Is this a good deal / should I not be too concerned with the rust?

welcome! great deal. prius is notorious for rust, but no reports of problems that i can remember.

 

I once bought a used car here in Texas that came from Indiana. It was about 5 years old at the time and working on it was a PITA because some smaller parts had basically rusted together, your picture of the emergency brake is a good example, but otherwise the car ran fine.

I just check CarMax for Texas and all three PIP's are lease returns for the NY/NJ area.

 

It shows a car with little to NOT maintenance at all. The shown rust is about normal but for a 5/6 years old Prius vehicle.

 

I would agree that the rust and corrosion look excessive for a 3 year old car. It is possible that it was in water at some point possibly a flood. I ask for a CARFAX and ask to view the title to make sure they are clean. Also check myToyota.com with the VIN to see if there has been regular maintenance done by a Toyota dealership.

 

too late a model for sandy hook.

 

Good choice.

 

I did some rust preventative measures on our 2010 about a year back, was a little dismayed by the rust, both on steel members and fasteners. Toyota seems kinda slack in this regard. Your pictures reflect a car that may well have been flooded, or just a lot of salt in winters.

 

What kind of preventative measures did you take? There's a good bit of surface rust underneath mine (also from a region where salting the roads in winter is common) and was thinking about applying Waxoyl or something similar (don't know if that exists in the US) but have no experience with this...

 

I used Lloyds Corrosion Inhibitor & Lubricant. Not an endorsement, just something I'd picked up. Waxoyl sounds similar, both claim to go on liquid, leave a protective film.

I raised the back first, worked with rags and a toothbrush. First cleaned, then applied protectorant, sometimes spraying directly, more often applied with the toothbrush. Basically all the suspension components I could reach, and exposed bolts/nuts.

To reach some suspension components, the trailing arm hubs, I needed to take off some small plastic panels. Some of their fasteners were small diameter bolts, screwing into welded nuts. It was alarming to find some of them near-seized, after 3 years on our temperate coast climate. From there on, I backed out, oiled and re-installed any of these I could get to, plus the coarse thread screws Toyota uses in some places, for bumper fairing fastening.

Did the rear first, then repeated on the front, where I took off the engine underpanel, and lubricated everything I could reach. There was one set of three 10 mm (socket size) bolts, just at the leading edge of the front wheel wells. They connect two plastic panels, basically just a plastic-to-plastic splice. I made the mistake of trying to remove them, and the bolt head just snapped off. They were hopelessly rusted, best regarded as permanent pop-rivets.

 

I live in NY. To me, all that is just normal rust.

 

Flood car? Hardly. I've seen brand new cars go through one winter and look like that underneath. It's mostly superficial rust from the ultra-corrosive brine de-icers used here, but I wouldn't worry on such a new car. Check the bottoms of the doors. I've seen Prii rust there which would be a definite deal killer for me.

Hello from the salt belt.