2008 Prius with 200K good idea or not?

The price for the new battery is about right but IMHO that is the best route should you need one. There are tons of threads on here about problems with replacing cells. There are people who swear by them but I think many of them are people with ties to people that sell them. I personally would never buy any car with that many miles because it is a big gamble.

 

Number 1 rule is never to trust a used car sales guy. You don't know what the previous owner was thinking when they sold the car to the dealership....they may not even have bought a new car.

So just look at what's in front of you. You have a car at 200,000 miles, with a pristine exterior. The car is designed by Toyota to go 180k miles, then they consider the car "past it's sell by date". This meaning anything can break, they were not designed to go beyond that point. If it does (which many have gone past 180k miles), it doesn't mean it goes past that mark without significant repairs.

The Prius has a tendency to burn oil at high mileage. The engines run but it starts eating oil, sometimes at an alarming rate. Luckily, used engines are fairly cheap, because there's not much demand for them. Although the engine is cheap, there's still no guarantee the used engine will be much better than what you have now. The battery? Well yes, that'll run you over $2500 for a new one. Then there's the transaxles that might fail, another 4 digit repair. And finally the numerous ECU's on the car, which from Toyota run into the 4 digits every time one fails.

So if you ask if it's worth it? If you can stomach all the unknowns and what's to come.....then, yes it's worth it. But I would only buy it if I can afford to say "bye bye" and get maybe $1000 from selling the car for parts when the car fails. So basically only a $3500 gamble (what you'll normally pay for a year on a new car)

 

yes, it's not the dealer, it's toyota. however, it's not true for all of the usa, so, since your location doesn't narrow it down any further, we can't help you.

 

CARB states had a 10 year,150K mile HV battery warranty. Everywhere else it was 8 years, 100K miles. Don't know
what a CARB state is? Google it.

 

With complete service records and all maintenance done, it would be a much better gamble. However, it still has 200k miles worth of wear and tear, that doesn't change. Suspensions, brakes, engines, electronics, all have wear and tear.

If you have the money, why not, it's well maintained and the prius has a good reliability record

 

yes, but with 200k, what does it matter? replacement batteries only get 3 years. but it's still a new battery, and lily to last a long time.

 

MUCH, MUCH better choice.

 

Congrats! For future reference, you can also look up the VIN number on edmonds to do further research and get the carfax.

 

Wow, Toyota is really getting ahead of itself if it has model year 3016 out!

BTW, a used battery (which it sounds like your husband would have no problem installing) is $1k-$1.5k, depending.

 

Prius4DJ
, if you got it from a Toyota Dealer, they probably already showed you the carfax.

 

Hi JC91006, just wondering where you got the 180k number from. I know vehicles have a design lifetime, but don't usually see it published.

I've also thought that specifying a lifetime in miles alone is rather odd. It seems like running hours would also apply, but maybe the assumption is that the car will average 30mph, thus 180k mile or 6000 hours. This is what I daydream about when inching along in traffic on a hot day with the ICE off and the A/C on.

 

ICE - Internal Combustion Engine. We use acronyms so frequently here there's even a glossary: PriusChat Glossary | PriusChat