Do I buy my first prius tomorrow!?

Price sounds great of course the elephant in the room is the Hybrid battery (still orig is your question?). If it is not orig, Toyota OEM replacement is best. The combination meter (speedometer read out) is a bug in the Gen2's and you'd like to know if that's been replaced. It had a to 9-yr extension but you are over 9 yrs. My touch MFD screen display is not working well, so you want to try radio, A/C temps etc to see if its working. There is a calibration but mine needs more than that, but I have not tried hard to fix it yet.

 

I have a 2005 that has over 300,000 and it does still drives like a champ. I too, was lured into a cheap Prius only to get stranded with a bad timing job and a bad battery. I don't know how it wasn't throwing codes cause when it crashed (cam gear came off), it burned hard. I was able to fix the engine myself and got a battery off eBay and rebuilt it and it works great. When you do get it, you will want to strip the battery down and take some voltage measurements to see how synced the modules are. If they all look the same then you're in luck. If they are all over the place then the lady must have been noticing issues with the car.
Another thing you want to check is corrosion on the busbars. This corrosion can make the car throw codes and also, it can rob the car of milage.
Don't be afraid to buy it. If there is a problem, just come back here and ask how to fix it! It's that easy

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I know I can look at the HV pack's individual cell voltages with Torque Pro on my phone, but if you don't already have the adapter for that you won't have it by tomorrow.

 

The check engine light might be harmless but then again maybe not. Do you have an OBD2 code reader? If not, you should buy one today somewhere or take the Prius to an auto parts store which offers free DTC code reading. The main reason you should is because the Prius you're considering might be burning oil profusely which eventually fouls the catalytic converter and oxygen sensors.

As others have pointed out, the HV battery if original could fail at any time. The battery has 168 individual cells. When just one of them shorts out, the whole battery fails. Be prepared to swap in a rebuilt or new battery in it or you can try DIY on it but it's not the sort of thing that is as easy as some claim. You don't know what you have until you open the battery case. It would be ideal to do that when inspecting the whole car but it takes 30 minutes and skill to remove the interior panels to get at the battery which I doubt the owner would allow you to do. Knowing what I do after owning my 05 for 6 years, I would want to do so and if the owner refused, I'd move on to the next cheap one.

 

They're handy little buggers. The "pro" version of Torque is $5 and the Bluetooth adapter to get it actually talking to your car's OBD port will run you $10-$15. This is my "battery pack status" screen - even includes the readouts from the three battery temp sensors at the bottom (the values are blank because it's not connected to the car at the moment):



A quick predictor of HV battery pack health is that "Delta SoC" value I have at the top right, by the way. In a healthy pack it's 0, meaning the charge in each of the battery's blocks is at about the same level. When a block starts to fail and goes out of balance, Delta SoC starts to go up.

... This app will also read check engine light codes and give you a brief explanation of what they mean, though really if you buy this Prius you may want to invest in a Mini VCI cable too (https://www.amazon.com/Ideashop-V8-10-021-Techstream-Diagnostic-Software/dp/B00XJJ8VHS) so you can hook an actual laptop into the car and read any codes the electric side of the car throws, too. Traditional check engine scanners don't talk to the hybrid ECU's and places that have the scanners that do will often charge upwards of $100 just to read the codes for you.

Will definitely be helpful if/when your HV pack ends up failing on you.

 

When you say "starts to fail" does that mean getting weaker or almost broken and dead? If it tells you if the block is starting to get weaker, I need the torque app. I already have an Automatic adapter hooked up to the car. Can I use the Automatic adapter to get the data off of the Torque app?

 

By the time delta SoC starts to rise it's probably too late to do anything to prevent failure. I've never seen delta SoC display anything but 0.0% when I've been actively monitoring it.

But I have this habit of keeping my eyes on the road so it's possible that it has been above 0.0% at some point.

 

My understanding is that it means at least one cell is pretty much about to fail. I've seen a lot of discussions in these forums about the possibility of replacing single cells, possibly with newer cells from Gen3 batteries... But the consensus nowadays seems to be that, at least unless you're very comfortable tinkering, it's best to just get a new pack from Toyota when this happens.

 

Anytime you're buying a car and the check engine light is on and the owner doesn't think it needs to be repaired or has a story explaining it away, that's a big red flag. Fully investigate the check engine light before buying (e.g. take it to a mechanic). A working test drive may not fully reveal the problem, and it may rear its head a hundred miles after purchasing to the tune of a few thousand dollars. Any check engine light on the car should devalue it to the "fair" condition price even if it's in "good" condition and it's an easy fix. Especially the Prius is car where the check engine light should not be ignored.

Best way to check the health of the batteries is using a Mini Vci cable with Techstream on a laptop. It can read the voltages across every two modules. If the voltage varies more than about .2V between the 14 voltages displayed in a variety of conditions, it points to a battery needing replacement/reconditioning in its near future.

 

Poor choice.at 240k miles its end of life for everything.
Guaranteed money pit unless your a mechanic.
And not knowing what the DTC is before buying is foolish.

Get the VIN and go to Toyota.com/owners and join and post the VIN
and you'll see how many times its been serviced and probably why
Its selling.

BTW how old are u?

 

WHAAT!?!?!?!

That's smack talk. Simple FACT is that most cars since the mid-00s will go a LEAST 200k without any major issues IF basic maintenance is done. It is WELL documented that Toyota in general builds "superior" vehicles and the Prius in general is even better than the Toyota average.

There are a great number of 300k Prii running around that have had no serious issues. For the asking price, you have ~$1k worth of "savings" to dedicate to basic repair and maintenance catch-up, if needed.

AGREED!!!!

Assuming ALL work was done at a Toyota dealer, because they have ZERO records from indy shops or the POs back yard.

 

Given the price of investment, a lot of the risk associated with ownership I would define as simply coming with the territory.
The automatic concern would be the condition of the Hybrid Battery. If you can deal with it?

The real RED FLAG however would be the Ol' " The Check Engine Light Is On, but It's nothing".

 

I bought my first Prius a 2005 at a little over 200,000 miles two years ago. The car had been sitting on the lot I bought it from for a while. The hybrid battery acted all crazy on the first test drive cycling up and down way to quickly, but as i drove it more and more it started to act fine.

Well it was pretty damn clean and it was a one owner car, so I did take the risk! Never had a problem with it, I drove with its original hybrid battery for 7 months till I found a used pack for really cheap, and swapped it my self.

That car just hit 300,000 on Sunday! Never had any problem other than a failed AC compressor that was replaced with a used one for $75.

I will be posting up on the 299,999 thread soon!
That was the thread that made me buy the car! Haha

 

Regarding that CEL... First determine whether this is the gas engine, on board diagnostics light, which is a symbol of an engine block with the word "check" below it. If this is the only light on you have an OBD issue, which complicates getting the car inspected in a CARB (California Air Regulations) state. My understanding is that Maine IS a CARB state, so you likely can't pass inspection with the check engine light on. If the big red triangle is Illuminated (often with every other light on the dash) you have a hybrid system issue to boot. The triangle without the CEL shouldn't impact state inspection, although you'll be dealing with a hybrid system problem, of which the big battery is only one part.

https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2015/05/75390_IMG_20150513_064751.jpg

If indeed you're dealing with just the check engine light, and it is indeed the vapor pressure sensor, it lives ON the fuel tank and can be accessed by dropping the tank. It's only a $50 dollar part but there is labor involved in swapping it out and hopefully some diagnostic troubleshooting to verify the sensor is actually bad. It is not a part we see much report of failure around here, thus my comment regarding the mechanic having some diagnostic ability. See the PDF attached figure 3.8

As mentioned previously, you need the OBD code(s) stored by the vehicle to have an actual idea of repair cost. Given your CARB state status, you're likely committed to the repair. OBD issues can be cheap fixes or they can be 4-digit. I'd say don't rush this purchase. Get the code(s) read and report back here.

 

So its the next day.
Did The OP buy The Prius?
Inquiring Minds Want To Know.