Possibly the roughest Prius you will see

Alright, I've finally had her back for about 3 weeks now. I've been just feeling her out for the most part and getting some work done. Thus far I have gotten her tinted with 3M Crystalline as the A/C could barely keep up without tinted windows. I also got a fresh set of Yokohama Avid Touring S since when I took her back from my mom, it was running on a pair of Falkens from the last time I had a full set of tires switched out, some used Michelin of unknown manufacture date (no DOT stamp to be found anywhere), and another used cheap-o chinese tire that was about to delaminate. After that I brought it back into my garage and did the alignment. Set the front toe to 0 and away I went. I also replaced the right tail lamp since it had a hole in the lens and changed out the headlight bulbs with a fresh pair of D4R's from DDM Tuning (only to find the factory ballasts are weak). The cabin filter was crazy nasty. I take that back. It was FUBAR. That had to be changed out on the freaking double.

So, other than body shop work, she's pretty good. Interior is pretty clean. Some very light staining on the seats, but that's about it. Nothing that a extractor can't get out. Mechanically almost near perfect since it has always been dealer serviced (well that's about to change). The motor oil is probably a little old, but still looks good. I'll have it changed out with some Eneos 5w30 synthetic oil once my order of Denso oil filters come in for it. I have still yet to check the trans fluid since that's a pain in the nice person, but I'll probably just do a trans service anyways. I do have a suspension clunk that I suspect to be a work out strut mount. I also have some pulling when driving which I suspect might either be from that strut mount or a inner tie rod.

As far as body work goes, she'll need a new front bumper, rear bumper, LR bumper retainer, RF bumper retainer, RR door skin, repair work on all other panels except hood and roof and a full respray. Oh, and the right side rocker is FUBAR'ed and crappily nice person spackled as well.

Now here comes the pictures of how craptastic she is.






Oh, and yes, the tape on the left rear bumper is "structural". It is the only thing holding that corner of the bumper to the body.

 

About 25 grand 7 years ago.

 

It's the car I bought for my mom. Yeah, she's a danger to everybody when she drives

 

The trim rings didn't come off until I got them because they were done. I don't think they helped much if at all.

 

The sad part is when I picked it up, it only had 63k miles on the clock

Like I said, the only good panels are the hood and the roof only because my mom never figured out how to roll the car (thank God!). It's a bunch of little stuff that adds up. Hook up body shop quote was $4600 and non hook up body shop quote was $9500. I have no idea how you can get anything done bodywise in California for $1800 with all the regulatory BS we have here.

It may be, but I wish it looked better with how low miles it has.

Obligatory

 

I'm good with mechanical and bolting body panels and stuff, but I am no painter and I am no body man. I'll probably do some prep for the shop before I bring it in (remove emblems, scuffing the paint, removing surface bondo, etc.), but I'll let the body guys get the panels straight and painted. By doing that, I'm pretty sure I could at least knock a good 5 or so hours of prep time.

 

Yeah. I'm actually going with aftermarket bumpers that are made in Taiwan. They should be in sometime this week. The shop that's doing the work does some insurance jobs, but they do a lot of custom cars and all of my past project (including SEMA) cars have gone there for paint work.

 

Well, worst case scenario is I can always send it back if I don't like the build quality on the bumper, but in general, I've had pretty good luck with fit and durability of aftermarket bumpers