Looking to Buy but frustrated!

Get a new one and in a few years you too can ask waaaay too much for the used Prius and you have hardly any depreciation.

 

in a few years there wil be more hybrids ( in this size) on the market so you can no longer ask that kind off money

still... if the salvaged are only a Little lower then new price i buy a new one anyway

 

I bought a new one, not with an eye toward resale value necessarily as I intend to drive it for at least 5-8 years. I did, however, find that used ones cost almost as much as new, so might as well go new. A few thousand more and the car is all mine, no mysteries about how it has been used or if it has any initially invisible issues/problems.

I do wonder about future salability of used ones. This reminds me a lot of what happened with Harley Davidson motorcycles a few years back. For ages it had been next-to-impossible to get a new one, so used ones were selling for big dollars and in a great deal of demand. Finally in the early part of this decade, HD caught up with the demand, they produced a huge number of bikes and anyone who wanted one could simply walk into a dealership and get a new one. As a result, prices of used ones dropped significantly. I suspect that the same thing will begin to occur with respect to Prii. They'll maintain some value due to the nature of the vehicle and their high degree of reliability, but in a few years you'll find that used ones are not worth what they are today.

 

I bought a new one for just those reasons. The resale value of the Prius holds up very well at the moment. The normal depreciation curve is more like a flat line, so for me it made more sense to spend an extra thousand and get a new car.

Tom

 

I bought used and saved $12400 Australian on the new price by buying a 3 year old car with 61,000km on it. After 8 months I had a small problem with the display which cost $25AU plus an hour of my time to fix.

A new base model Prius sells for $37,400AU here. A US dollar buys 110.5 cents Australian so Prius is a bargain in the US. I paid $25,000AU for my 3 year old base model Prius or about $22,500US.

 

I bet the next generation of the Prius coming out in 09-10 will cost more than the current model because of the plug in costs and the new lithium batteries. If that's the case I bet the older Prius's will be able to fetch a higher price as used cars than they currently do. Also I think the next generation will attract more people and we'll see a big increase in demand for a while. All in all I don't think our Prius's will be dropping in demand or value for a long time. Just my 2 cents.

 

For the most part I agree with you but good deals on used ones can be found. We bought our 07 package 7 with 12000 miles on it within an hour of an ad hitting autotrader.com for $21900. Most people wanted over 25000 for the similarly equipped year and package.

But I got lucky and found a no haggle online dealer who likes to move his cars quick with the price clearly marked. I was skeptical but we are as happy as can be. I was lucky to find an extremely honest and ethical dealer online.

Like you, everytime I found a decent deal on ebay it was a salvage out of california. Not quite sure why so many totaled Prius' in california. Anyway, keep looking. I looked for a year before I found a deal.

 

I also bought a new Prius since the best deal on a low mileage one was nearly $20,000 anyway. I'd rather spend a little more and have a brand new car, since I usually keep cars for a looong time (12 yrs for the first one, bought the second at 5 yrs old, it's now 9). I did all my legwork online, emailed a bunch of dealers asking for quotes, picked the best quote, walked in and walked out with a car 1 hr later. $22,400 for an 08 package 2. No hassle. No comparison to spending $20k for an 06 with 30k miles.

 

When I own a car, I always keep it more than 10 years. Being new in the Hybrid community, I never intended to buy a used Prius for my peace of mind. :rockon:

 

Buy new, it will help the economy and you can baby it from the beginning, knowing no one has abused it.