Need help: should I get this prius?

great milage? its like 23 mpg...

 

Boy, that is a tough one.

I can definitely appreciate your dilemma. I was in a similar situation when I was looking for a Prius. They are just holding their value so well its really tough to get into a used one for any reasonable amount of money. We finally ended up going with a low mileage rebuilt salvage vehicle, but that still ran ~$15k.

Ultimately its going to be a gamble. You might get lucky and have no problems. You might not. As much as I love my Prius, I would be pretty hesitant to recommend this one to anyone unless they were
1) Very handy with a wrench
2) Knew a lot about Prii (or were willing to do a lot of learning)
3) Had a backup source of transportation
4) Knew they really, really wanted a Prius and that it would work well for their needs

I think this car would be ideal for a current Prius owning family that wants a second one to partially offset a third less efficient vehicle. That way at least no one is stranded if the car has some down time. I would pretty much say the same about any car with 250k miles.

All that being said, I would personally be very tempted to buy it

Rob

 

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I mentioned this thread to DH, and his response was, "Um, where is this Prius, I'll buy it"...
If the car itself is immaculate as the OP suggests, albeit with very high mileage, it is quite possible it was a courier car, and thus had excellent maintenance (I would want to see the records, if possible), and highway mileage is not hard on a car.
Even if the hybrid battery tanks in the near future, Toyota cars, and Prius especially, are known for being very mechanically sound for several hundred thousand miles, and it would be a better gamble than some used cars we've had!

 

I wouldn't buy it. Its well known in the auto industry that KBB way inflates prices (both retail and private party) to favor dealers and they never deduct enough for miles. At 250K you are looking at perhaps some very exensive reairs besides the batteries if any powertrain components go bad. For $7K you can buy a late model import with under 100K miles that will last another 150K without blinking and no exensive parts to worry about failing, the gas savings is not that much!