So, I've been actively hunting at the bottom end of the Prius market for a while now, and can confirm planetaire's observation: Recent work on the older ones seems to include new
12v batteries.
Also: new front
wheel bearings have been mentioned in a few ads.
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There was one '08 for sale with body damage for $4k that I would have picked up in a heartbeat if it were closer. It had stem-to-stern dents/scrape along the driver's side, including a busted off mirror and broken driver's door glass.
And there was a cosmetically fine '05 with 300k kms / 186k mi. for $3k that sold within 2 days. Another case of I snoozed, I losed. "I'll go look at it on the weekend" has not panned out for me on the handful of $3k Prii that have come up.
I've nerded out and started a spreadsheet. Of 24 ads I've recorded for "bottom of the market" cars within 500 km (300 mi.), the average asking price is $4623, with an average year of 2004.9. (That's CAD, which is about 80% of USD right now.)
Still watching...