What maintenance to keep my 280K km/175K mile gen2 on the road?

My 2005 Gen2 was Toyota dealer maintained since the beginning and has had its last service 2 years ago at 235K KM (145K miles). Shortly after this I purchased it.

Last year I did an oil and oil filter change myself and placed a new interior filter.

Right now it is at 280K km (175K miles) and it needs new brake discs in the front. A good time to see if it would be smart to include other maintenance as I plan not to do it myself this time (am also not planning on taking it to the Toyota dealer).

As the car has a lot of miles I am not looking to keep it as new. But I would like to keep it on the road for as long as I can with as little effort as possible (don't we all ;-)

Does anybody have any good tips on maintenance I should definitely consider doing right now? Things that come to mind are another oil change, replacing spark plugs? air filter? fuel filter?

I drive roughly 20.000 KM (12.500 miles) a year, mostly commuting.

 

Thank you, I will look into this.

Concerning looking into the services, unfortunately I don't have any other records than the dealer stamps in the service booklet that came with the car. I was under the impression that 'dealer maintained' meant it would have had all required service but that may be a bit naive. I will contact them to see if I can find out what has been done but as it is not near me and I wont be servicing there I could imagine them being reluctant to share this info... I am guessing there is no other way to find this out.

 

I should mention that I have a defective cell a little over year ago and had the battery replaced for a refurbished one. Don't know if that means I won't need this charger but I will look into it.

 

I went to 'a guy' who refurbishes batteries for prius and civic. He swapped my full battery (all cells) for one on his shelf that he previously 'fixed' by replacing bad cell(s) and doing whatever to make it work again

The price for this was 500 Euros which is the same as a Prolong charger from what I can tell after some Googling (excluding international shipping that I would probably need).

Do you really think this would be a smart investment on a 2005 prius with 175k miles? There is a chance my next car will also be a prius but probably the gen3.

 

I will call Toyota tomorrow and am trying to find translations for your suggestions.

Can you explain what inverter/transaxle coolant is? Or is this something Prius specific? I have trouble finding this. Same goes for the "inverter coolant pump". Are these things any local maintenance shop can do?

Concerning the front struts, the rubber is broken and almost gone but I don't notice anything while driving. I posted a topic on a Dutch forum about this and the advice was to leave it like this until they brake and then replace the struts.

I don't know the condition of the coil springs and the sway bar bushings. Is this something you definitely want to replace before it breaks?

 

Took me some time to get a hold of them but here we are:

Engine coollant was replaced at 150K KM and should be replaced again at 240K (was not and am now at 280)
Invertor coolant same story, was replaced at 150, should be replaced at 240 but was not and am now at 280.

So I guess I need to do both asap. Some questions:

- Is this easy to do myself? Am no expert at all but have changed oil, brake discs before (so that is my level...)
- I will have a holiday next week where I will be driving +/- 1000 KM at once and a week later the same trip back. Mostly level, freeways, last part though some mountains but nothing too steep. Is this a bad idea? I have the option to take a different car...

Besides this you suggested to look at the coolant pump which should be behind the headlight assembly before the fuse box but I don't see it, is it below there? See picture:

 

Thanks I'll look into that on the forum.

Toyota advises my to do an annual maintenance that includes all liquids such as oil and coolants which is priced at 409 euro. The front brake discs add another 390 euro's.

Am contemplating to bring the car to a local shop for the brakes (225 euro) and do the liquids myself.

But I don't have time to do this before my trip so it means I would be driving a great distance on very old coolant and that was why I was wondering of this is a problem.

 

Strange that it is different, but 80K vs 90K is not that big a difference right?

Whichever it is, I do need to change it that's for sure