Advice needed: Buying a Prius for road trip

1. Gen 2. But that's a personal preference based on familiarity.
2. That's relative to the specific vehicle and how it was driven. 200k commuter miles that has been well maintained could be similar to 120k that has been rode hard and not cared for. Service records tell the tale.
3. Get an OBD tester and an app (Dr Prius) and test the battery before you buy it.
4. You have 8' of bed length with the passenger seats down.

 

Find a deal to rent a new car with unlimited miles from Hertz. Pick up and drop off the car at the same place. If you have any breakdowns anywhere you can just get a replacement car.

 

Reminds me of another rental-car road trip that was kind of memorable.

 

please don't buy an $8,000. prius, i'm begging you. it won't likely be a present, but a nightmare.

an $8,000. prius today was $4,000. a year ago.

if you're trying to save the world, take your partner on a bicycle ride

 

Great story Chap!! ;-)

 

Are there any deals yet? Maybe by December?

Generally, this year has been awful for vehicle rentals, as demand outstrips supply. Last year the rental companies shed idle inventory, then had severe problems rebuilding this year as the supply of new cars remained skimpy, and used car prices shot up.

 

You could daisy chain a couple of these deals for seven day test drive.
Two people, 1500 miles each, sixty days?
CarMaxes are everywhere


CarMax Media Center - CarMax Launches New Signature Experience – Industry-Leading “Love Your Car Guarantee”

 

A 2009 Prius is generally more reliable than most 3rd gen Prii. Ideally, you’d want 4th/current gen, but if that’s out of budget, I’d go with an 09 model. As was said above, it is more important that you have a full repair and maintenance history for the car than how many miles it has been driven. I would look up the maintenance guide for the car you want to buy and check the repair history against that. If it has been regularly maintained, and the seller has records indicating everything that has been worked on, then it’s probably a good buy.

Other things to check are the age of the 12v battery, the age and wear on the tires, and why the owner is selling it, if it’s a private sale. If the 12v battery is 5 years old or more, it probably needs to be replaced. And on a test drive, pay attention to the battery charge indicator on the display. The charge indicator should start in the blue (3-6 bars) or green (7-8 bars). If it drops to pink (1 or 2 bars) within the first couple minutes driving without the air conditioning running, or if it seems to cycle from pink to green and back, or if the car is averaging less than 40mpg on a 30 minute test drive in moderate weather, there is a decent chance the hybrid battery is failing and you don’t want it unless you’re prepared to spend another $2-3k on a new hybrid battery replacement.

However, it should be noted that running the air conditioner while the car is stopped or moving slowly will drain the battery into the pink range, and then the engine will turn on and charge it back to blue and that is normal.

I’ve gone across the country a couple times in my Prius, and it’s a good road trip car. If you can’t find or afford a hotel, you can camp and sleep overnight in a Prius with the climate control on.

 

The 1500 mile limit means they'd need to daisychain together a lot more than just a couple "deals". You can bet that the fraud department will catch on and put a stop to it. My one cross-country road trip ran up nearly 8000 miles, and that didn't get anywhere near "around the entire USA".

The 24 hour test drive requires it be returned to the originating store. I don't see if that applies to the longer program, but the later does take typically two weeks before the refund is mailed back. For young-uns on a tight budget, that long pause between each link will severely crimp the road trip adventure.

“We wouldn’t want somebody to buy a car, and then drive it back and forth across the country a couple of times before they returned it,” said CarMax CMO Jim Lyski.

 

If you want easy, then pay up.
If you're on a budget, work a little.

 

Sorry, dad mode kicking in here...

It is absolutely the worst possible time to be buying a car, given the huge price increases lately. Also, do you really want to cruise through, let's say Idaho, right now? Never mind the chance of catching Covid in those virus hot spots, if you get in a wreck the hospitals are all full and trusting your luck to triage isn't a great plan for a long life.

Moreover, my advice for anybody who is not reasonably solvent is to avoid hybrids. For instance, a new HV battery will be about $3K installed at a dealer. The battery itself is only around $2K if you can shop around and install it yourself, something you are unlikely to be able to do when stranded next to a sea of Kansas corn fields. Gen 2 Prius's are currently the primary target for catalytic converter thieves and OEM replacement cats are in short supply. Again, maybe $2K if that happens and your insurance doesn't cover you. (And maybe stuck in North Dakota for three weeks waiting for the part.) If various parts of the A/C blow repair costs will be in a similar range. If you absolutely must buy an "inexpensive" car now get a Civic, Corolla, or maybe a Mazda 3. If you are planning a long highway trip those will be pretty close in mpg to what a Prius will deliver, and repairs for any of them should be less expensive. They are all also very reliable cars in general, although careful attention to a used car's prior history is crucial.

It might be a better year, and more feasible given your finances, to hike the Appalachian trail, or to partake in some other similar activity.

 

Regrettably, being a Toyota and Prius fan, I have to agree. Look for used reliable, non hybrid for this application.

Buying a used car is always a crapshoot. If you buy one, you have to drive it a whole on a navy-like shakedown cruise. You don’t want to get stuck out in the middle of bumblef*k Wyoming looking for a mechanic to diagnose and fix an inverter problem, A what?”

Moreover on a long cross country trip, most any small car will approach Prius mpg on the highway. One of the best cars I typically rent is a Chevy Cruze. It gets mpg in the forties, routinely. Longevity in that car is not what it is in a Toyota but it’s inexpensive. Was born from German Opel design and handles great. Of course GM killed production of it recently. Geniuses.