Smart or stupid? My new 260k 2009 Prius

Nope I paid about $800 less 2 years ago for the same car that needed a tad bit less work but even so wouldn't have really matter to me drive axles and all those consumable parts need to be dealt with probably once in the car's life and you got the car at that time it's just a look of the draw like the vibe it's a decent car to work on most everything can be done in the driveway you won't really need air tools for anything if you do get the big DeWalt electric gun the 20 volt thingy that does 700 ft lb and a few extensions and whatnot and that'll take care of any hard to turn nonsense on the Prius. It's a lot of fun to mess with. Batteries all the hobby charging business and sell to sell work forget it just buy yourself a battery when you get a minute unless you just have plenty of time on your hands and hours and hours of time to charge each cell and discharge each cell. Great second or third car actually it should be able to take this bad boy to 500,000 pretty easily and I mean pretty easily The little bit of work you got here is peanuts even having to replace the hybrid battery do it right and it'll probably last to 18 to 20 that the original one did but if you're a young guy and you're looking to get out of the car as fast as you got in so you can buy a whatever you insert. Then maybe not bother.

 

i think you made a good decision in the current environment, consider tech stream, and a service manual.

all the best!

 

$2700 for 260k miles, you can't negotiate? that seems to be on the high side with all the issues. My budget is always on $1k with issues or need collision repairs. I haven't spent $1k on DIY repairs on my previous $1k Priuses (they're at 245k miles)

 

Prices went crazy this summer, so previous sales really don't mean much. Regardless, this is the place to be if you want to keep it running. The more I learn about these cars the more I like them. And truth be told I thought they were crap. But now both kids have them and I got one this year when gas went nuts. Not a bad car, got my first over 50 MPG tank this week. Of course now something expensive will break!

 

Just take it as it comes. Your personal good experiences with multiple Priuses will be more valuable than hypotheticals.

While PC is a great resource, it often presents a biased view of the reliability or rather the supposed unreliability of the Prius. Probably happens because people come here with problems to solve. It’s like reading an Ask Abby column sometimes. Some posters here like to interject negative possibilities of reliability at every instance. Often the negative comments are without substantiation.

With the millions of Priuses on the road over the past two decades compared to many ICE vehicles the number of problems with the Prius is small.

When I bought mine, I figured I’d take the risk it would fail. The party I bought it from who was the second owner, owned it for a decade, maintained it according to Toyota spec and told me the only reason they were selling it was because his daughter didn’t think it was cool enough to drive. She leased a Jeep instead that gets one third the mpg of the Prius. Genius.

So far the car has not failed me. Will fail eventually but so will my body. I don’t fret over it. I love owning and driving this car.

 

It is hard to lose money n a Prius if you buy it for $1k. It's Cat is worth that.

 

Report from the Boston area! I bought a 2007 with 122K miles last week. It is loaded with options, leather seats, etc, new tires, new 12 Volt battery. Someone stole the original car. It wqs replaced with an aftermarket cat and O2 sensors. CEL stays on. No big deal here in Mass; fifteen year old cars are exempt from emissions testing. Couple small things, all basically DIY and cosmetic repairs. Will not bore you with the details. Nice car. $5,000,

I looked for two months for 2005-2009 2nd Gen and saw a lot of Priuses ( Prii?) advertised on Craigs List and facebook Marketplace. Most had high mileage and equally high prices. This one was found in Brockton Mass and was being sold on a mechanic’s lien of $3,800 worth of repairs. Advertised on Facebook Marketplace. This is my first Prius. I think I done good.

 

It's also a great deal to have a little fleet like that, get the best use out of one set of tools and spare parts.

 

I was about to spend $5000 on another 2013 for backup and potentially a 1.5" lift kit modded ride. I've also been wanting to have a complete gen2 to work on and study being most the diverse application openinverter.org designs (vehicles and mains output so far... I want to add universal generator inverter, welder and plasma cutter) seem to have came from the gen2's inverter/converter assembly.

Well, the 2013 seller backed out and I was left with wondering what to do. Saw a $400 2006 Prius drive off on me (read actually) before I could get down and then a $1,500 north of there that was offered to me for $1,400.

I jumped on the chance, got a bus trip booked and the seller picked me up from the Bus Station. We notarized the title at the bank and I drove her home with knowledge the cruise control didn't work, almost all the brakes had been redone other than the ABS Actuator-Accumulator (maybe C1343 isn't RR tab needs pressed in and adjusted out to increase pressure), custom exhaust where cat and O2 sensors need replaced (later found P0031, P0037 and P2238 codes) and maybe the 12V battery dated 2020 needed replaced to get the dash lights to go away. Also reported, burns 1/2q oil every 2000-3000 miles and had to add a little coolant to the inverter coolant tank after 20k miles. All fluids were flushed at the Toyota dealership at 212k miles with service all being at Toyota or Japanese service shops.

The TPMS light came on as well and the seller noted that, that light just came on and he didn't notice before nor was in his video (P2122, P2123 & P2124). I did find after stopping for gas and checking over again after driving out of the city, the rear driver tire pressure was 32psi compared to the rest being ~40psi where I inflated them all to the same. Also, along the drive I was introduced to the clunky sounds coming from what I assume to be the suspension. Didn't seem like tie rods and was reported as loose spacers. That will need to be inspected some more to make sure no drive shaft issues regarding lift and other down beneath. Plan to do in detail when I swap strut springs.

Cruise wound up being placing the shift lever out of "B" position and I've so far picked up most the parts I need or wanted from the 50% Sale at the salvage yard (front grill, LF inner fender & misc parts, x2 - RF bumper guard clip, rear hatch handle part along with another connector for custom inside switch, AWD Matrix front springs, gen 2 inverter/converter assembly to play with). I'm thinking I'll get another set of rims and tires for touring since came with 215/70R15's and the lift that's 1.5" lift blocks and RUBBERSOX brand coil spacers.

Holding down the TPMS button didn't seem to reset as the seller noted in a later message.

Any thoughts or considerations I'm missing?

Is yours actually a Prius 3 as in Gen3 or a 2009 Gen2? As noted above, I knew I was going to be spending some like you're noting... with

 

If you want the TPMS light out, you need a TPMS tool that can "ping" each sensor to see if it works. (avg battery lifespan is about 10 years- might be time for new sensors).

Then you need a scantool to talk to the TPMS system on the car and see if the sensor ID numbers are correct.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

OK, I'll try to read into some more.

Oddly on my 2013 prius, I just had a pair of Yokohama YK740's installed and my TPMS light came on after maybe fifteen minutes on the freeway after I hit a bump. I stopped, checked pressure and found 48psi, so reduced to 42 and about the same time after back on the freeway hit a bump again and came on. Not sure if the bump was related or timing or what.

Was thinking maybe the soapy water fluid possibly impacted the signal or maybe leaked into?

On another note, got the rear AWD Matrix struts from the yard where I was surprised to find another 50% sale period happening. Found a gen 3 rim with good enough 195-16R15 tire as well as some trim pieces and another hatch handle part that I'm going to make a DIY re-enforced design either using stainless steel mesh or sheet metal ironed into the part with I'm thinking epoxy potting over all that or maybe polyurethane since I have some tubes of. I got another inverter-converter assembly as well to work with. Debated getting the sway bars off the Matrix, though seems like more weight that isn't required. More likely sway bar linkages and bushings need replaced or maybe with the sway bar some rubber hose pieces DIY'd for now to fill the gaps if needed. Not sure if there are joints that can interchange as those might be better to use.

 

Discount Tire checked my 2006 tire that I noticed has a slow leak. They patched and balanced the tire for free as well as checked all my TPMS sensor for free. All but three were barely able to be powered enough to be detected and only the one provided a psi measurement.

They noted $20 to install for each wheel a customer purchased TPMS and $65 for their 6 year warranty TPMS purchased there and installed for each wheel.