2001 prius 52,000 miles

If you already have a 2005 Prius, I would caution that older, used cars often become 'project' cars. If you want a hobby, learning about the NHW11, a 2001 is a good place to start but it does entail a risk of doing more 'hands on' mechanical work.

In 2005, I bought a used 2003 Prius and the maintenance manuals in parallel. I've avoided any major repairs and learned a lot of hybrids from my experiments with the 2003 Prius. But then I like working on my cars. It is also a hobby.

Bob Wilson

 

As far as price I traded in my 2002 with 130K mile on it in June.
the put it on the lot at $8900 and sold it in 2 days, my friend traded in his 2002 in Aug with 70K, the dealer put it on the lot at $11999 and they sold it in a week. so the price sounds reasonable.
My 2002 was the best car I ever owned.
Lifetime on our 2002 we average 43 mpg. We are averaging about 53 in our 2010. We skipped Gen 2 as it didn't have enough head room in the back seat for my tall daughters. We had ordered a 2004 but ended up passing on it.

 

I was paranoid like yourself when I purchased my beautiful 2002 Prius with 70k miles(Purchased August 2009). I went on Toyotanations website(not a good place for Prius activity) and posted that I was looking into buying the 2002 Prius. I did get a couple of responses that were positive. I called a couple of local well know garages, they said go for it. Had it mechanically checked out by a dealer and bought it. Then I found out about Priuschat, ask about stories i heard about expensive repairs. But soon discovered that outside of the things that can go wrong, I had a great car. I learned if it was not my sole means of getting around, I could search out good used parts, and talk with informed people on here and not pay high dollars for the bigger things that might go wrong with this car. If something was to go wrong and could not find it used i would pay for it full price. I look at it as a 7500.00 investment, even if i put that much into it over 10 or 15 years, i would still only have 15,000 invested an get some super gas milage. I'm down at beach with car now.

Happy classic Prius owner,

Joe

 

If you are risk-averse and have to rely upon dealer service, then a Prius post-warranty is not the best car to own from a cost-of-ownership perspective.

Bob is right that a Corolla is relatively bullet-proof and you can get any number of independent shops to work on it at relatively low cost.

 

Bob Corolla's are good cars, but you don't always know your repairs will be 100 to 200 dollars, and you don't always know mine will be 1 to 2 k, as someone said on here once, cars are a crap shoot. Sure the early Gen 1 do have their issues, but not all of them. I look at the glass half full, and I have learned some preventative maint things on here to hopefully prevent or stop some high dollar problems from happening. As I said in my last post some of these high dollar items that can go wrong with a Gen 1 Prius can be repaired with good used replacement parts for far less than the 1 to 2 k figure you like to throw out. Enjoy that Corolla, they are great cars.