End Of Life Planning: a 2010 Prius II with 228k miles

To better judge the condition of your battery, can you share screen shots from Dr Prius of the block voltages for your battery at both high and low State of Charge? At this stage, how well the modules are balanced is more important than their total capacity.

 

Thank goodness the End of Life planning is the car

 

Your head gasket is a more immediate concern. The sealer will fail, its just a matter of time. Unlikely to get more than a few months. I would get a fix planned in the next month or so because too much delay may cost you an engine or the value of your car. I could see the hv battery making another two years but no way will the hg make 2022.

 

I would get another lower mileage engine

 

Or you could create a whole new life for this car by upgrading to a used low mileage gen4 engine and installing a nexcell projectlithium.com battery pack.... Both of these will offer noticeable improvements in vehicle performance and will cost way less than selling it while broken to buy a whole new electric or hybrid vehicle. It will also most likely get you to the 500K mile club as well. Best part of all, it's a good way to have newer and nicer while staying humble. And if you have a friend who's good at swapping engines, you'll probably get a great price for the job too!

 

The thing with older cars, it's just not the engine and batteries that fail. You will end up replacing many parts after 200k miles. And definitely many more before getting to the 500k club.

I'd suggest the OP just continue whatever he's doing, see if the car can last another year. $700 in reconditioning equipment will not be worthwhile if you only plan to keep the car for a year or 2. You can get refurbished batteries with a 2 year warranty for that price...and you won't have to do anything.

 

That's simply not true with newer cars, especially Prius... The real problem here is the disposable society that we live in that's taught us we can consume as much as we want with no consequence and any excuse to get more brand new shiny and throw away the rest is acceptable. But in the big picture when you live on a small planet with finite resources and thinking 7 billion can throw the whole world away because there's always magically going to be a new one is not going to end well for us.

What's more you can wire up re conditioning equipment for less than $100

 

There was this report that said Prius original owners kept their cars the longest, average is over 12 years. So after 12 years of being part of the non disposable society, it was even time for those super frugal consumer hold outs to sell. It gets to the point where the car is no longer reliable, you have to constantly check for oil burning, rust issues, electrical issues, battery issues, brake issues, AC issues, paint issues, worn interior issues, and so on. Many of the issues will cost more to fix than the actual car's worth. So it's not really a matter of disposable or non disposable society, a mechanical car will just wear itself out.

 

Many people still mistakenly sell there car at 100K miles based on fear of mechanical issues with cars even though it's been 40 years sinces cars were so poorly built they'd only be good for 100K... These days most engines go to 300K miles without anything other than spark plugs and oil changes... And keep in mind your reference says its an average and all those delusional fearful types who have sold their Prius at 100K are bringing down that average of 12 years... If you eliminated those folks, you'd be looking at people keeping their Prius closer to 20 years than 10 years. I know way too many Prius owners who take horrible care of their near 20 year old Prius and for the most part they still aren't having any repair issues/costs because these cars are really well built!

 

There is an argument you can make about Prius being well built, but you still have to care for it properly. Sometimes it's in your control to do proper maintenance and the car still runs 15 years. But using Prius as an example, unless you constantly come online for information, most Gen3 owners are really hating owning the car after 150k miles. The failing head gaskets, brake actuator problems and/or HV battery problems are all out of their control. You replace your oil/sparkplugs and put gas in it and your car will die with that routine.

 

Early Gen3 Prius give Prius a bad name... My experience is primarily with Gen2 Prius. Those cars are amazing... Even the most neglectful car owner doesn't seem to have much problem as long as they drive it nearly every day. I'm just amazed when I work on the cars that there aren't way more problems for the people who drive them.

 

Yes the Gen2 cars are more reliable and come less surprises. But even those reliable cars, if you can't work on them, they are just as bad as any other car. Imagine your $3000 Gen 2 with a Inverter pump failure. If you can wrench yourself and buy a $30 part, you'll be back on the road for under $50 including coolant. But if you depend on a "specialist" to fix this problem, you can pay upwards of $799. So not sure how easy it is to swallow a $799 repair when the car is worth $3000. I mean disposable would come to mind when the decision comes.

When you can fix your car yourself, it doesn't really matte what you drive. You can fix most items by just buying parts. But when you have a hybrid mechanics that charge $799 for a inverter pump repair and say "the customer got a great deal compared to my competition", makes you wonder if driving a hybrid is even worthwhile.

 

Yes, in general, the reason why there are so many new cars on the road is because the auto repair biz is so broken that many people would rather be in debt for tens of thousands of dollars with an upside down car loan just so they never again have to fall victim to corrupt or incompetent car repair services.

But the real proof is what you see on the roads around you every day... I see Gen2 Prius more than almost any other type of vehicle still, even though they haven't made a Gen2 Prius in 12 years.

 

Sounds like Grit signature material.

The car in question is a 2010 gen3 which already has a head gasket failure! So let's discuss everything else except the elephant in the room.

Yes, gen3 gets a bad name when you have an excellent chance of a) excessive oil consumption b) head gasket failure c) inverter stranding d) brake booster crashes e) egr clogging f) oil filled intake manifold and almost incidentally g) hv battery failure. Which in every generation is expected but in this gen3 has not happened yet.

 

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