How many Gen 1's still in day to day use?

Mine's the same. Looks brand new inside and out, and everything still works as it should. I get well over 55 mpg regularly. Often more. Only £20 per year road tax. Very comfortable on a long journey.

 

All very valid points, some of which I alluded in my last paragraph. If you are happy to accept all of that and know that a repair done in that way will last 6 months to a year (maybe two, if it was done extremely well) then that is all good, and reasonable even. I wasn't questioning the rationale.

I was simply making the point you cannot compare the repair you had done to a full replacement with new modules which is for what you would pay Toyota. Therefore the £400 vs £1700 comparison is irrelevant and disingenuous, even.

 

Okay thank you.

 

I have a 2002 with 260,000 miles on it. the only thing that i need to do with it is to replace valve cover gasket and lower o2 sensor other then that car runs awesomely. I see about 6 daily in just Olympia WA alone.
andif anyone can help on a good and better way to take valve cover off i am all ears

 

We have 3 in my family alone

 

I think there was a massive drop-off on the Gen 1's once the batteries started to die. Replacement was very expensive and as a result most people dumped them. The ones on the road now have had the batteries replaced (including mine) and my guess is the next culling happens at around 200k miles when the catalytic converters start throwing errors.

Note I fixed my P0420 errors by replacing the ignition coils, they seem to be a wear item by 180k miles. Wonder what the next wear item will be. Aside from the keys.....

210k miles on 2001 Prius.

 

Picked up a 2003 with a bad HV battery for a song, and rebuilt the pack with Gen 2 modules. Three days on the road and all is well. The AC blows cold, and everything works. 230,000 miles. This will be my daily driver, and a stable mate for our Gen 3.

 

I think about this thread almost daily as I tend to see 3 to 4 Gen 1s on my daily 60 mile commute here in the north bay - today I saw two gen 1s, many many gen 2s and 3, a honda clarion, two Tesla model S's, two or three fusion hybrids etc and I was not even paying attention

 

I have 6 of them, but only two are running today. I hope to two others back on the road with parts from the other two. That's why I'm hear trying to get started. I've owned a First Gen continuously since 2001. Put 180k on that one. I think the ones I have now all have under 100k except one of the part cars, but I'd have to check again. I bought several of them a couple of years ago and haven't had time to mess with them. Going to give one each to my son and daughter, keep one myself, and maybe sell one.

Anyone know where to get a shop manual? You'd think there'd be a lot of used ones. I haven't really looked yet though.

 

Had someone hit one of my Gen 1s last year. Their insurance totaled it and gave me $3900. I bought it back for $250 and then bought a parts car from the Houston hurricane for a couple of hundred bucks that has all the parts I need to fix the front fender, hood, bumper cover and apron.

 

Very cool - good luck - I have two first gens now and have thought about buying broke down ones and fixing them but work, money, and other projects keep getting higher priority

About the manuals I bought a set of hardcopy shop manuals a couple of years ago off Ebay- Brian in Tucson and some others have mentioned have mentioned there are pdf versions also but I have never checked it out

 

Perhaps @Brian in Tucson could share links?

 

Brian in Tucson says that they are available from Rock auto. He also has a set of hard copies for an 02 that he would sell for $100, nice shape from Toyota. Includes shipping.