Is Toyota Prius for older people

cootuk

We probably have one of the worst Prius GenII fuel consumptions - short urban trips from cold...between 45-50mpg.
Motorways/A-roads around 55mpg.

No starter motor as the planetary gear system does that.
No DPF or DMF to go wrong.
Planetary gears appear rock solid.
Very few HV battery failures (remember in california they are warranted 15 years)
Silky smooth drive, though can be raucous when accelerating hard.
Great torque without any kickdown usually associated with autos.

Take one for a test drive.
Most who detract a Prius have either never driven one, saw something about it on Top Gear, or read an article sposored by Detroit companies.

End of the day, it's a car.

We bought ours the same time as a friend bought a diesel Passat.
Ours is running fine, no problems,...just had a new rear exhaust section put on...friends Passat has had all sorts of problems and they had to get rid before it died completely. There's german engineering for you.

A mondeo would be a cheaper alternative. What you don't pay up front in purchase, you pay over the years in fuel and roadtax.

A 55reg GenII should be under £5000 from a non main dealer.
Say £2.5k for a Mondeo or Focus if you want lower mileage models - but those will have maybe £175pa road tax and real urban fuel economy of 2/3rds of a Prius.
14000 miles at 50mpg = 280 gallons pa hybrid, or 400 gallons normal ..
so 120 gallons pa extra...540 litres...£700 pa extra..£3500 over 5 years.

One reason why people choose a hybrid is we would rather pay extra for the car so less goes into the pocket of the Chancellor via taxation.

dazleeds1978

Hi All,

Just to say big thank you all. I have decided to buy the Toyota Prius after test drive. The dealer gave me full warranty for 3 years for everything apart from tear and wear. all electrical system, hybrid battery, engine and everything else is covered. and it will get full an mot for 1 year and free full service for 6k for 2007 reg.

Is really quite to drive and big for our family.

Thank you all for your help.

cootuk

As an aside, a good number of taxi drivers in Bradford have switched to Prius...not something they would do if it didn't stack up financially. And taxis aren't the sort of cars that get main dealer serviced.

grayme-m

dazleeds1978 wrote: »

I like Toyota cars they are very reliable...

I don't like them, mine wasn't... :rotfl:

londonTiger

the prius is generally preferred by taxi drivers and people who are sensitive about what they pay at the pump and emissions but do not really care about aesthetics.

The problem is that the numbers don't make sense the lithium ion batteries are very heavy and very expensive a prius will need to get it's batteries replaced in 6-10 years and it will be a £10K+ bill to do.

My problem with the prius is that it's hideously designed - I am not sure why they designed the car the way they did - sure it may give you an edge in reducing aerodynamic drag. But given that it's designed to be driven in the city and not for motorways I don't know why it was such a priority.

Mind you - I haven't looked into the inside of a prius. Maybe there's a second motor and huge battery pack requiring the car to be taller and fatter at the back.

Toyota came out with the prius before. In fact there's a 10-20+ year old hybrid car that's smaller than the current prius that works in the same way. Also there is another prius that was built as well that looks like a conventional toyota saloon car.

victor2

londonTiger wrote: »

The problem is that the numbers don't make sense the lithium ion batteries are very heavy and very expensive a prius will need to get it's batteries replaced in 6-10 years and it will be a £10K+ bill to do.

You're just a little bit wrong there - on every count!
The batteries are NiMH, weigh about 53Kg (could be "very heavy" compared to a box of cornflakes I suppose), have an 8 year Toyota warranty on them and are considered to last the life of the car. If they were Lithium Ion, they would be considerably lighter. I certainly haven't been able to find a record of somebody in the UK replacing one. The price from Toyota in the US appears to be around US$2,500

cootuk

Why do people slag off the rear end of a Prius, but not a Civic?

Maybe they design the aerodynamics because there's also air drag in towns because.. surprisingly. .there's air present.. unless it's different on your planet.

londonTiger

victor2 wrote: »

You're just a little bit wrong there - on every count!
The batteries are NiMH, weigh about 53Kg (could be "very heavy" compared to a box of cornflakes I suppose), have an 8 year Toyota warranty on them and are considered to last the life of the car. If they were Lithium Ion, they would be considerably lighter. I certainly haven't been able to find a record of somebody in the UK replacing one. The price from Toyota in the US appears to be around US$2,500

sorry, I think I was confusing it with the tesla cars. Prius just uses electricity as support. Tesla is exclusively electric so the entire floor is covered with batteries.

Mallotum_X

cootuk wrote: »

Why do people slag off the rear end of a Prius, but not a Civic?

Maybe they design the aerodynamics because there's also air drag in towns because.. surprisingly. .there's air present.. unless it's different on your planet.

Maybe as the Prius is dog ugly and the civic looks good?

Similar but different..

I dont really get why Hybrid cars usually have that look.

Its almost like people wanting to wear sack cloth and ashes

londonTiger

cootuk wrote: »

Why do people slag off the rear end of a Prius, but not a Civic?

Maybe they design the aerodynamics because there's also air drag in towns because.. surprisingly. .there's air present.. unless it's different on your planet.

It's bad in the civic too. But the problem with the prius is that it looks bad at every angle. The front, side & back are ugly.

At least the civic looks good front front and side.

Drag is an issue for all cars, but at slow speed it doesn't have as much as an impact as on the motorways. Drag increases exponentially the faster you go.