Need advice: 2005 Prius w 62,000 miles for college student...

I see that you don't currently own (and maybe never have had) a hybrid.

Sure, I complained that the HV pack did not last what I considered the life of my car. I have very high expectations of how long a car should last considered how damned expensive they gotten to be the past 50 years.

If I spend nearly 30 large (or more!) on a depreciating "asset", I expect it to function without fail for 20 years or whenever I intend to sell it. The Gen 2 Prius with 100K or more miles has tended to depreciate more rapidly than a similar pure ICE vehicle (in non CARB states). And, the uncertainty of when the HV pack will fail beyond 100K miles or 8 years (in non CARB states) is one big reason why.

And yes, I confess, I didn't buy my 05 Gen 2 brand new. I'm really glad I didn't too. I bought it for $6800 + tax with 134K miles in October 2010 so it had depreciated nearly $20K from its MSRP in five and a half years. I got my money's worth out of it, its first owner didn't.

 

Based, I presume, on your long experience as a poster here and as a current hybrid driver.

Before you get your first hybrid, you should familiarize yourself with them a little more thoroughly.
1. The extended warranty for hybrid components (not just the battery)is a CARB thing, not just a california [sic] thing. California Air Resources Board - Wikipedia

2. The human animal "can" live up to 120 years, but most people do not. Like humans....ALL NiCad batteries fail. That's why if you go into a Home Depot you'll find a lot more lithium battery powered devices these days. Hybrids are moving to this technology as well but guess what?
Riiiiiiight.
They're expensive....and they fail too.
Priuses, like non-hybrids, have a design life span probably in the neighborhood of 15 years/250,000 miles. The reason that Toyota does not replace many battery packs in hybrids is that they usually get replaced by other vendors, or the car is junked because the cost of the battery exceeded the value of the car after 15 years.
Remember, until recently OEM replacement batteries were MUCH more expensive than some of the battery re-manufacturers that were mentioned in this thread that you claim to have read.
The car mentioned in the beginning of this thread is an 05. (G2)
I'll help you with the math. That means that the battery is 12 years old.

3. Priuses are exceptionally reliable cars. Most cars are if they are properly maintained.
Priuses just have more points of failure that can be problematic in an elderly car. That was the original intent of the additional CARB warranty.
That's great if you're a Youtube certified home mechanic!!!
Not so much if you're trying to rack up six figures worth of college loan debt in order to get a six year B.A. in Underwater Basketweaving.

 

A good way to think about traction batteries in hybrids is the same way you think about engines and transmissions in any car. They're very important components that are designed to last the operating life of the vehicle, but eventually they all fail. And when they do, they're enormously expensive to replace.

The reason I think batteries tend to be a bigger concern is that there's a lot less known (or thought to be known) about them in comparison to engines and transmissions. Like other major components, some traction batteries will fail earlier than expected, some will fail much later than expected, and most will fail somewhere in the middle. Because Prii are exceptionally reliable vehicles as a rule, there are more people who think they should last 300,000 miles or more (and many do). But that's not guaranteed. And batteries are also affected by time and environmental conditions, so there are more variables to consider.

ETC(SS) listed some numbers for estimated design life of vehicles. Since the Prius is so reliable, a number of these cars do better than that. But even the best will fail sometime, and when purchasing a vehicle that is close to that design life in either time or mileage, such things are worth considering. That's why a good history for the specific car being bought is so important. It can help predict the likelihood that the car will last longer than industry average.

 

Huh how didn't the owner get his money worth with the prius vs buying a new vehicle with an ice? Priuses are considered to have outstanding reliability and can save you 2000+ in gas savings. That seems to be worth it. In terms of depreciation, all new cars depreciate a lot when you drive them off the lot. New cars aren't good investments if you want to make a profit by selling them. That's common knowledge.

 

Ice cars fail as well, so I'm confused. For example, the Crown Victorias have known transmission failures where you have to fork 3000+ to get the transmission replaced. How is that any different?

So I shouldn't buy a used 2005 prius and instead go for a 2002 civic si or a na/nb miata or a 2008 mazda6?

 

Yeah, I think you should buy a Prius. Then you'd experience one first hand and would understand what owners know.

 

Yeah......that's why you see so few of them on the road, besides in dot.gov parking lots octogenarian driveways, police parking lots, and rolling around on 32" rims with rubber-band thin tires.
Thanks for playing.

I believe the point is that you actually SHOULD buy a 2005 Prius with 70,000 miles......BUT you should be an informed customer and not a fanboy (or fangirl.)
If you do your own maintenance, if you take ownership of the ownership experience, and if you lift the hood of your car every now and again for something other than adding window cleaning fluids then you have a chance to take a $5000/70,000 mile/12 year old car and drive it for ten more years with a minimal repair risk - BUT you should also have a repair fund or bank account that is deep enough to cover things like traction batteries, inverter pumps, and some of the other things that CAN fail in addition to other things like HVAC, ICE, suspension, pollution, brakes, and all of the other things that make owning ten year old cars so rewarding and educational for the unwashed Philistines that have to drive regular old garden variety "gassers."

The thing about a 2005 Prius is that there is a 100 percent chance that the traction battery WILL go bad eventually.....just like everything else on the car. Having a few thousand dollars set aside for repairs that WILL be necessary might be the difference between being able to have $0 car payments for most of your life and paying for silly crap like houses and retirement funds -OR- a lifetime of perpetual car payments.

Your call.
Priuses are about the cheapest cars that you can own if you keep them long enough to recoup the slightly higher buy-in cost but they're not miracle machines. You have to know what they can and will do, and how they can and will break - OR - you're just repeating statistics which can make a 2016 Camaro the best car in the world to buy.......or a 2005 Prius the worst.
Do the math.
Everybody presumes that they're sooooooo fuel efficient that you'll actually make money with them instead of buying one of those nasty old Sentras or Corollas that "only" get 35 MPG.
Math says that the difference over 100,000 miles isn't all that much with gas at $3.00 a gallon, and at $6 it's only double "not that much."

So?
When are you going to take the plunge???

Caveat: I don't own a Hybrid either. I have 120,000 miles in type from a work car.

Good Luck!

 

Why would you want the goverment aka taxpayers sudsidides your battery 20 trillion I debt now ....

 

I don't have any problem with dot.gov providing kickbacks for industry drivers that give "we the peeps' stick and rudder control over the final product. This is why PHEVs and BEVs are emerging from a loooooooong gestation period and becoming economically viable.
I really don't see where this applies to a gen-2 Prius though, since there were no federal kickbacks for this car that I'm aware of.

If you really want to play in THAT sandbox, head over to the political sub-forum in the Pancake Haus.
If you don't know where it is, then head over to Freds and listen to something that sounds like 6 kinder gardeners locked in a playground with only 4 toys..

 

I may be a bit too late to add my thoughts. All I can say is cogradulations! I can say for myself, it is honestly a good car for a student. The engine, reliably should be rock solid. Of course at that age, with healthy skepticism, that battery could become daunting if it's showing its age. Given how few miles it has, that '05 must've been sat for a while at times or only did the shortest of trips - relying more on the battery during its warmup cycle. I would might invest in cleaning that battery fan - or in a battery balancer if this is a car you or your son would want to rely on for as long as possible.

Aside from an audio jack (Which is the most god damn importannt thing), the car holds all your friends for very little when going very far. That's worth more than the supposed image penality.

Petrol for me is like $5.30 a gallon, if I was in any family or city car, I wouldn't try to go anywhere, but in a Prius? Well if I can rack up +4,000 miles since September up and down and across the country, into NI and the city, don't be surprised where he'll go in the Land of the Free.

 

Congratulations and best of luck! I'm curious about the pessimism about a Gen II Prius, given the low incidence of battery failure. There seems to be so much talk about things going wrong and costing a lot, so why is it rated as so reliable? I'm a Mazda fan, had a 2001 P5 that lasted a little over 200,000 miles, though it did need considerable maintenance getting there, but nothing major until A/C. I enjoyed my 2007 Prius so much; I hope I haven't made a mistake replacing it with another, and my 2010 Town and Country van with a 2008. Both are well cared for, one-owner cars, with low miles. I almost got scared away from the battery talk before but opted to stay with Prius due to high reliability, my own positive personal experience thus far, and the low rates of battery failure reported.

 

I have merely double the milage as you lol. I got 170,275 miles on my 09. I should be able to get close to 300k with the milage I have before a new traction battery is needed since the 09s are not that old.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I needed a morning chuckle. Thank god I don't have kindergartners anymore.

rp

 

I think there was a tax rebate on the Gen II, but there was a limit on how many. The car was so popular that it ran out fairly early.

 

I think that was only if they were bought new at the time if you were the original owner.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I think so too.

 

I just bumped (figuratively ) into a couple with an '08. They said it has 233,000 miles on it and they still love it.