prius newbie

hello, im jeff from houston area

i have recently got into the prius and love it, especially the gas savings

a little about me and my prius experience

i first got an 02 prius with 131k miles on it, it drove good for first month, put about 1k miles on it then got the famous lights of death, used my matco demoniator scanner and saw bank 6 had bad battery voltage. pulled out battery and replaced cell, cleaned harness, then reinstalled. it didnt work so i took back out found a few of the wires had broken and were weak(my fault for using electric drill and not knowing how shitty and weak they tabs were) i use standard eye sockets to replace the broken ones. i put back together and the battery did good for a while then dropped again. i scanned and it told me i have unlevel battery levels. i got a hobby charger and charged each cell and it took about 2 weeks total to do a 3 stage charge/discharge and final charge to try and keep all batteries close to same. put back in and it didnt work. i bit the bullet and bought junkyard 2011 batteries(gen 3) they fit and its a tight fit. and it didnt work. i took battery apart for last time and found on last battery away from pc that had large power wire going to it was hiding a small wire and it had a tab broken. alas i found the problem hiding behind the larger power wire. i replaced that last broken tab with another standard electrical eye. i have put almost 2k miles on the batteries with no problems and no lights. to go along with that i put new shocks and struts on, got a full size spare to fit in trunk.



and my new project

last night i bought an 04 prius with 295k miles on it. yes you see correctly. it had good carfax, and recently 500 miles ago was at dealer and had hv battery checked and ok'd. the brake and abs light is on. never had brakes done and they are bad, but that was how i got the car cheap($3100). i got quote on brake parts for about 150 total for new rotors,pads, drums, shoes and the hardware. i got a quote on an engine and trans at about 450 for both(if i have to replace 1 i will do both at same time). the engine sounds good and runs good, the battery is still getting around 50mpg. the car is stronger than my older car and has more get up and go. i also like the larger room it has. the good thing is if i have to replace the eng/trans and hv battery i will have less money in this car than the other car. that is a major reason i got the car and the other is because most every other prius i saw with 150k miles was 9-10k+++



i also wanted to say i wouldnt have bought these cars if it werent for this site, so i figured i would come here and give my experiences

thanks for awesome prius chat

 

a few other thing im going to do and have done

for the 02 i did a tranny service, i pulled the pan cleaned and removed metal, i used beck/arnley fluid at about 7 per quart. i also did shocks and struts and used kyb gas shocks with lifetime warranty at about 70 per shock/strut. and i have some beck/arnley red coolant to put in(hanvt done yet)

today i put 04 on lift and this is what i find

not much rust, really no oil or tranny leaks, cv axle and boots look good, tires are good and even wear pattern, i did not take off tires so i cant see inside drum, but front brakes have about 5-10% life and where banjo bolts to caliper on brake line its leaking on both sides, also 1 wheel cylinder is leaking on the rear drum. i forgot at what mileage but the carfax had deal check and flush the brakes, maybe it was a few thousand miles ago.
i just ordered front rotors and pads(ceramic) and i will most likely make new teflon ss brakelines, rear drums,shoes, wheel cylinders, and the hardware kit, more beck tranny fluid and coolant, synthetic oil and filter. once i get brake and abs light off i will do the shocks and struts also.

any other maintenance i should look at in anyones opinion