Used Toyota Prius (Budget about £6500)

gilbert_and_sullivan

Obukit wrote: »

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.

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55 mpg round town and local stop start is pretty good going from a well thrashed Diesel, automatic too?

Obukit

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

55 mpg round town and local stop start is pretty good going from a well thrashed Diesel, automatic too?

No, manual. It's helped by the fact we live in the countryside so a lot of the driving is 60mph cruising, but also a few trips into Oxford where you have to brake every five seconds because of the halfwitted cyclists. Yes, I was pleasantly surprised by it though compared to a modern diesel - 160mile trip from Wales to Oxford used a little more than 1/4 tank.

I always think 2 litre-ish is a good diesel engine size as it's enough power/torque to mostly keep the revs just under 2k rpm while still accelerating briskly, which means it sips the fuel.

cootuk

56 plate was a minor facelift. We have one. Slight changes to lights, extra decals, tweaking of traction control.
Autotrader shows quite a few 56 or later with less than 55k miles within your price range.
On the Toyota website, warranty is 8yrs or 100000 miles for hybrid side, so tales of massive bills are often exagerated. There are no serviceable parts for the hybrid system until around the 100k mark iirc, where there are fluid changes. I believe the hybrid coolant pump has a recall on it though.

If you need to tow, you cant. There's no type approved towbar in the EU.

Short trips from cold we get low 40s mpg.
Once warm we get 50s round town, 50s on motorway.
Prius is really suited to stop/start traffic.
Just ignore the plonkers that try comparing Prius mpg round town against a diesel on the motorway. This is a full size family car too, not some tiny city car like a VW Fox.

The drive train and hybrid system appear to be very reliable.

However...do you pay more for a hybrid and save on petrol, or pay less for a conventional car but more for fuel? It's only a car.

vulcanpilot

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

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.

Couldn't agree more, having both a BMW (X3) and Prius (2011 T-Spirit) in the family.

We are on our 2nd Prius, the previous one being a Generation 2, 2007 model, and in all my years of driving, and all the cars I've owned, the Prius is THE most reliable and fuel efficient car i've owned. The 2007 frequently was in the 60mpg bracket (slightly less in the winter months). The new Prius is consistently over 62mpg and only had since September. So far the best tank has been 68.5mpg. It's a big, 5 seater, with plenty of head and leg room and a pretty large boot. The toys on our 2011 T-Spirit are great, including radar cruise control, pre-crash safety/braking, LED lights, heated leather seats .... blah blah... the list goes on.

Now, when the Diesel owners spout up about their high MPG's, remember that is 'Diesel-price' MPG - the 'petrol equivalent' MPG will be somewhat less because Diesel is up to 10p per litre more expensive - and it's a filthy, dirty, polluting fuel best suited to farm machinery IMHO

There are some downsides in owning a Prius - most notably the to$$ers that tailgate you, thinking that as it's a hybrid, it must be sloooooooow. They get a bit of a shock as in 'power' mode, it can out-accelerate a bog-standard Focus or Mondeo with ease. And you don't accumulate your Morrisons points as quickly as other drivers either

In all seriousness, if you are considering buying one, go for a test drive in a used one to see if you get on with the quirks of the car, like not having any gears or the regenerative braking (which save money on not having to replace brake discs/pads so often). And don't believe all you read about Hybrids being world destroyers for using all that nasty Nickel in their batteries. Most used in the traction batteries is from recycled sources, and all Toyota dealers get paid a bounty for returning any duff batteries for recycling.

jase1

I have to laugh at all this stuff about hybrid reliability -- it's all based on the same anecdotal information that diesel owners are so quick to dismiss when its used against modern diesel engines.

Come on guys, you can't have it both ways

bodgerx

Obukit wrote: »

Almost any mid-size diesel beats a Prius on MPG, with some of the smaller ones doing double the MPG of a Prius.

Not around town they don't. The Prius is also a fairly big car inside - bigger than say a Golf on the inside.

bodgerx

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201231480796874/sort/default/usedcars/price-to/7000/price-from/6000/model/prius/make/toyota/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/onesearchad/new/page/5/radius/1500/postcode/yo178bd/quicksearch/true?logcode=p

2007 with 26K on the clock @£6.9k...

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201231480796874/sort/default/usedcars/price-to/7000/price-from/6000/model/prius/make/toyota/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/onesearchad/new/page/5/radius/1500/postcode/yo178bd/quicksearch/true?logcode=p

Johnmcl7

bodgerx wrote: »

Not around town they don't. The Prius is also a fairly big car inside - bigger than say a Golf on the inside.

Is it? The most recent Prius I was in had a surprisingly small boot for the size of the car.

John

forgotmyname

Bigger than a gold inside, But its a LOT bigger than a golf outside also.

Closer to a passat size than a golf. Passat about 30cm longer though.
Golf is about 40cm shorter than the prius.

You can pick up a 2009 passat for £5000 though.

A much safer bet. Pickup a mondeo for even less.

2 adverts for the same car? You having trouble flogging it?