I bought my 2006 Package 7 silver Prius in January 2008 with 33,400 miles on it. Here it is three years later and I’m still happy with it. Basic maintenance and a few learning curve issues and one new set of tire (Bridgestone 80,000 tread ware rating of 600) and I just rounded 107,000 miles on my way home to western NY from a monthly meeting in Worchester MA. I’m averaging “real world driving†mileage of 49 MPG in the Spring, Summer and Fall and 34 MPG in the Winter.
2006 base model purchased October 2006. 104,000 miles mostly on E10. So far, only wiper blades, right front wheel bearing, and oil/filter changes. Replaced tires at 40K with Michelins. Still on them. Amazing!
I have 131,000 miles on my 04 Prius...looking good until yesterday! 4 lights came on (VSC, yellow(!), Check Engine, Red triangle, plus one on the upper corner of my screen). Took it to the dealer and they told me this morning that "one of the cells" in my battery is "going bad"!! Ouch...am I looking at $4K to replace the entire battery???? Anyone have any alternative suggestion? Are there after market Prius batteries? Thanks...I'm still in sticker shock as I had NO symptoms or warning about this potential BIG bill coming my way!
Do a search on battery replacement or similar keywords and you find various sources for replacement options including wrecking yards, Luscious Garage (in San Fransisco), and somewhere back east that sells refurbished batteries. If you are not mechanically inclined you may want to make a trip to Luscious. I'm sure they can fix you up for MUCH less than the dealer will. You can pay as little as about $700 to $2.5k to have this fixed if it is just a battery problem.
You are in California so it should be under 10 years / 150k miles warranty. You should get a free pack.
anybody know if the gen 3 1.8 ice has a timing belt that needs to be replaced? my '83 camry had 4 replacements in it's 295,000 miles.....
just bought an '05 base model prius with 92,600 miles - it's going to be my wife's primary driver, her commute is 25 miles each way, mostly highway driving at 40-60 mph. We've put 50 miles on since yesterday afternoon and are still watching our average mpg climb - it's at about 48 now. What with ex-Shell officials predicting $5.00 gas we thought we'd try to be prepared. The used market is tough right now - lots of high mileage vehicles outside of our price range. Three competitively priced Prii that we were looking at sold before we could get to them. Do people get rid of their cars when the main traction battery is about to go out of warranty?
That explains it! I just got my car back after 2 days and a new battery...and I thought they were just being nice to me! Either way, I'm tickled. The only thing I paid was a 2-day rental. I'm a happy camper, for at least another 100K miles!! Thanks.
It should last a lot longer. Can you describe your commute? Do you live on top of a hill? Do you park outside? Did you install EV button? If yes, how do you use it?
My commute is on flat Southern Cal freeways for about 30 miles each way, sometimes with traffic and sometimes without (I have irregular work hours). Flat everywhere, no hills; and car is always garaged. NO EV button. I'm surprised that my battery only lasted for 131K miles!! Anyone have any ideas to sustain them longer????
As usb says, typical is much longer life so I would not lose any sleep over the initial battery experience. That said, heat is bad for battery longevity. I avoid high cabin temps by keeping my windows shielded and cracked open for ventilation when the car is parked, and I cool the car with AC into the high 70's F during hot summer driving.
Avoid often draining of the pack down to 2 purple bars. Those deep discharges take a way a lot of cycles under normal hybrid operation. Depending on your traffic pattern, this may not be avoidable. If you think the jam is going to be long and need to run AC, you can always press the accelerator harder to run the gas engine for acceleration and then regen to "even out" the electricity to run the AC. As SageBrush pointed out, temp is also another factor. You can park indoor at home but maybe not at work. Tinting and leaving the window cracked open should help. Avoid aggressive acceleration in stage 1 (during warm up). Prius will aggressively use the HV battery to avoid ICE from running hard before the catalytic converter warmed up. This is intentionally done to reduce emission. I created a page with more information.
Bought: March 2007 Latest tank avg: 48.0mpg Avg overall: 46.0mpg City commuting 80%, road trips 20%. Regular maintenance every 5000 miles. Changed to Michelin tires at 60K, love them. 12V battery died a couple times (forgot to turn off SKS for long layoff period) but seem to still work fine. No problem whatsoever. Best car ever owned. Q: what 100K maintenance service should I get? thx.
I just got one with unknown maintenance history near 100k, I asked the same question here: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...70-what-services-you-need-what-you-don-t.html
Nice table!! Thanks. I'll try what you said though I'm not entirely sure how to suddenly accelerate in SoCal traffic (aka parking lot) far and long enough to get the gas engine engaged...without hitting the guy in front of me.
