What to look for when buying a used Prius

[Daox]

I wouldn't worry about the battery too much. Yeah its old, but my 04 is still kicking without any hiccups. Now that they're getting older there have been a few more cases of packs being replaced, but its still few and far between.

I'd be more concerned about the price, $9k woo. My in laws bought one last year, an 07 for $5k or $6k (I think) with lower miles on it.

[Cd]

Hello again everyone ! I'm on vacation at my parents, and had some additional questions on the car.
I took the car out for a short drive to see what I could get out of it.
It was a very short 6 mile drive on back roads.
Maximum speed was less than 25 MPH, with the majority of the trip at 15 MPH.
I feather-footed it the entire time, and tried to keep the ICE from coming on.

The 6 mile trip was 47.8 mpg, and the ICE came on several times, even with speeds as low as 12 mph. I noticed that the video display of the battery was showing that it was nearly full around halfway through this short trip. ( only one bar short of 'full' )
When I arrived back, I noticed that the display of the battery changed from nearly full green, to just showing the battery half full in dark blue.

What do you guys make of that ?


Average for the car has been a constant 48.2 mpg with mixed city and highway driving.

Should this be a concern ?
Even with an almost charged battery, the ICE kept coming on

I will try and take the car out for a longer test drive tomorrow. Any tips on correct driving with the car ?

Thanks !

[oldtamiyaphile]

The non PHEV Prius isn't really intended to be driven on EV for any real length of time. If you do the EV switch mod you can drive up to about 1 mile on EV as long as you're extremely gentle an stay below about 25. Remember EV mode isn't always efficient as that energy came from the ICE. Using an ICE to make electricity to charge batteries to power an electric motor is very inefficient, compared to that ICE just driving the wheels directly.

I try to stay out of using the battery for that reason.

The programming is designed to try and keep the battery in the 'blue', that way if you come to a steep hill there's room for the regen braking energy. When it's green it will tend to use more EV power to get it back to blue. It's quite difficult to keep the battery in the green.

Nearly 50mpg is great in the hands of non hyper-milers.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

I try to stay out of using the battery for that reason.

Cd: this is the trick to good MPG in a hybrid. It's counterintuitive, but don't focus on driving around in EV mode. It's useful at very low speeds for short distances (eg. parking lots) or crawling through brief stop & go situations. And it's a neat party trick, but it's not the way to get best MPG.

You want to use the engine to get the car up to speed. Once there, back off the throttle to shut the ICE down and maximize engine-off time approaching turns & stops while coasting. You can see if you feather the throttle you can control how much coasting regen you're getting.

Basically aim for modified pulse & glide as much as will fit in your normal accel/coasting/stopping pattern.

I used to sometimes stick the trans in N after the engine stopped, if I was going to be decel/coasting for a while so I didn't have to focus on feathering the throttle to keep it in neutral between assist & regen. But you have to remember to go back into D if you want regen again (or power!). Pressing the foot brake while coasting in N gives you friction braking only.

PS: your post makes me miss driving the Limo. If it's got to be an automatic, I'll take a Toyota hybrid.

[Lemmy]

My experience as a 2007 Gen II owner potential problems include...

Rust on the underbody if it's come from a wet climate. Mine was getting quite bad. In fact, never seen another post turn of the century car that got as bad. The upper body looked great though, and the bloke who bought it was lulled into a false sense of security by that and didn't look underneath. Phew!

Front wheel bearings go with clockwork regularity, but are easy enough to replace.

Front wheel ABS sensors get fragile with age and often don't survive the wheel bearing being replaced.

ABS sensor screws can corrode and shear.

CD player can fail.

And finally, a conventional diesel car or small bore petrol car will beat it for economy, so what's the point? We were running a Peugeot 3008 HDI diesel and a Peugeot 107 three jug petrol along side the Pious, and both kicked the Pious in the balls and stole its lunch money when it came to economy. So why bother building a petrol powered car, then saddling it with the weight, complication and manufacturing pollution of motors and batteries if that's the best they could do.


Apart from the quite significant underside rust it went up to 150k with only minor niggles.

[vskid3]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

And finally, a conventional diesel car or small bore petrol car will beat it for economy, so what's the point? We were running a Peugeot 3008 HDI diesel and a Peugeot 107 three jug petrol along side the Pious, and both kicked the Pious in the balls and stole its lunch money when it came to economy. So why bother building a petrol powered car, then saddling it with the weight, complication and manufacturing pollution of motors and batteries if that's the best they could do.

Because Cd lives in the US and pretty much the only option for diesel cars has been VW, which aren't exactly known for reliability (at least over here). The way I see it, the best part about a Prius is it comes with automatic hypermiling. Can a hypermiler get the same mileage in a Civic? Probably. However, the Prius will get over 40MPG in almost an situation with any driver.

Cd, like oldtamiyaphile and MetroMPG said, you're probably trying to drive it backwards of what's really good for getting the most MPGs from a Prius. I use the ICE whenever I need real power (ICE usually kicks on at 5-10MPH when I'm accelerating) and save electric for extending coasts and parking lot speeds.
Something that may have hurt you on your 6 mile trip is the different "stages" of hybrid use the Prius goes through as it warms up. http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/five-stages.txt Basically, the engine will run until it hits a certain temp before it'll turn off, however, it'll only turn off at a complete stop. No engine off coasting at this point. When it gets up to full operating temperature, the ICE will shut off when you start coasting/braking above 35MPH and stay off all the way to 0. You can even accelerate or maintain speed in EV at this point. But if you coast from 35 to 25, then pulse, kicking the ICE on, back up to 30, the ICE will stay on. You don't get full hybrid mode enabled until you come to a complete stop with the ICE running and at operating temp. The ICE will stay on for ~5 seconds before turning off. Now you're in full hybrid mode and the ICE is able to turn off at any speed under ~40MPH. Climate controls can mess with this a bit, like if you're demanding a lot of heat or using the AC when the battery is low.

I bought my '05 in June 2013 with 85k miles. It now has 130k miles. I've done oil changes, replaced tires, replaced the 12v battery, and replaced the coolant pump for the inverter (instrument cluster was replaced for free because of an extended warranty put out by Toyota). I've gotten 60MPG tanks and 30MPG tanks (bikes on the back and j80MPH will do that).

[Lemmy]

I drove it very well, with under and post grad degrees in branches of physics I understand what makes the Pious tick. Regularly into the high 70's imperial MPG with my tank to tank figures with every day domestic driving. The problem is, conventional cars available to us here are capable of the same without the expense of the hybrid drivetrain, and some of them also have a bit of performance should the situation demand it/driver require it. Its a shame you guys in the US don't get a wider range of economical cars, but I understand things are slowly changing.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my Pious. I'm physically a big guy at 6'5" and 280lbs, but it could accommodate me, was relaxing to drive, comfortable, and driven in the hybrid style was quite a relaxing way to waft from A to B, but compared to some of the other more conventional vehicles on the market it was not top of the economy tree. With the cost, complication and environmental impact of its manufacture it had no right not to be.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

I drove it very well, with under and post grad degrees in branches of physics I understand what makes the Pious tick. Regularly into the high 70's imperial MPG with my tank to tank figures with every day domestic driving. The problem is, conventional cars available to us here are capable of the same without the expense of the hybrid drivetrain, and some of them also have a bit of performance should the situation demand it/driver require it. Its a shame you guys in the US don't get a wider range of economical cars, but I understand things are slowly changing.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my Pious. I'm physically a big guy at 6'5" and 280lbs, but it could accommodate me, was relaxing to drive, comfortable, and driven in the hybrid style was quite a relaxing way to waft from A to B, but compared to some of the other more conventional vehicles on the market it was not top of the economy tree. With the cost, complication and environmental impact of its manufacture it had no right not to be.

The 3008 doesn't seem to test super well compared to the Prius.

Peugeot - 3008 - 1.6 HDi (112 Hp) - Technical specifications, Fuel economy (consumption)

Toyota - Prius II (NHW20) - 1.5 i 16V WT-i (76 Hp) - Technical specifications, Fuel economy (consumption)

That sounds like those cars might have the same "throw emissions out the window" attitude VW and other manufacturers when the car's being driven normally.

In terms of the extra environmental impact, you're only looking at 1% more GHGs and 2% more energy to build a HEV compared to a conventional car (Page 29).

https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/up...-07-003-RP.pdf

[Lemmy]

Of course, diesel emissions are a big thing recently, and deservedly so, but the 107 was petrol and I could exceed the Pious easily. Well, actually with difficulty because it was a fun car to drive and hoon about, and if a Petrol 107 is using less fuel than a Pious it's creating less emissions. Had the Pious for 4 years and 70,000 miles, can only speak as I find. Oh, and the Peugeots, despite their slightly flaky reputation over here, were faultless and showed no inclination for the cars structure to corrode.

For all the wizardry the Prius wasn't delivering anything remarkable. Owned them all alongside at the same time, doing the same journeys, that's how it was. If I had to do it again and choose between the 2 I'd take the Pious for comfort, but the 107 for deliverable 'real world' (I hate that term) economy. Still, both would beat the Camaro I had when I was working in the US.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Maybe the Yaris Hybrid or the Prius c would be more fair to compare to the 107 than the regular Prius that is bigger and roomier.