Keep having issues with a used 2009 Prius (105k miles) I bought just 4 months ago...

Like the title said... I bought this car from some random person on craigslist. According to the car fax and his word it used to be a government owned vehicle that was recently auctioned off and the guy selling it was just trying to make a quick buck... the price was decent $6k for a 09 Prius with only 105k miles on it.. so I decided to make the purchase.... anyways literally the next day after I bought it the check engine light came on and then the big red ! light with the triangle comes on soon afterwards. Great.... I forgot what the issue exactly was since this was all the way back in May and l had my dad buy the part and fix it for me.... but it wasn't too complicated since my dad was able to do it with just a part he needed to buy. So no problems with driving it for about... a month. Then the light came on again. Next issue was something to do with the water coolant failing or something. Unfortunately for me my dad could not fix this so I had to take it to a shop to get repaired... $700 later I got it "fixed"... so after that costly repair everything seemed fine for a couple months... until yesterday when that dreaded check engine light came back on. I had my dad run his code gun thing and the code that we got was P2238. My dad doesn't know what to do with this code because he said it could be a number of things so now I have to take my car to the shop again. Anyways... the reason why I made this account and thread was not to get any sympathy... the main reason why I made this was to get advice... Are Priuses (more specifically) 2009 Priuses prone to as many mechanical problems as mine? Or do you think mine had all its parts stripped and replaced with even shittier ones? I really don't know what could be the problem.. my knowledge on how car works is as good as your grandmas... But I know 4k miles with 3 mechanical failures popping up is not a normal thing... Something definitely is not right... and I don't know what to do. l want to sell the car so it's not my problem anymore, but l kind of need too keep a constant stream money coming in or I'd be on the streets. Any solid advice fellow Prius owners?

 

Hello all! OP here... and I gotta say, I'm pleasantly surprised with all the replies I got to this. I thought I'd get 1 at best....

anywho

I got some updates with my car.

So the first breakdown that happened in May was the inverter water pump. (i asked my dad about it) and before anyone says I could of got it replaced for free.... My dad called the dealership before he decided to repair it himself and the dealership said that it was already replaced back in 2013... sooooo..... my dad would have fixed it either way. Kind of odd that the water pump failed after the inverter got replaced (maybe my dad didn't do it well?) eitherway, I appreciate all of your guys feedback towards helping me with this unfortunate issue.

 

Hi thanks for the reply... I'm going to send my dad the link you replied to me. With the code reader thing... I'm not sure which one I'm using since it's my dad who's using it, though, I'll ask him about which one he's using when he gets home and reply to your post about which one that is....