Deciding between 2005 Prius and 2010 Insight

No, I bought both of them used. I bought the 01, 4 years ago with 67,000 miles on it. It now sits at 120,000 miles. I bought the o6 December of 2011 and its a salvage title vehicle. Other than oil changes & brakes, I replaced one rear wheel bearing, an accessory drive belt, and trans fluid on the 01 (nothing else on the 06).
My story may not be typical, maybe I just got lucky but, I don't think I did.

 

I bought my '05 with 105K miles on it in 2010. I paid $8500. one year later I had the HID failure. Not a big deal at all. Aftermarket bulbs = ~$100, self install (not that bad). Two years later (now) my HV battery died. Terrible, yes, but in the long run, not that bad. $2100 for a remanufactured battery. If I sold it today, I would expect to get somewhere in the neighborhood of $7500. So I'm looking at a net cost of $3K for the time I have had it (basically $1k/year).
Before my prius I had a Land Rover (talk about extremes.. i nicknamed it the anti-prius). It got 12mpg on a good trip. I could have kept it for 3 years and even if it hadn't needed a dime of repairs (highly unlikely) It would have cost me over $2500 more over the 3 years just in gas alone.
Just trying to frame it in a way maybe you haven't considered. Every car has a cost. The resale on that Prius is going to still be pretty high in a year.

 

I own a 2008 Prius and my wife drives a 2010 Insight. I like both cars however I like the Prius much better. It is a much more solid feeling car and has more room. I also really like the smartkey and back-up camera which are not available on the Insight. The Insight feels like an economy car. It has more wind noise and gets blown around on the highway on a windy day. I do like the USB port on the 2010 Insight which the genII Prius does not have and the height adjustable seat. They both get very similar mileage. I get in the 50-53 MPG range on both cars.

On another note, I have a car lot and I only deal in genII Prius. I used to also deal in Civic Hybrids and Insights but I have found that they do not sell anywhere near as well and the older Civic Hybrids batteries are not very reliable and very difficult to rebuild. I have a local mechanic that rebuilds batteries for me for $500. I have rebuilt 5 Civic batteries and almost all of them had to be replaced with salvage yard batteries and a couple of those have failed also ( Insight is a very similar battery) I have had 7 or 8 Prius batteries rebuilt and it is usually only one cell that needs replacing and I have not had one fail yet. Almost all of my cars have over 100k miles and I am of the opinion that there is not much to worry about as long as you don't get your service done at the Toyota dealer. Most repairs I have had to do are in the $100-$200 range. The most expensive repair I have ever had to do was an A/C evaporator for $572 which requires removal of entire dash.

I wouldn't hesitate buying a nice 2004-2008 Prius with 100k+ miles and driving it another 200-300k. You may have to rebuild the battery, replace a water pump, or a 12V battery but there are not too many other issues to worry about. If something breaks, look on here first and find an easy/cheap solution.

 

Wow that's just about a "flip a coin" situation. Slightly lower miles vs slightly younger age, very similar price. Personally I'd just choose which ever of the two looks like it's been most nicely cared for. Look for any signs of touch ups or minor interior damage etc. It's not really a fail safe way to tell, but there often is a correlation between how well the interior has been cared for and how well the car has been maintained in general.

 

the original retail on #2 in '05 was $920. The original retail on #7 in '06 was $5730. Package 7 is "near loaded".
I think it depends on what you want in your car. If you are really only driving it for one year, you won't have the HID bulbs to contend with in the '05.
But I feel like if you are going to sell it yourself, the tech upgrades in the #7 are going to work in your favor. Navigation, bluetooth, JBL audio, etc.
Plus the MFD is higher resolution in the '06 over the '05. I would go with the '06.

 

Really not enough info to advise you. But if we're comparing apples to apples (ie both are in about the same shape), go with the 06.

 

I'd vote for the 05. Perhaps it is just me, but I have always believed that there is a big distinction between a used car with over 100,000 miles versus one under, even if it is only a bit under. When you go to sell these you would ether have the 05 with about 90,000 miles versus the 06 with 106,000.

 

I would go with the 06. Back-up camera, higher resolution screen and nicer door panels and dash and all the other PKG 7 goodies. I'm not a huge fan of the purple metallic paint on the door panels and glove box that usually peels off.

 

So, what happened?

 

Good call, I'm sure you will enjoy it. Prius is great on a long drive like that. Not only do you get the benefit of high mpg, fewer gas stops, but it's like a video game trying to get those bars up. That always keeps me from getting sleepy and keeps me focused on the driving.

There's a lot of advice on here re: tires. I just put a set of Bridgestone ecopia's on and it cost me $400 (minus $80 rebate in the form of a prepaid Visa card) at Discount Tire.