverage expired except for some 2014-15s under 150k miles. $2500 down the drain.

#4 EGR Cooler - Save up and have the egr cooler and valve removed and cleaned within 10k miles ideally. If you have someone that is advanced diy the parts are minimal but the time and complexity is fairly significant. Otherwise the dealer will change parts and charge $800-$1000. In my opinion, this problem is worse if the car is using oil, a fairly common problem as the car ages. Diy egr cleaning involves serious disassembly.

#5 Headgasket and Engine Failure - In the end egr, oil consumption, engine pinging due to carbon buildup and or poor design can cause head gasket failure or even total engine failure. Besides egr cleaning from #4, start changing the oil every 5,000 miles like your bank account depended on it. Make a habit of checking your oil at least every other week and watch the passenger's side coolant reservoir level. Change the coolant per maintenance schedule. Hopefully it has already been done. If a god awful shaking and rattling sound occurs on startup, have it checked immediately as this is often the head gasket leaking coolant into the cylinder. This problem is the subject of much debate about the root cause, but the reality is it does occur, especially on 2010-2014 Priuses (Prii).

 

Just to put it out there-

i also don't think you have to flee directly into a new purchase.

It's just that $15k for a 2015/100k Prius looks crummy up against $18k for a 2018/60-75k Prius. That extra $3k buys you into the next-newer generation, 3+ years more "honeymoon" including some actual warranty coverage.

They are out there if you look.

 

i agree with you. after owning 2 gen2's and one gen 3, i would never buy another gen 3.

the hybrid premium won't save you any money on gas in the long run.

check out used bolts, great ev at incredibly low prices.

 

If you’re referring to @ASRDogman, I believe he did a head gasket replacement, but not an engine swap? Not 100% on that. He did regular EGR cleaning, though I’m not clear at what miles he started.

Sadly true.

 

No it wasn't Dogman... It was someone who did something that looked near like pre-emptively replacing headgasket and rings before they failed.

 

Get Mendel to sell you his garage queen. He does not need it.

 

Battery warranty: You want a warranty, buy a new car, or a certified used one. That's not going to be a $15K Gen 3. Start with another $12K and a Gen 4, at least.

Torque: Drive one. That way you can judge for yourself what it can do. Using both the gasoline engine as well as the electric motor gives it a little better performance when the light turns green. It goes from stop light to stop light just like everybody else. It gets all the way up to the speed limit and then some. If you want the torque to tow something that's not a Prius. Like I said, drive one.

Every engineering design is going to be a matter of trade offs. When you want it to do something, you've gotta figure out what you're willing to sacrifice. The Prius was designed to not sacrifice fuel economy, so things like torque were less of a priority. (Atkinson cycle).

Of course, since you're looking at a Prius probably means that you're looking for fuel economy, but then you're requirements are everything else.

 

The regular (ICE) Corolla starts at $23k and the Hybrid LE at $24.6k. A friend just got the Hybrid and it's a good car... independent suspension at each wheel and the 1.8L powertrain is from the gen 4 Prius.

BTW, I'm in the same boat as you. Looking at a '14 and '15 Pip, original owner, private sale, full maintenance records. About the same price but I'm undecided between a 10 yr Prius or a new Corolla Hybrid LE at $16.5k more.

 

That phrase impresses me less and less over the years, especially for 3rd gens.

 

Full maintenance is not enough on a gen3. The factory oil change interval is way too long. Inverters, brake boosters and head gaskets still fail on gen3s with their low tension rings, poor cylinder cooling design and clogging egrs which have no factory maintenance requirement.

Buy the new hybrid Corolla Cross awd with ten years 150,000 warranty on the battery and the latest 2.0 dual injected engine.