Advice on buying 2011 Prius

You'll love this Prius... However the repair costs require you to be resourceful for them to be manageable. As in if you or friend or family member is good at DIY car repair we can help you fix everything for super affordable. However, if that's not your plan and you're going to depend on a dealership or major auto repair biz the repair costs will be too much.

 

In today's car market, a $4500 hybrid is somewhat of a steal. With that said, an 11 year old hybrid will need lots of money put into it so that would justify the lower asking price. To answer your question, yes an older Prius tend to be expensive to repair when they break. The dealership has a special hourly rate for hybrid vehicles and it comes in around $130 an hour or more.

This 2011 model has a tendency to have a severe head gasket failure at high mileage (over 200k miles). When this failure happens, you'll need to get a new head gasket or get another engine. This failure usually will cost anywhere from $2000 to $4000 to fix.

Another problem would be the HV battery failure after 10 years. This car is nearing the battery life cycle so a new battery will be needed for reliable transportation. This is also going to be $2000 or more when you need the battery.

And finally the last of the major items would be the brake actuator/accumulator/booster problem. When this failure occurs, the cost is about $2000 to repair. This will fail just because the brake components fail over time.

So if you add up those 3 items, you'll be setting aside a good $8000 to prepare for these failures. There are other things that can fail, but these are the more expensive failures on this generation (for common problems)

 

Sounds like to me You're used to hustling an old car and know a little bit about it The hybrid will narrow your resources down quite a bit A lot of people and places don't like to work on them because they just don't know The hybrid your purchasing is basically a Corolla engine choking on its own puke That's just the way it's made and for that at high mileage there's a high probability that you're going to have an engine failure. How you handle that engine failure will make or break your costs of driving this car you can do it all for less than $2,500 if you're even sort of smart about it You're hybrid battery for the Gen 3 I've had good luck with an aftermarket supplier that does me pretty good so all in all the higher mileage of the Prius coupled with your already good ability to keep an old car on the road you should be okay most places that can work on a Corolla can work on the Prius they just have to know how to take the high voltage out of the system and work on the vehicle it's pretty simple. Location plays a role in how a lot of this works I don't know Indiana that well it's been many many years since I've been anywhere near that part of the country I'm now in the southeast USA and things are definitely less costly here

 

Even if the battery has a bad cell or two, it will still run and just have a little less MPG than usual. If the Prius already has 200k miles, you'll need to clean the EGR valve, intake manifold, and throttle body. Plus replace all fluids with new like coolants, transmission, brake fluid, etc. If you really want it to lasts another 100k or more. If you're willing to do the work, there are plenty of helpful DIY videos on YouTube and folks on here are knowledgeable as well.

 

welcome!

buy anything but a 2010-2014 prius, unless it's late 14.

 

$4500 for a gen 3 prius is unheard of in California - they're typically selling for $8-14,000. Is it rusted through or something? These days you can't even buy a 299,999 mile gen 2 prius for under $5,000!

There are smartphone applications which claim to do just that, but I don't know how accurate they are:

With any 10+ year old prius, I'd be prepared to spend $2000-2500 for a new battery pack at any moment. That should then come with a 3+ year warranty (I think some companies do lifetime warranties).

In my experience, mileage is only part of the picture. Age is the other. There are thousands of prii taxi with over 400,000 miles. Hybrid batteries and brake boosters are as likely to fail from age as miles. Head gaskets and oil consumption are more likely to happen with higher miles...

Yes, if you pay mechanics to do the work (especially lackluster shops). The good news is repairs should be relatively infrequent.

The prius is a fantastic car if you can
1) budget for large, infrequent repairs. There is an almost certainty it will need a $2,000 battery somewhere between 8-16 years and a high probability $2,000 head gasket between 125,000-250,000 miles, possibly a $2,000 brake booster after 10+ years, etc)
2) drive enough that your fuel savings pay for those large, infrequent repairs. Drive 20,000 miles/year or more and the Prius is probably the cheapest car you can own. Drive fewer than 10,000 miles per year and you're better off (economically) with something else.

 

Find a gen 2 that was a daily driver of somebody that recently had to get out of it whether they got too old and had to get an SUV to climb up into or whatever even with the brake actuator issues and the display issues it'll run forever it doesn't have any of the engine problems the three has but matter if you like it or not it'll almost last forever He probably won't be putting an engine in it

 

That would bother me: 3rd gen's (2010~2015) have a problematic Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) system that tends to clog up with carbon, which leads to engine running hotter, often unevenly (cylinder one tends to clog ahead of the rest), and that leads to head gasket failures. 150K to 200K is the "danger zone".

It's very possible they've had problems, added a stop-leak product. I'd proceed very cautiously.

 

Yes I would look for all that too especially in places which you're not really Prius type places in the middle of Indiana but given the fact that I can get a JDM spec engine relatively inexpensively if the car's in good shape you'd have $5,200 bucks in it when the time comes to just drop a JDM engine in there and be done with it and then that gives you another you know close to 200,000 mi maybe just doing the brakes or the actuator and you might be good of course the rest of the car is going to fall apart plastics interior door panels and if you're buying this thinking that you know they look so nice and they do so well in the garage they don't you don't drive the thing and you'll be fixing on it to not drive it a lot so if you're going to park it in the garage and just look at the nice car and use it every so often I'd say buy a Corolla not the hybrid just the Corolla gas because you can park it for months walk out and go The Prius not so much these are things you've got to think about when you're going from your $300,000 mi Honda CRV to a hybrid to get a little bit better gas mileage not very often meaning you don't use the car that much you bicycle walk all that kind of thing The hybrid may not be the way to go sit tight and buy an EV in a few The three wheel thing comes to mind pretty cool

 

If my 57 year old sister asked about buying a 200,000 mile 2011 Prius, I would say no it will cost you too much. Most mechanics are scared of it for good reason and even dealer mechanics have to be specially trained to work on it. It is not a reliable Honda that anyone can work on. Buy a Honda or conventional Toyota after your favorite mechanic checks it out. Or if you already have two reliable cars, keep them. The mpg savings is great for the original owner, not so great for the 200k mile buyer.

The sad thing is a Prius hybrid is hard to check even if it was recommended. A can of stop leak can hide the need for a $6,800 used engine. A woman in Ohio was quoted that from a dealer last week. She is seriously considering it since she has not had the 215k mile car very long.

A new brake by wire brake booster installed at the dealer can be $3,500. These have become very common failures and the special extended warranty from Toyota expired at 150,000 miles. No early warnings short of excessive runtime of the brake booster pump most can't hear. Only the dealers have the parts since there are no aftermarket replacements or repairs of the assembly. Some mechanics might install used but that is a safety risk many may not want to take.

The engine is also known to be an excessive oil burner. That is hard to check as well short of driving it for a couple of months.

The hybrid battery is still expensive at a dealer but is slightly less at specialized hybrid shops who can install new cells in the battery assembly. This expense at some dealers is $3,500 for Toyota parts. It is hard to predict the original batteries lifespan but on average, this car's age and mileage makes it a sure bet expense in the next year or two.

A newer gen4 Prius would be a reasonable used car. 2016 or newer hatchback.

 

Keep your Honda and your other car. That way you have backups and are not painted into a corner getting expensive dealer repairs when something breaks. Buy the Prius. Don't do anything to it except check the oil often. With many/most of the valid likely problems listed by others you can generally keep driving the car for months of even years. If you're lucky you'll have small problems. If you're unlucky something big will break. Hybrids are far more complex than regular cars, so lots more to break. Except for the high miles I would buy this Prius sight unseen. Even with the high miles if there is nothing currently wrong with it, I would probably buy it.