As our Prius Car ages?

of course, you mostly hear about the failures here. but given the small amount of complaints, and the thousands of gen II's on the road, i would guess you're likely good for another hundred thousand miles.

 

I would worry more about the transmission especially if the car has been maintained "per the manual". As far as the manual is concerned you never change the trans fluid. We now know thats just not true.
And that puts you way way overdue. Since your worrying.

 

You can have the dealer do a battery evaluation. It should cost around $100-$200. It can tell you if the battery is getting unbalanced. When the modules get unbalanced that's the first step to failure. They can be re-balanced but I'm not sure how much more time that would gain (whether they would stay balanced after that).

While the battery is not cheap, it's not the life ending failure many portray it as. You can get a new one for around $3000. Ask how much an automatic transmission is for any other car.

Make sure both coolant systems have had the coolant replaced, and have the HSD oil replaced. It's special fluid in both cases, so make sure they use the correct Toyota fluid.
That and the above test are about all you can do to ensure long life.

 

may i ask how you found out what month your prius was built in? I've been curoius to find that out about our recently aquired 2005

 

Look on the driver side door jamb. My 2004 Prius was made in August 2003...

 

Ahh cool thanks. I also found this tidbit if information regarding battery aging

"As the Prius reached ten years of being available in the U.S. market, in February 2011 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports"]Consumer Reports[/ame] decided to look at the lifetime of the Prius battery and the cost to replace it. The magazine tested a 2002 Toyota Prius with over 200,000 miles on it, and compared the results to the nearly identical 2001 Prius with 2,000 miles tested by Consumer Reports 10 years before. The comparison showed little difference in performance when tested for fuel economy and acceleration. Overall [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles"]fuel economy[/ame] of the 2001 model was 40.6 miles per US gallon (5.79 L/100 km; 48.8 mpg-imp) while the 2002 Prius with high mileage delivered 40.4 miles per US gallon (5.82 L/100 km; 48.5 mpg-imp). The magazine concluded that the effectiveness of the battery has not degraded over the long run"

 

these cars are VERY reliable to well past 500k (as 2fast4u can attest to)...but key for ANY car to go over 200k these days is OEM maintenance.....

 

I would amend "thousands" to "about a million". Remember the badges that went out a year or two ago were for the million+ mark being hit. Most of those are GenII's.

 

I have a 2004 Toyota Prius with 142,000 miles that has spent its life in the heat of Atlanta, GA. The hybrid battery failed about a week ago. The dealer wanted $3,200.00 for parts and labor to replace it so I drove the car home and ordered a reman battery from Hybrid Battery Depot in Pontiac, MI.

I have the car stripped down and the old battery out awaiting the arrival of the reman battery. I'm video-taping the full procedure and will post it on Youtube when I'm finished.

Just wanted to add some more real-world experience up here on Gen 2 battery life.

-VR

P.S. - I have a couple of friends who drive Nissan LEAF electric vehicles here in Georgia. I bet they'll be in for a shock in ten years when it's time to replace their battery pack!