Toyota Prius 7 seater

CKhalvashi

I've just had one on a 24h test drive (for a potential fleet order), and they're absolutely brilliant, especially in London!

The main problem that I have with them is the £27k after discount, when we can get an equivalent spec S-Max for £19k.....We're not a small fleet either (about 90 cars)

Does anyone have any ideas on whether they're worth getting or not, over a 2 year period (average 40k mi/yr, CC zone 3-4 times a week, servicing and the infamous battery packs, and of course, depreciation) or not.

CK

forgotmyname

So how will recoup the extra £8000? Not exactly a similar match is it? S-Max 7 seater.

What did it do to the gallon on a typical workday enviroment?

Compare to a Focus ECOnetic. Focus does more to the gallon. Same tax band with 1g of CO2 les than the Prius.

Focus hatch or Estate. More choice. Probably shedloads cheaper.

CKhalvashi

forgotmyname wrote: »

So how will recoup the extra £8000? Not exactly a similar match is it? S-Max 7 seater.

What did it do to the gallon on a typical workday enviroment?

Compare to a Focus ECOnetic. Focus does more to the gallon. Same tax band with 1g of CO2 les than the Prius.

Focus hatch or Estate. More choice. Probably shedloads cheaper.

A Focus is be no means large enough for what we use our vehicles for, and even then, the S-Maxes have modified rear suspension.

My S-Max does about 46 on average, however something that I feel necessary to mention is that the majority of the fleet does less than that (as I'm normally on the M1/M4 and the company cars aren't. I'd say 28 as a fleet average. Using the Prius on the same trips, the average was 47. Useless for my own car, but perfect for London.

The £9 daily saving (fleet autopay) over 2 years, on, say 200 trips is £1,800 itself. My only concern is the battery packs and residual value, which on a brand new model, is yet to be tested.

CK

forgotmyname

Auto express review suggests the prius will do 42mpg average.

smitchy73

Some taxi's use Prius for their cars, and have been going strong for well over 200k miles. The saving for a working week all year are said to be around £2000 per year, and I think the fuel savings whilst driving in London will be kept up, because if you're moving in slow to still traffic, the car runs on the electric mode(I believe) so could be well worth the effort, plus would you be paying the public price even though you're buying 90 of them, if so you need a new broker, there's no way you should be paying the same price as one when you're buying 90!
Hope this helps.

Hintza

Gathering ideas from the other comments perhaps run them (Prius) for an additional year? So if you keep fleet cars for 3 years why not try and run them for 4?


This really is a number crunching operation assuming the reliability is much the same.

bodgerx

forgotmyname wrote: »

Auto express review suggests the prius will do 42mpg average.

I laughed when I saw this. This is a car journalist driving the car on its door handles.

You would have to be pulling something special to get the Prius below 50mpg. In my experience, I don't think it is possible

57-60mpg is typical. Look at the Honest John real mpg figures for sensible numbers.

forgotmyname

Plenty of road tests out there to backup the poor fuel consumption.

UK and US and other countries also.

1300kg with only 76bhp. Its never going to be brilliant. It needs more power from that engine.

Around town with the batteries doing the work its OK, But on a UK motorway it wont compete with modern diesels.

bigjl

Prius is a widely used car for Private Hire work in London.

Some have been worked for 5 or 6 years and wel over 250k on them now.

Lewis Day had a huge fleet of Passat's and Prius(old shape). They sued VAG due to the Passat's being the most unreliable car they had ever had on the fleet.

They bought/leased another 150 Prius in the new shape(with the 1.8 engine)

Plenty of the old ones still being used for PH, they mostly had ** *** LDT reg numbers.

I know lots of people that work in PH and also a couple of fleet managers for PH firms, not heard of any battery pack failures.

Day drivers will get mid to high 40's, stuck in traffic and slow average speeds in London, night drivers will tend to break the 50mpg barrier easily enough unless they are heavy footed.

Don't worry about what motoring "journalists" say, they are mostly middle class and biased towards VAG products.

The residuals are pretty good even with high miles, check places like Cargiant and you can see what above average miles Prius are going for in the used market.

I would have no problems buying/using a Prius doing 50k a year for a few years.

Believe me when I say London PH drivers, owner aswell as fleets, wouldn't use them if they were expensive to run.

They aren't economical on high sped motorway runs though, much worse than a diesel, but a diesel is designed for the long run, egr valves, dmf's and DPF's all suffer in urban use. A Prius is really designed for urban use.