He bought a 2007 Prius for $1,500, battery for $1,500, and sold it for $4,000, although I was surprised how much work it was. None of it looked difficult, but I swear there were hundreds of nuts alone!
I looked at all of the Prii listed on Craigslist in the Phoenix area up to $6,000. Strangely, the less expensive ones had clean titles, but as I looked at increasingly expensive ones I found five with restored salvage titles!
When I shopped for my Civic I kept finding Prii for $4,000 with two of the following: Bad transmissions, bad traction batteries, and a salvage title. There were actually two Prii for about $2,000 with around 270,000 miles. One said it had a rebuilt battery. The other did not mention the battery.
I did not see a single listing showing a bad battery.
If I were not 3.5 hours away I would want to look at those two Prii, but my Accord drives well now. I need to fix my Civic and catch up on other projects.