Opportunity - 2007 (base?) 66kmiles 11k

Sounds like a great deal to me. For comparison I bought a 2008 w/ 55K miles about six months ago for $16000.

Mike

 

One service you won't find in the manual BUT you need to do every 30K (trust ME on this one) is the drain/replace of the transmission fluid.
I'm serious.
Even if they tell you "oh it's a sealed transmission, or it's synthetic fluid, no need to replace".. whatever they say, your answer is:

"Nevertheless, please DRAIN and REPLACE my transmission fluid"

Do this at 60K and 90K and 120K and every 30K miles.
I pay $126 here for this service but you may end up paying more... and that's OK. Just DO it. This first time you're a little late with 66K but it won't hurt.

BTW: if you can't quite afford it, DO IT ANYWAY and do the tinting and the audio at a later date! And, don't roll your eyes.
I know, that's the MOM in me talking...

Dianne

 

Because I put 167K on my own 2007 Prius and I learned a few things... and some the hard way.

What the "printed in 2006" manual says versus the reality of this car's needs TODAY... things change.

 

Follow Mom's I mean Dianne's advice.

 

Even though Toyota says the transaxle fluid in the Prius does not need to be changed "for the lifetime of the car", what we Priuschatters have found is that during the course of normal mechanical wear of the transaxle, lots of metal filings comes off the gears, and other undesirable metals goes into solution in the fluid, all of which may affect the longevity of the transaxle.

The best practice I think would be to drain and refill the transaxle fluid at 30,000 miles to get out all the stuff from the normal breaking-in of the transaxle, then every 60,000 miles afterwards.

I think 60,000-mile intervals between transaxle drain-and-refills are good enough because the transaxle fluid in the Prius normally does not heat up to very high temperatures. Regular cars with fluid-coupling torque converters in their transmissions do heat up (over 200F in my old Jeep Cherokee is its normal operating temperature), so they need to be changed much more frequently to prevent fluid breakdown. The Prius transmission is far simpler and has no torque converter so it normally doesn't get that hot.

 

If you do it yourself, its only $35 in parts. ATF WS is the fluid.

Synthetic oil for the ICE (WalMart has the 5qt. btls. for $25-30).

I use Mobil 1 AFE 0w30 with a Toyota filter ($5).

 

If you get this done at a dealership, over the years, and you then have tranny problems later, Toyota should step in and handle things for you.

Everything this serious should be done at a dealership while the car's in warranty.