Lessons learned buying a used Prius v

A month ago our one-car family became a first-time Prius owner. Our 1997 Honda CRV got stolen and we wanted something of a similar size for our family of 3, but spending less than half the price of a new car in this class.

Before we even decided on what car model we wanted, we listed criteria, and these criteria made it obvious that we wanted either a small SUV (Honda CRV, Subaru Forester, etc.) or a station wagon (Subaru Outback, Volkswagon Jetta Sportswagon, etc.). We also wanted good fuel economy and high reliability. We hadn't even realized Prius had a model with a very big trunk but once we realized this, Prius v not only became our top choice - we stopped looking at any other cars at all.

Our budget basically meant we were going to get a Prius v 2012 with 85,000 -100,000 miles or maybe a 2013 or 2014 with over 130,000 miles. We did some things right in our process and made some mistakes as well.

This forum has been so incredibly helpful to us in our Prius v search that I thought I'd share some of the lessons we learned, most of which are applicable to any Prius: model:

1) Single biggest mistake was to continue with our regular mechanic, for both the inspection and the (relatively minor) work we ended up doing on the car. Though our mechanic specializes in Japanese cars and was great for many years with our Honda CRV, it became quickly apparent that they were not all that knowledgeable with the Prius (or likely any Hybrids) and were not equipped with what they needed to deal with modern key fobs (don't know if this is all Toyota cars or just the Prius). More on the fob issue in #3 below.

2) Best thing you can do before buying your used Prius is identify a mechanic that specializes in Hybrids. Turns out one of the best Hybrid auto repair shops in the nation is about a 25 minute drive from our house: Art's Automotive. We think 25 minutes is a bit far to go to a mechanic and leave our one car for the day but now that we've seen how much more knowledgeable they are compared to every other so-called Prius specialist around here, we are probably going to use them for now on for everything. My biggest piece of advice if you're buying a used Prius is to first find the best Hybrid mechanic in your area. Use them for the inspection, and use them for your Prius. Many a good mechanic simply does not have the knowledge an experience to deal with hybrid cars.

3) About that fob: Make sure to test both fobs when buying a used Prius!!! We ended up buying our 2012 Prius v from a private party. The seller was a nice woman, she had all the service records and we quickly developed some trust in her. She was actually the 2nd owner but she had had it for a couple years. Well, neither our mechanic nor us thought of checking the 2nd fob. It wasn't until a couple hours after purchasing the car that we realized that the second fob didn't work. Not only did it not work, it was for a different Prius - the physical key wasn't the same! The 2nd owner didn't know because she had never attempted to use it. Being a one-car family, we absolutely needed a key for both my wife and myself. We were aghast to find out that it would cost hundreds of dollars to get a new FOB. We asked our CRV mechanic if he could reprogram it - we gave it to him when he was doing an oil change and he was not able to figure out how to reprogram it so gave it back to us without having charged anything and told us we needed to get a new FOB from a Toyota dealer. We called several places that all claimed to specialize in Prius and Hybrid cars. Art's Automotive had the most impressive web site, gave us the lowest quote (just under $300), and sounded much more knowledgeable on the phone than anyone else we called. I took it there yesterday and was incredibly delighted to find out that they have recently been finding that they can now easily erase used 3rd generation fobs. So they did this and for $87 total (including new physical key), we now have two working FOBs. To say Art's made my day is an understatement. We have decided that for now on we will take our Prius v to Art's Automotive.

4) Our 3 primary sources of used car listings were Car Guru, CarFax, and craigslist. Note that craigslist has a lot of stolen cars. We rejected any listing which did not have pictures of the license plate, or which did not list the VIN. We did end up visiting 2 dealer lots, one non-dealer lot, and lastly a private owner, from whom we ultimately purchased our Prius v. There were a lot of hints that the seller was trustworthy and shortly after we met her, we were convinced that she was an honest person. She disclosed what needed to be disclosed and we probably arrived at something close to a fair price in the end. Or maybe we paid a little too much. But we ended up with a car we really like.

5) Buying from a dealer lot is not as expensive as you think. We did pay around $1500 less for our Prius v than if we had bought from a dealer lot with comparable mileage - we know this from looking at many comparable car listings. But a car from a prior owner will not be prepped for sale as well as a dealer, if our case is typical. Specifically in our case:

2 of the tires were in need of immediate replacement and the other 2 were budget tires that didn't look like they had more than a year or two left on them, so we replaced all 4 tires with Prius Chat's favorite, the Michelin Energy Saver. Even with the $70 Michelin discount running this month, that was still close to $650 after tax is included. We noticed that the door trim was peeling off the top of the front door so we paid over $100 to get that fixed. The oil was just a few hundred miles shy of needing an oil change so we had to do that pretty soon. There was the $87 on the 2nd fob. We haven't done it yet, but we are probably going to have the door check fixed on the driver door - our street where we park our car is sloped so the driver door is constantly banging into our legs. That will be another $200. Not sure if all of these things would have been fixed at a dealer but they certainly don't sell cars where the oil and tires both need to be replaced within a a few hundred miles. When all this spending is added to the price we paid, we might come out $200 or $300 below what we would have paid to a dealer, but without the limited warranty. The one thing we do get is a lower price base from which our annual registration fee for CA is calculated, so we'll be saving small bits of money for years to come.

6) Do online research using Prius Chat. I know I'm stating the obvious and preaching to the converted here, but this chat board had been incredibly valuable in educating us about the intricacies of 3rd generation Prius models, and specifically the Prius v.

7) Customize the car settings after you buy the Prius. It takes a week or two (at least!) of reading through the manual, reading through Prius Chat forum related to your questions, and of course getting into the driver seat and tinkering to customize the car to your heart's desire. Some customization can only be done at the dealer, but there's a lot you can do yourself.

8) Don't assume you will get super great gas mileage. We got around 35 MPH (a little less than the 36.6 stated on the trip B odometer) in our first 700 miles of driving before replacing the tires. Just got the new tires yesterday so will surely go up some from that. But because of where we live and the nature of our trips, we will never get 50 MPH just riding around town, due to the laws of physics. We live near the top of a hill. The majority of our trips are: drive 3-4 miles, losing around 500 feet of elevation, but with lots of stop signs and a couple red lights. Shop for half an hour. Then go uphill along the same route. In some cases it's dropping off our son so no half hour wait. From what I've read on these boards, it's pretty hard to come up with a scenario much worse for gas mileage than this one.

9) Don't be too picky. At first, we had certain colors we were avoiding, trim level were going for etc. But it's not like there are thousands of used 2012 prius v cars for sale. In fact, at any given time, there were only 3 or 4 that came close to meeting our criteria that were within 50 miles of us. If you get too narrow with your criteria, you may have to wait a very long time . . . Of course, if you're willing to go up in price you'll get much more choice. Which leas to my next point . . .

10) If you can afford it, buy a model year that is coming off lease. At this moment there are loads of 2014 cars on the market of all types, including the Prius v. There are so many that they sell slowly . . . except for the ones priced below everyone else. If you have $16,000 in your budget, you should easily be able to find a used 2014 Prius v in the SF Bay area that will suit your needs, if you're shopping in 2017. Cars depreciate massively in their first 3 years, partly because so many 3-year leases expire at the same time. After that, they depreciate at a slower rate. Our search would have been so much easier if we had budgeted $16,000 . . .

So, do we like our car? Heck yes! It's a black Prius v that had just over 100,000 miles when we bought it and is now closing in on 101,000. It's the first time my wife and I have found a car that works really well for both of us.

The front seat is very comfortable/adjustable (something I like about many Toyota models), the gas mileage is terrific given the kinds of driving we do, the ride is more quiet than it was with the extremely noisy 1997 Honda CRV, and the entertainment system, while somewhat cumbersome to use, is light years ahead of what we had on the 1997 CRV. And that trunk space is just incredible. Getting a big bike in and out of the car is a breeze. I simply can't envision a scenario where we run out of room in the trunk, whereas we had a lot of tight fits in the CRV.

Oh, and about that user name . . .

v is for Prius v!

 

Yes, a pre-purchase inspection, especially if the car is more than a few thousand dollars, is an absolute must. This applies to all cars, not just Prius.

We did get a pre-purchase inspection with our regular mechanic and he did catch one minor thing that was less than $100, but now I wonder if he may have missed anything Prius-specific (beyond the second fob).

 

Yes, meant MPG. There's a couple other typos too but it looks like forum only gave me a few minutes to correct my typos.

 

Well that's interesting - it treats members differently. I had the edit button for a few minutes (10 maybe?) then it disappeared. Same thing on my replies in the thread - an edit button is visible for a few minutes then it goes away.

Perhaps has to do with me being new to the forum, as an anti-spam measure.