Used Toyota Prius (Budget about £6500)

TokyoJoe

Hello, looking to buy a used Toyota Prius with a budget of about £6500 -£7000. We looked at Car giant at the weekend and saw a couple of cars for about this price with about 75,000 miles ( I think 2007 model). BCA seems to have a lot of Prius for auction at Blackbush but wondering what sort of deal I could expect there or if it is better to look at Private sellers or other dealers. Pleasantly surprised at car giant in that there was no hard sell but could not really see the advantage of buying through them as there was no real guarantee other than statutory rights and a third party (AA ) warranty. My wife is very skeptical about ebay or auctions for some reason.

forgotmyname

Big issue are the batteries covered under the warranty? Or are they wear and tear at that age?

I think you will be better off with a normal car not a hybrid at that price range.

worried_jim

Go for the Prius, there are no battery problems.

Battery life cycle
As the Prius reached ten years of being available in the U.S. market, in February 2011 Consumer Reports decided to look at the lifetime of the Prius battery and the cost to replace it. The magazine tested a 2002 Toyota Prius with over 200,000 miles on it, and compared the results to the nearly identical 2001 Prius with 2,000 miles tested by Consumer Reports 10 years before. The comparison showed little difference in performance when tested for fuel economy and acceleration. Overall fuel economy of the 2001 model was 40.6 miles per US gallon (5.79 L/100 km; 48.8 mpg-imp) while the 2002 Prius with high mileage delivered 40.4 miles per US gallon (5.82 L/100 km; 48.5 mpg-imp). The magazine concluded that the effectiveness of the battery has not degraded over the long run.[82] The cost of replacing the battery varies between US$2,200 and US$2,600 from a Toyota dealer, but low-use units from salvage yards are available for around US$500.[82] One piece of research indicates it may be worthwhile to rebuild batteries using good blades from defective used batteries.[83]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius

Rolandtheroadie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBV486ignTk

Just dont take on the attitude of some Prius owners.

Strider590

scotsman4th wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBV486ignTk

Just dont take on the attitude of some Prius owners.

Better still, buy something better, of the same age, with all the nice extra's and for half the price. Then put half the money you saved into a special "petrol bank account", we all know it makes sense.......

Unless your thinking "but what about my carbon footprint?", in which case you need to do some research into the actual environmental impact of hybrids.

getmore4less

Why do you want one?

friend has one.

says its relativly useless economy on long runs

ok around town.

GolfBravo

A used 5yo Prius with 75K miles for £7K? Somehow I don't like the sound of that.

Putting the "Prius issue" aside (some people love them, some hate them), I think it would be a very expensive car to maintain.

Apart from batteries there are many more things that can go wrong with the car - things that are very expensive to replace, things that are absent from a normal car. Have you checked the cost of replacing batteries, power inverter/converter thing, inverter water pump and hugely complicated transmission? I'm sure they are all fixable/replaceable parts, but we're not in California where there are thousands of Priuses with unlimited supply of spare parts.

I friend of mine bought his second Prius last year, he replaced his 4yo first generation with the second generation. He loved the first one, and thankfully he had the extended warranty because there were many things that went wrong with it in 4 years: 2x power converter thing (apparently Toyota charge thousands to fix them), water pump (Toyota just replaced it during a routine service), one new transmission (Toyota didn't just fix it, they had to replace it). That's a lot for his 15K annual mileage. So he decided to replace it with the new one - in 12 months the new car required warranty repairs twice (power inverter/charging/braking issues).

I think for £7K you can do much better than an old Prius.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Apart from BMW's i've never known a car to be so hated, and like BMW's usually by those who have never driven one.

In town and for local shortish runs they have no equal given their size, especially if a smooth quiet drive is appreciated, they are about as economical as a good Diesel for longer runs.

Nothing wrong with Ebay if you use your loaf, especially the classifieds, just a slightly cheaper form of advertising than Trader.

The best place to buy from would be a proper Toyota dealer, hopefully get a full Toyota approved used warranty as well, which is worth the paper its written on, unlike the spare toilet roll most used car bombsites push.

rev_henry

Strider590 wrote: »

Better still, buy something better, of the same age, with all the nice extra's and for half the price. Then put half the money you saved into a special "petrol bank account", we all know it makes sense.......

Unless your thinking "but what about my carbon footprint?", in which case you need to do some research into the actual environmental impact of hybrids.

In fairness the T-Spirit Prius (top model) has a LOT of gadgets and buttons. Otherwise I agree with you.

Obukit

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

In town and for local shortish runs they have no equal given their size, especially if a smooth quiet drive is appreciated, they are about as economical as a good Diesel for longer runs.

Almost any mid-size diesel beats a Prius on MPG, with some of the smaller ones doing double the MPG of a Prius. As others have said, if something goes wrong with the electrics on a Prius it is an expensive trip to a Toyota dealer in most cases. Priuses only make sense if you are into hypermiling.

Compare that with my VW Golf, 55mpg when driven pretty hard, runs on vegetable oil at half the price of petrol, and a ton better for the environment. Plentiful scrapyard parts, and most problems can be fixed with a hammer (or a brick if you don't have a hammer). And all that for less than £500.

Still it's the OPs choice, I hope they are making a considered decision rather than just choosing it as a fashion statement though.

jaydeeuk1

Anyway, the honda one is better