Well after many months of lurking and learning on this forum - today I purchased a 2007 Arctic white Prius with 25,000km on the clock at a government auction (Adelaide, South Australia). Many thanks to all who have posted on the forum as it helped me make the decision and even allowed me to start and drive the car without looking at the manual! So far it is going really well - nice to drive and certainly impressed the family. My previous car is a Daimler (Jaguar) 1982 series 3 XJ6 with a 4.2 L engine. I will be very interested to see how much I can save in fuel costs! Next stage is to look for mats/carpet, bluetooth after market (thinking Bury C9060 or Parrot MKi9200 - not sure yet), sun shade for windscreen. Any advice appreciated.
Congrats! That's quite low mileage for a 2007 model. Any idea who the previous owner was? As for BT, something like the Satechi can also do audio streaming besides handsfree. Does the car have a 3.5mm Aux In socket in the center console?
Sounds good jimmy. You'll save heaps. Expect to get about 5L/100km for starters. Once you familiarize yourself a little with driving it you'll probably get the consumption down to somewhere about 4.1 to 4.6 L per 100km.
congrats, theyre great cars I agonised a bit too, they get a bad rap for no good reason and breakdowns/towing just drive!
Thanks for all the replies! I hadn't seen the Satechi bluetooth speaker but I hope to get the Bury CC9060 as it does the same as my previous car in which I installed a great head unit with bluetooth which I miss in the Prius. The Bury unit integrates with the onboard Prius sound system for better quality music reproduction. I ordered some mats today from the local Toyota dealers - genuine Toyota - and cheaper than any on Ebay! My car was a government car with low kilometres as they are not so popular for drivers who are a bit daunted by something a bit different. I can already see that I will be saving many $$$$ as the fuel gauge has hardly moved in two days of driving. Most of my travel is short distance. Pricing for servicing seems pretty good with the local Toyota dealer within walking distance - open till late two nights a week - so very convenient.
Congratulations on your Prius purchase. I believe you will find that your future fuel consumption will be ~1/3 of the Daimler's. In the distant past I owned a 1985 Jaguar XJ6 Vanden Plas. What a nightmare, WRT maintenance and repair of the powertrain and electrical systems. I'm interested in hearing about what was required to keep your 29-year-old car running.
I have had relatively few problems with the Daimler. It is my second XJ6 - as I really love the classic looks - and they are nice to drive. I have driven it every day for the past four years. Things are beginning to go wrong - rust appearing, one fuel tank not reading on the gauge, needs new flywheel, timber dash needs refurbishment due to cracks in the finish, paint looking a bit tired. I would love to keep it and fix it all up but I would need more $$$ than I have. 1/3 the cost for fuel sounds quite possible - and one of the main reasons I bought the Prius.
congratulations jimmy! i got an 07 also but with 3x more kms than what you got. and knowing govt auctions, you really saved a lot there, mate. i'm guessing you paid around $10K? at first i looked at auctions but somehow decided on getting one from a toyota dealer. order those slimline weather shields from toyota. they're surprisingly affordable than if you buy online. easy to install and really helps if you don't want to use the aircon. they look cool as well.
Thanks for the info about slimline weathershields - I will check them out. Government auctions are OK for pricing - but no $10K deals here in Adelaide - more like $15K - $16K. Checkout Carsales.com.au and the pricing goes from $15K - $20K. It is always more for low Km cars. I wanted a white colour and then you are competing at auction against Taxi companies which all use white Priuses in Australia.
I wish I had of got mine through an auction, would have saved about $2k to $3k and avoided having to deal with the "stealer" if I did. I didn't discover PC forums until after I bought the car, so I knew close to nothing about the Prius beforehand. For that reason I felt that I needed the dealer warranty to feel safe. If I had learnt more here before I made the purchase then I think I would have been comfortable enough to go with an auction and save some money. As it turned out the Dealer warranty was close to useless anyway, a $1000 cap in the fine print and you had to get the car serviced with them at extortionate prices (would have cost us nearly two thousand dollars per year for a friggin warranty with a max payout of $1000 per claim ). We got a White 2005 model with 67000 km about 2.5 years ago. Payed the dealer $17400 for the car plus $650 for the first service. After that I took over the servicing myself. The Prius is surprisingly easy to maintain and the routine services are very straight forward. There's tons of great info on these forums if you want to save yourself some money with a bit of DIY.
LOL yeah, I almost feel like that dealer did me a favor by ripping me off like crazy on that first service.
I love this forums in general--the info about all things that one can find here is amazing! Now I feel a lot better about my purchase of 2007, no auction, no salvage so I get all warranties, 18k/$15k.
Congrats on your Prius! i WISH i got mine in white! White doesn't show scratches or swirls (as much), yet red seems to show every little imperfection As Toyota pretty much told me i have no hope in installing an Aux cable into the Prius (i have no idea why?), keep us posted on how well the Bury Bluetooth unit operates with the Prius and what the sound quality is like, as i really, really want to find a way to not have to use CDs!
Congratulations! You picked a great model year. I'm at 83,000 miles on my 2007 and nothing but smiles and carefree driving.
