Inspecting a used prius for purchase

welcome!
you can find out if the battery was replaced at a dealership by inputting the vin at toyota owners .com

how many miles on her?

one thing shysters do is disconnect the 12v to clear the codes. if you don't test drive the car long enough, they won't come back until you're on your way home with it.

 

The Hybrid Assistant app with a Bluetooth code reader can show you battery module voltages and the delta between them, and someone more knowledgeable might be able to tell you the point at which the battery code triggers. Then try it again after a spirited drive and see how much the module voltages have spread.

 

Take it to Toyota for used car inspection and pay them the $99 (or $129 - whatever your local Toyota dealer charges for such inspections). Toyota techs have been working on the various Prius models now for decades. Ask if Toyota will provide you with a printout of the difference in battery voltages during inspection/testing.

Alternatively, you could do the two miles at 60mph on a flat road test of the HV battery.

 

Most OBD-II tools can tell you whether the car's "monitor status" is "ready" or "incomplete". That tells you whether it has been driven enough since the last time the codes were cleared for the OBD information to be meaningful. That feature was invented for official inspections (apparently people have also thought of clearing their codes just before driving in for an inspection), but it's useful for car shopping too.

There wouldn't be too many good explanations for a car coming up "monitor incomplete" when someone is wanting to sell it to you.

 

we need a 'how to do prius pre purchase inspection' sticky

 

I like the Dr Prius App combined with an OBDII bluetooth enabled adapter. It does two different tests, one to determine if the battery is functioning properly and the other to give an estimate of battery capacity.

The important thing is to determine whether the replacement battery was a new Toyota OEM battery or a "re-manufactured" used one which wouldn't last nearly as long.

 

60% is definitely iffy. A replacement battery with that result is probably a "re-manufactured" one with used cells. My 2010 Prius was 83% on the original battery when I tested it last year and runs perfectly. I'll test again this Spring.

How many miles on the 2010?

 

@tgotr And don't forget that 2010 was the epicenter of piston ring problems leading to oil burning, implicated in EGR fouling often subsequently leading to head gasket failure with coolant buildup allowing hydrolock and connecting rod folding. Yes, it's a whole grand staircase of problems if allowed to progress all the way through.

Totally preventable; totally on you to discover how far along this one is and if it can be turned back.

 

nope

 

Yes, as a precautionary measure. Do the EGR cleaning of a thing too, to avoid having top gasket problems too

 

Yes, that mostly takes care of the problem going forward, but how much already made it through to cause a restriction in the EGR cooler? It's a used car you're talking about, so you have to assume that the EGR is already restricted somewhat, and hopefully hasn't been that bad for that long.