When you take a drive and avg 45mpg for the trip and then let the car sit at idle in your driveway for 5-7 mins, will the MPG for the trip go down (say 35mpg) as you sit there? I saw this today on a used Prius I was looking at....weak battery?
yes, it's a measure of miles driven and gas used. not 'gas used while moving' you can't judge the battery by that, there are more complicated meaurements, but they're complicated. what year and how many miles?
Actually, the running average includes a measure of gas consumed while not moving, which represents periods of 0 mpg.
Plus you really can't tell much on a test drive trip. Depends quite a bit on elevation changes, wind and average speed. A seat of the pants battery test can be done with the Dr Prius app and a bluetooth obd2 if the seller will let you power charge the battery first. Otherwise checking the deltas between the lowest and highest cells can help. In most cases low overall mileage is a better indicator. The following one minute video is from the Dr Prius app
not seeing many batteries go bad with those stats, but anything is possible. if you are in a carb state, the warranty is 10/150, unless it is a salvage title. another concern is the egr and head gasket, not to mention the brake accumulator
The issue is not if the battery will go bad by the end of the year but will it last two years or longer. Most will last 175k-200k miles no problem. I tell people to look carefully at the deal on thier gen3 Prius with that many miles. If you can say the deal is good enough to potentially justify $3k-$5k of major maintenance before another 100k miles goes by then go for it. Consider $2k for a new battery sometime, perhaps another $2k for a brake booster/master cylinder and maybe $1k for an egr/catch can system overhaul. Full disclosure, they also have problems with burning oil later on. Blown head gaskets also happen but they are not as common as the rest. Would I recommend a used 2012-2015 v to my sister? No. 2016 or 17 v? Yes. Even though I have a 2012 that looks and drives like new. Its amazing what washing the car and polishing the headlight lenses will do.
Also, how long was the test drive? Was the A/C running in hot conditions while parked? Note also to distinguish between 'full' and 'partial' CARB states. The partial-CARB states (WA and PA for a considerable length of time) had only the 8 year / 100k mile hybrid battery warranty.
Your welcome. People think I hate the prius.... it's a ok car if you want great mpg it's just that if your looking for a used one careful caution needs to be used because of costly repairs that can happen. Many people that get a used car might not have a lot of extra $$$ and think since it's a toyota it's going to last way past 200,000 miles and some do but many don't. And if you can't work on it yourself the repairs could cost more than the car. And it's a complicated vehicle to work on...... Non hybrid lot better choice especially when gas prices are so low.
