Planning to buy a used 2007 Prius - Advice needed

Welcome to Priuschat! I see that you are from Bellevue. Which Ford location is it at? We bought a used 2005 Toyota Sienna from Kirkland Ford 4 years ago. I would start out by having your wife go test drive it first. See if she likes it or not. If she likes it, ask the dealership to see if they have the service records, how many previous owners, their inspection paperwork, and what kind of services they've done on the Prius since they acquired the car. The reason why I'm saying "acquired" is because they could've gotten the Prius from either a trade-in or auction purchase. Dealerships often get used cars from auctions. Kirkland Ford replaced the wipers and tires on my Sienna before we bought it. See if this Ford location did anything to the Prius. If they did, ask to see what they did. Some of the Prius services should be done by a hybrid mechanic. Some things can be done by a regular mechanic. Keep in mind that not all mechanics do quality work. Also see if you can get the VIN # so you can check the Toyota Owner's website to see if the Prius was serviced mainly at a Toyota dealership. What is your budget for a car? Are you and your wife financially stable so that you can pay for possible auto repairs?

 

Honestly that seems a little high in price. These are great cars, rock solid! These cars will start consuming oil when the miles start to add up, usually are 150,000 miles. It's okay, though. It's very normal for these engines. Just check it every now and again. My little sister has a 2005 with over 300,000 miles and drives over mountains at high speeds regularly and lives 2 hours away from home. Very trustworthy cars, even at old age. Any questions just let me know!

 

Get the vin on the prospective car and then join toyota.com/owners forum and post the vin there. It will show every service event the car has seen at an authorized Toyota dealer. Great insight into why it was traded. Sometimes reveals bad things were discovered and was traded in on the spot.
$7000 is high. Shop around some more.

 

welcome!
make sure you have a few extra thousand on hand, in the unlikely event something big goes wrong.
all the best!

 

For comparison here's some listings in Tampa from a guy who sells Prius.

 

I think you forgot to link the listings.

 

Yes you can add the VIN on the site to see the owner records. Feel free to post them here if you want so we can see what was done on the car. It is also possible that previous owner(s) could have gotten service done at other shops that is not a Toyota dealership or even doing it themselves. Will you be financing it or paying cash?

 

Sorry I meant to add that VIN to the Toyota Owner's site to pull up any service records you find. Then post those records here on this thread. Thanks.

 

Also I just took a look at the free Carfax and Autocheck that the Ford dealership provided. Here is some info I found:

• Previous owners: 3-4 (Carfax says 3 and Autocheck says 4. I am not sure if Autofax is counting the dealership as 1 of the 4 previous owners).
• Odometer reading: 98,269 (Autocheck); 126,125 (Carfax), It looks like that Autocheck's reading is from the 2nd owner. I found that info because Carfax breaks it down by the previous owners.
• Accidents reported: 0 - This could be a good thing but you don't really know if there were actual accidents that were not reported.
• First owner (2006) is listed as "commercial." This could mean that the Prius was used as a taxi, rental car, or agency car (ie. local government fleet cars). First owner had it for about 5 years and 1 month and drove about 67,420 miles.
• Second owner (2012) is listed as "personal." Owned it for about 2 years and 3 months. Reported odometer reading was 98,269. That's about 30,849 miles driven for the 2nd owner.
• Third owner (2014) is listed as "personal." Owned it for about 2 years and 5 months. Reported odometer reading was 126,125. That's about 27,856 miles driven for the 3rd owner.
• Title: Clean according to both Carfax and Autocheck.
• Service: It looks like the Prius was serviced originally at a Toyota dealership and then the used car places serviced it before selling it.

CARFAX Vehicle History Report for this 2007 TOYOTA PRIUS: JTDKB20U477586866

 

The VIN only pulled up 4 service records on the Toyota Owner's site? Make sure you press on "Show all available records" on the bottom right corner. There might be some that is not showing.

 

The big question with a ten year old Prius is the health of the hybrid battery. Ten years is a good service life for a chemical battery. If you buy this car and intend to keep it, it would be a good idea to be prepared for a new battery in the next few years. Those are running in the $3,000-4,000 range!

Test drive the car on some hills while a passenger looks at the state of charge meter on the multi-function display. (Find the owners manual on-line and get familiar with how to do this before you drive the car (it's just pushing a button or two on a touch-screen dash display).) If you see rapid and erratic fluctuations in the charge indicator, or hear fan noises from the grille in the back seat, the battery is about to fail. Unfortunately you don't have the experience to tell good from fair, but you should be able to see bad.

If you absolutely will not be able to afford a battery, or cannot perform a test, you may want to look at a different car.

I would offer $4,500, pay $5000, put the difference into a battery fund. Worst they can do is say no. These cars are not in extremely high demand right now due to low fuel prices.

 

I did swap out her battery at 240,000 miles. The original was still fine. But I got a 2008 battery for almost free so I couldn't not do it! The battery has about 200,000 miles on it now and works perfectly fine. She lives on top of a mountain riding the brakes for 15 mins on the way down.

Mountains are hard on batteries, but so far so go. Absolutely amazing car. Never had ANY work down other than regular maintenance and swapping the battery. Can't think of a better car honestly