Interested in a Plug in Prius, but I live in Wisconsin

Check with Diane Whitmire at Carson Toyota, she is a frequent poster here and a straight shooter.

 

I live in Nebraska, which obviously doesn't sell them either. I flew to New Jersey, then drove it back. You would obviously be a little closer to NJ so you would have to probably get quite a bit better deal from a Cali dealer.

 

I live in Georgia, and local Toyota dealer has had no problems servicing or maintaining Pip. In my conversation with service advisor I have worked with for several years, he did say that they could call Toyota Technical Support and get assistance from technician if scope of problem was beyond local capability.

But I think I would caution that not all dealer service depts are created equal......

I wish they'd get a level 2 EVSE though.

Good luck

 

It's just like buying any other vehicle out of state including from what I've read, the tax kickback paperwork.

If I lived in up in the Badger State (or...America's Dairyland) I would look to the Right Coast instead of SOCAL for a Pip for a few reasons:

1. The "Summer of Recovery" (v 5.0) still hasn't taken root on the right coast as much as on the left, and the dealers are a little hungrier. When I was doing a mathematical "what-if" I found many dealers with new sub-30's Pips.
2. There are fewer areas where people use Pips to get around the HOV lane restrictions so demand is lower.
3. You're closer to the right coast.

You should be able to negotiate with a dealership on-line up to the "sign-here" stage, and after that it's simply an airplane ride to pick up the car.

At the risk of being me labeled a heretic for bringing it up or you being thusly slandered for considering it, you may want to also look at a Volt.
The federal kick-back for the Volt is bigger than the difference in price, and depending on your driving habits and your fanaticism for Toyota or GM (either way) the smaller car may make more sense for you.




Good Luck!

 

What about warranty work on the EV system?

 

I too live in GA, not a plug-in sales state. I've had a Pip for over 2 years and never had a problem at the dealer
They really don't seem to notice for the most part.
Mechanically speaking, it's no different than any other Gen3 Prius.

Is it worth getting? Depends. Will you gain HOV/HOT lane access, or will you do enough short range driving to benefit from the plug in range?
If yes to either one of those then go for it.

 

We've had quite a lot of out-of-state purchase activity since 2012.
At first many out-of-staters went to Maryland, NJ,NY to get CARB warranty and prices were originally lower in Northeast.
Now CA prices are low (maybe lowest). You do not need to worry about CARB warranty since it does not matter for those us in non-CARB states. So that opens up Virginia for you too as a purchase state.

There is a long thread "Price Paid on PiP" which gives some stories going back to 2012.
The 15 PiP rollout states (caution by memory) are CA, AZ, OR, WA, VA, NY, NJ, MD, VT, ME, MA, RI, NH, CT

 

There are some dealers that are not in states that the PiP has been rolled out to, that still sell them.
John, on this forum, bought one in Minneapolis at a Toyota dealer in Bloomington, MN.
Check around, you may find one nearby.

Or, if you aren't in a hurry, check out some local national drive electric week events in your area in September.

 

You are correct about the tax credit. If you lease the car the dealer takes the credit. If you buy the car you can take the credit. The price of used plug in hybrids have taken this into account. I checked on Consumer Reports and found the average price for a 2012 Volt is about $22,000. The sticker on this was about $20,000 more, so there has been significant depreciation with this model. Consumers also says this model year Volt has an average reliability.

 

You can buy one at Smart Motors in Madison. They sell them "unofficially" but you can get them. They will cost more than getting one in one of the "approved" states because they have regional incentives and they can't offer those here. The good news, however, is that Smart is certified to work on the PiP, and they are very Prius-savvy, so you can rely on them for service in any case.

I live in Madison but bought my PiP from a dealer in NJ. Saved a lot of money, even with the transport costs (it was cheaper to ship it on a truck than for me to fly out and drive back).

 

check with the dealer here in mass where danny is having togob4 this fall, they are excellent, that's why he's having it there. as far as service, think of it this way: if i were driving cross country and broke down in wisconsin, do you think toyota would tell me i have to have it towed to a state where they sell them? you'll be fine, all the best!

 

The PiP has been reliable and particularly the Lithium HV battery system...I cannot think of a single PiP-battery-specific warranty problem report here in US. Everything else in the PiP is same as Gen3.

 

They would if you had a RAV4 EV...

 

I take it you went to Don Jacobs in the Milwaukee area. Last summer they had two used ones on their lot for a while that I went to check out. They also would not budge on price then. I also visited one in Chicago with even worse results (atrocious customer service). The advanced models are indeed extremely limited in supply -- I wanted to get one as well, but the few I found for sale were out of my price range. Be careful with online listings too -- quite a lot of them that are listed as Advanced are actually the Basic, and the only way I would ever believe the listing is by looking at the photos of it. I was only looking for PiP (had a second-gen Prius previously), not regular third-gen model. Settled on buying the dealer demo unit from this dealership in NJ with great success and have been glad of it ever since!

It is total BS that we don't have the infrastructure. Madison has over 30 public charging stations! I use them all the time, mostly for the Leaf, but sometimes the PiP.

 

I wanted to road trip toward the west coast, so bought mine in Spokane, Washington. 1453 miles if I remember right. My local dealer had told me that they had already had thier technician's take the courses needed to work on the plug-ins (early 2012). I bought mine April 2, 2012. No problems so far, love the car.

Good luck on what ever you decide.