(Or "The Governor's Limo" for those of you south of the 49th.)
The C.R.A.P. Prius hunt is over!
Those of you following my adventure already know that
after many months of hunting high & low, I finally found a Cheap or Reasonably Affordable Prospective Prius. It'll serve as a winter beater to keep the Firefly/Metro away from the annual salty, slushy mess for a year or maybe 2.
This thread will document my experience with the car, including lots of ecomods to come.
This car's story:
It's a 2004 that started life in the chauffeured section of the Ontario provincial government motor pool. Driving cabinet ministers & VIP's around I suppose. I choose to believe this was the Premier's dedicated car.
Sold at auction in 2009, it was bought by a dealership in the province of Quebec who then sold it to the 2nd long-term owner in Gatineau who used it as a commuter to her job on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
She bought a 2012 Prius a couple of weeks ago and put this one up for sale. I asked why she didn't trade in the the '04 for it, and she said, "because the dealer only offered me a thousand bucks!"
Details
- base model
- 270k kilometers / 168k miles
- complete maintenance history (a stack of receipts 2 inches thick) -- both owners were by-the-book meticulous
- 1 year old summer tires (Firestone FR710, which they say is in their "best" category for fuel economy) which were set at ~28-29 PSI!
- 2-3 year old winter tires on rims
- front bumper cover replaced last year (slid into a ditch last winter & shattered it)
- aside from that, all original paintwork
Issues:
- plenty of scrapes, scratches, dings and stone chips -- definitely not a show car
- the interior is fair, but will clean up nicely, except for the wear on the driver's door "soft touch paint"
- exhaust leaks (2 small holes) in the rear pipe, which I sealed with bondo for now (I've done this before & it works great, BTW). The holes are in spots that are readily fixable (weldable) if I take the section off the car, which doesn't look hard to do.
- rust has taken hold in the rocker panels -- they're bubbling noticeably by the rear. There will be some cutting & patching in the car's future. It should have been oil sprayed every year.
- The driver's caliper area is making a strange, short creak...creak...creak or tick...tick...tick sound directly related to how much pressure is on the pedal (at firm levels), even when stopped . My mechanic thinks it might be seized sliders.
- one torn front strut boot
- 2 AWOL wheel trim rings
Aside from those things, it runs & drives fine, and everything works. Also: she said she never had to add any oil between changes.
She was asking a reasonable price and I made an ASAP appointment to see the car within an hour of the ad going online.
It's at the shop right now for the mechanical safety check. I'll know by the end of the day if I missed anything. Fingers crossed that there are no whammies!
Here's the rusty spot (one on each side, since repaired with welded-in new metal):
Planned mods:
- grille blocks- smooth wheel discs- rear fender skirts
- front air dam
- smooth(er) and more extensive undertray
- passenger mirror delete / convex interior mirror
- convex mirror on trailing edge of driver's side mirror
- rear wiper delete
- OEM mud flap delete
- boat tail
- coolant heater
- DRL switch
- see what it's like without EPS at elevated tire pressure
Completed mods:
- tire pressure
- EV mode switch
- ScanGauge, with added Prius-specific X-Gauges
- "zero toe" alignment