Greetings! I am in the process of purchasing my first Prius. It's a 2010 Prius II and I'm super excited. But, as a Prius first timer, I was hoping I could get some valuable advice from those of you who know your Priuses inside and out. I have a couple questions that would be lovely to have insight on! 1. I'm buying the car from Carmax. Do you think the latest recall will be taken care of? I realize I can ask this when I go in, but just wondered if there was a standard answer to something like this. The car is being transferred from another location and should arrive today or tomorrow. If I need to ask about it, I just have to write it down so I don't forget! 2. I've heard a lot about learning how to properly drive a Prius. Can someone explain that to me in a nutshell? I test drove one already but as far as gas mileage goes, what sort of driving adjustments am I going to be making to my driving behavior? I'm coming from a Honda Accord V6. I know the general bits about the different modes of driving and not zipping around like I'm driving on Mario Kart. Is there more to it than that? I'm not an extremist but I'd like to make the most out of mileage savings. 3. Any general hybrid maintenance I should be aware of that I wouldn't know as a previously non-hybrid car owner? 4. What sort of lifespan are people seeing on these cars and their hybrid batteries? I've heard the standard 8 years/80,000 miles. I'm curious if that's accurate. The one I'm buying has 36,000 miles and I'm hoping to get an idea of how long it will be before I need to start setting aside money for a new battery. Thank you, thank you! X
You can ask and find out. CarMax isn't a Toyota dealer so they likely can't do the update themselves. Try to keep your acceleration lower than the PWR zone on the HSD display on the dash, try to keep your power demand close to but slightly above the middle bar on the freeway, use the Eco button to get the ICE to turn off more often when using heat, try to be gentle on the brakes, keeping the Regen portion of the HSD from maxing out because once you max that area out then you're engaging the brake pads. Many Prius owners change the fluid in the Power Split Device (i.e. the "transmission") at a set interval, you probably can wait a bit before doing that. The battery is well protected by the car's software both for temp & charge. It should last the life of the car. In most cases the body will rust away before the battery needs replacing. Congrats on your purchase & enjoy your new car!
1. I wouldn't count on Carmax taking care of the recall. Just have a Toyota take a look, they will tell you by checking the vin and can take care of the recall in an hour or two. 2. You can drive it much like a regular car. The major difference I see with my driving habits compared to how my wife drives it is that I tend to anticipate when I will be stopping and slow down to let the engine cut off and recharge the battery instead of speeding to a stop. I also keep acceleration to a moderate level just as a general practice to not burn gas unnecessarily. Overall, the Prius does a great job of maximizing efficiency. 3. There isn't really any special maintenance required compared to a regular car. 4. I've heard the Prius battery is expected to last the life of the car or very close to it. Unless some serious abuse has been done to the car or some extreme problem crops up, it should be fine. Enjoy the car, the Prius is a real joy to own.
1. You can check the car's service history through carfax or better at the Toyota.com website. Just register and add a vehicle to your name. Use the vehicle VIN# to add. It will show all the service records from Toyota dealer services, including the recalls if done. 2. There is really nothing you have to do differently in driving, the Prius will save gas by itself. However there are some techniques you will learn that can further the mpg on your Prius. You can learn that later. 3. Maintenance is the same, mainly oil changes......Nothing major until 60,000, 100,000, 120,000 miles. But even those are typically fluid changes and spark plugs are 120k miles. 4. The battery is "designed" to last the life of the car, which Toyota has at 150,000-180,000 miles. After the design end of service life, the battery can fail. We have many examples of cars going way past the 150,000 mark and needing a battery. This is where the car outlasts the battery. But you won't have to worry about the battery just yet, Toyota has a 8yr/100k miles warranty in non carb states, and 10yr/150k miles warranty in carb states. So no worries for a while
I wish you all could see how giddy I get reading these responses and forum threads. I've been looking at Priuses since October (once I realized my little '97 Accord was on her way out) but have been waiting until April. Many thanks for advice. I didn't realize the battery would last quite so long. When I test drove in November, there seemed to be some hesitation about its life span. I was told to go ahead and set a little money aside every month because if the battery does go out, it's a $3,000 replacement. I've not personally done research on that side of things, but fingers crossed it won't be a hovering fear.
With the exception of AZ, any year after the Model Year listed is also covered. MY 2004 California, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Vermont MY 2005 Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island MY 2007 Maryland MY 2008 Oregon, Pennsylvania* MY 2009 Washington* MY 2011 New Mexico MY 2011, 2012 only Arizona MY 2014 Delaware*
I think your over worrying about the battery. There are a ton of prius taxi cabs in all the major cities that go for hundred of thousands of rough city miles. But generally you don't start to see battery problems popping up until about 150k+ miles. Even then, it's only a small percentage of cars out there, no different than other cars that have head gasket problems and such. Which btw, if you drive your prius enough you'll start to realize that the gas engine has a very very easy life, loafing around at low rpm much of the time. The engine is simple in design and very reliable. The transmission has no gear shifts and it's an eCVT controlled by electric current, so no moving parts other than rotation. It's very reliable. Toyota built these cars extremely well and inherently made other parts more reliable because of the hybrid system. Look at truedelta and other nonbiased reliability charts, they are fairing better than most cars out there. As for carmax, i bought mine at carmax too, with 68k miles on it. I got played by a dealer when i spotted one an hour away for a good price. I emailed and called about it, i even asked if it was still on the lot, they said yea. When i get there, they try to bait and switch me for a new car saying the interest was better yadayada. I was being polite and let them go on, then i asked if i could drive it. Then they said the service manager took it to auction to sell it, it couldn't be inspected etc...... I was so pissed that i drove straight to carmax which was only 5 mins from my house. They found me a car, at a decent price. They are very nice, no pressure and brought a prius in for free from their other dealership. They said it would take 7 days, and it arrived, but it took another 3 days to get the title transferred from the DMV. The downfall of carmax is that they do so much volume, they have a very specific procedure and didn't want to show me the car until the title was in, and it was inspected, and ready to drive home. I understand not letting me drive on the street until it was inspected, but they didn't even really want to meet to let me see the car and inspect it myself. They even hide all the cars back behind the building for this reason. I guess that's what you miss out on from a traditional dealership. Carmax is more of an assembly line, just pumping people in and out. They also didn't do a very good job with "detailing" the car. It looked like they just ran it through the wash and vacumed it. I found french fries in the rear armrest, and they tried to mask the smell of cigarettes, i guess that's why this one was like $1500 cheaper than any of the other ones. But overall my carmax experience was good. The car is mechanically sound, and has been great. I average 45mpg when i drive completely normal and a little fast at times. I average 51mpg all highway driving normal. If i drive a little more conservatively, i can get about 56mpg. Keep in mind, my commute is about an hour each day. If you have short commutes, the prius will only get about 35-40mpg for the first 4-7 minutes while the engine warms up.
Very good to know. I know this one wasn't a smoker's car. It was a business lease, one owner for the last few years. I know several who have purchased from this Carmax and had lovely experiences. My commute to work is 13 miles each way. But there is a LOT of stop and go. I'm hoping for the best. Fingers crossed.
New car is here and got me 64.5 mpg on my commute to work this morning. Holla! I think I'm in love. Thanks for all your help, guys. X
Kayla: Not wanting to "burst your bubble" here - but that is great mileage and don't be surprised if it drops some when cold weather is here. Since you live in PA, I know it does get cooler there also. Our mpg drops to 45-50 here in MN. when we have below zero. We also have a 2010 and am very impressed with the car.
When cold weather starts - you grill block, and have a block heater installed ... those two procedures alone will work wonders for sub-zero temperatures. It's that initial 10 minutes during sub-zero temperature warmups that really wipe your mileage out. .
