what should i look for when buying a 2nd hand prius?

£5k seems very low for a used Prius unless you get a very used one with a ton of miles (or in your case km's). While the Prius has proven itself to be a very reliable car over the years, you need to keep in mind that with older high-mileage cars there are going to be issues - you just need to hope that the problems are smaller and less expensive in nature. Chances are likely that you would not have a £3k battery or something else go wrong, but it could happen - just as you could have an expensive engine or transmission problem with any older car.

£5k is about $8k - I would not buy a Prius for that - any car that I could find around here would be old, have tons of miles and likely have issues. I'd look to buy the best Toyota or Honda that I could find for about $6-7k and bank the rest as a buffer for he repairs that will inevitably follow.

 

Mostly just normal stuff you would check with any other car. Make sure it hasn't been wrecked, make sure there are complete maintenance records, etc. I would also suggest finding a good mechanic that knows the Prius and pay to have it inspected. You can get a dealer to check it for you as long as it isn't the one you are buying it from.

Buzzing around on the electric motor isn't really an option, it doesn't work that way. When you start the car from cold the petrol engine will run until the car is warmed up. Then the engine will run as needed to keep itself and the catalytic converter warm, charge the battery, or provide power. Just as other cars the mileage is not so good on short trips.

But short trip mileage in a Prius is probably better than in other cars and once it is warmed up it does great. You can improve on the mileage by learning the "tricks" of Prius driving, well documented on this site if you can dig them out.

:welcome: Good luck.

 

A fully equipped with higher mileage, at the same price as

a standard model with lower mileage.

Upgrade the car at a later date to PHEV on the cheap. Kits today are almost half price that they were in 2006.

 

There were some recalls on the Prius, particularly before 2006, so you might want to verify that the recalls were performed.

Unfortunately there's no easy way to determine the condition of the battery pack. Generally it will last for a good long time, but how long is not well determined yet. It seems more dependent on time than on mileage, but it's starting to become an issue for some of the gen 1 model (2000-2003 model years). They improved the battery management software for the Gen II model (2004-2009), not sure what effect that has had.

Tumbleweed is right, you won't be riding around on electric-only unless the engine is already warmed up and the batteries are charged and you're not accelerating too hard or going too fast. But if you add a (relatively) expensive PHEV system, and can plug it in at home, then you can do that.

You probably don't have to worry about the brakes. With the regenerative brakes, the brake pads pretty much last the life of the car. (At least, the way I drive they do).