Prius as a long term partner?

If you were going to keep the car for 15 years, any additional repair expense would be offset by the money saved in fuel. Prius wins hands down.

However if you don't think you'll drive it for 15 years (which will be close to 20 year old car on a 2010 model), the corolla or civic would give you a good run for your money.

 

I would have no problem recommending a Prius to someone that was looking to hold onto a car for sometime and I would not recommend a car from a certain German car company if they were looking for a long term car.

 

no car meets your requirements, and no relationship for that matter.

 

Prius battery failures are very unlikely. Less than 1% IIRC. That means the likely cost of replacing the battery is $20 at some future date. The NPV of that potential expense is even less.

 

That < 1% number report from years ago came at a time when the population on the road included no old cars, and few high mileage cars. I.e. is was heavily weighted towards young low-mileage cars. And it included only warranty replacements, not the out-of-warranty replacements on the few highest mileage cars.

Expect a much higher replacement rate by end-of-life. I believe we are already seeing it on the older GenIIs.

When I bought my Prius, I budgeted for one battery replacement, hopefully not before 150k. And if the original goes beyond 200k, then I probably won't replace a dead battery at all, just replace the whole car.

 

Are there any statistics about the Gen IIs now that they're older?

Either way the NPV of that potential repair is very small.

 

Look at the pedigree. This is traditionally something Toyota does well.

These are all good candidates. If you want to predict the life expectancy of the third gen. Prius I would suggest you stop by the first gen. Prius forum and see how they are doing. Some of them are what, thirteen years old now?

 

I haven't seen solid statistics, but don't have any faith that the NPV is as small as you suggest. Where you suggested low 2 digits, I'm expecting mid to very high 3 digits. While this is small compared to the 4 digit cost of repairs to keep my household's cars running for two decades, or the 5 digit cost of replacing them, it doesn't count as 'very small'.

 

If 1/100 (1%) of Prii need a HVB replacement during the expected life of the vehicle and the cost is $2000 then the expected cost is $20 per Prius on the road (2000 x 1%). That is very small.

An individual owner may say that the expected repair cost multiplied by the probability of a repair yields a value that's too low for their personal comfort because they're more risk averse. Then you can multiply the $20 expected repair cost times a risk aversion factor.

This is the same math that's behind gambling, game shows, contests, drawings, raffles, everything. This is the same math I used to decline GAP insurance on our Prius lease. I calculated the expected gap cost for each month of ownership during the 36 months and then averaged those values to get the expected gap were our car to be totaled. I then multiplied that gap times the probability of our car being totaled based on local crash data. I then compared that to the cost of the gap insurance offered by Toyota and determined that it would cost us more to buy the gap insurance over the life of the lease than the expected payout we would get from the insurance. That means that even if our odds of wrecking the car were 100% during the 36 month lease, the gap insurance still would have been a rip off. When the finance lady tried to push it on us when I declined I went through and explained the math that I had done to her and she was surprised to have a customer who actually understood how the insurance worked rather than being able to fool people into buying it. Needless to say I wrote up on the Toyota survey about how dissatisfied I was with the finance lady's approach.

The same principle applies to Health Insurance. When purchasing health insurance for my wife this year we had the choice of a plan with a lower premium but a higher out-of-pocket limit or a plan with a higher premium but a lower OOP limit. We compared the total premium cost and the total OOP cost for various scenarios for expected health expenses this year and ultimately chose the plan with the higher premium and lower OOP limit. We're paying about $200/yr in higher premiums but have saved $1000 by having a $1000 OOP limit instead of a $2000 OOP limit.

Insurance & projected cost is all just an exercise in statistics & risk management.

 

I understand that, but don't any faith that your 1% failure rate guesstimate is realistic.

Apparently neither does one of the most senior mechanics here. See Patrick Wong's reply, Post #9, in this thread: Hybrid battery insurance/coop.

 

Ever since The Superbowl, where Bob Dylan advised me to let the Germans make my Beer, The Japanese make my Cell Phone, and let "Chrysler" make my car, I've been in a real funk.

But putting all that aside, the tricky aspect of the evaluation is the term "Normal Maintenance". In a 15 year period, there are maintenance aspects of a Hybrid that while "normal" for them, would be considered expensive and not "normal" for any regular ICE vehicle. Primarily the replacement of the Hybrid Battery.

Again, as I've said in numerous other threads, I think you buy a hybrid because you want a hybrid. It's a perfectly valid and even good choice as a "long term" vehicle. BUT if you are even really comparing The Prius or a Hybrid to a Corolla or Civic, then you have to ask, "Do you really want a Hybrid for what a Hybrid is?".

If you'd be just as happy in 10-15 years with a regular Corolla or Civic, then perhaps the answer is that owning a Hybrid is not personally priority enough to the potential buyer to justify the purchase. It shouldn't really come down to evaluating Prius vs. Corolla or Civic...but more do you want a Hybrid for the advantages a Hybrid offers in terms of operation, great gas mileage and lower emissions? Or do you simply want something to get from point A-B, that is perfectly reasonable in comparison to any other ICE vehicle?

If the answer is "Personally" that a Corolla or Civic would be perfectly acceptable to the potential owner? Than I'd say wait until owning a Hybrid IS unquestionably what you want to do....

 

On thing about owning a Prius long term is that there's a lot of them out there to find used parts when you need them.