My wife at 45 years old from Mexico, has never had a driver license.... And she got a permit last year. Drove my 2015 Chevy Volt a bit, and nearly took out half the cars on our street. I have zero patience to teach her, and told her she cannot total my Volt..... She did some lessons, but basically let her temp license expire. Now her friend wants to help. So I found a 2003 Prius nearby with a dead HV battery for sale. Drove there with cash in hand....and my little jump battery too since it has been sitting and NON-OP regristration. Car was clean, 2nd owner..hooked up my little battery thing and it started right up with triangle error codes, and I didn't take my code reader to check what else was bad. But for $800, I had the sucker towed home after filling tires with air. I saw videos on replacing batteries, so I jumped on it when it started and ran fine. Tore it open, pulled the HV pack out. Also forgot to mention, I am an electrician, so I know how to respect high voltage. tested all the batteries, and lucky me all read 7.51VDC until the very last one read 4.3VDC. And it was the last battery in the pack at the end without the electronics. Searched Ebay, found seller, bought replacement...... Installed new battery, cleaned all the bus bars, broke one sensor tab and replaced with a fork terminal. Put it all back together, and trickle charged the 12v battery. Started right up, no problems.....I pinched myself in disbelief. Drove it around the block three times, no error codes at all. Wife starts cleaning the interior of the car, she is super anal about clean....and likes the car, likes that its not tore up, and literally cleaning every inch with a toothbush. Today I dropped the transmission pan, cleaned out the slurry. Not too much, but enough for me to be happy I spent $20 on the gasket. Changed engine oil, filter, trans oil, gasket, air filter, and cabin filter. I probably need to check/change coolant too, but for now I want to get her done and on the road. Need to smog it, so not sure if I should change anything else first or just go for it. I want to drive it to work and back (25 miles one way) a few times before I let the wife learn to drive. I think for the $800 plus parts (150) I got a steal of a deal.... And now I'm actively searching Craisglist for more "dead" prius cars....
The search is much harder for 2004+ dead prius cars. This car probably won't last that long, but based on your description of your wife's driving skills, it probably won't matter
If the purpose is essentially to find the cheapest car you can get for your wife to learn to drive, then yes, you got a good deal. I just wouldn't expect it to last terribly long, as 1st gen batteries have been known to fail significantly more often than more recent generation Prius batteries and all the modules have been subjected to the same conditions as the one that failed.
Newer Gen 1 batteries are not totally unavailable. I currently have 2 gen 1 batteries that were manufactured in 2012 and one that was manufactured in 2014. It's just a matter of keeping your eyes open for the right battery.
Well, previous negative comments aside, I think you did well. I have two, one I paid $400 for and towed it home (took it to Oregon for the eclipse this summer) and I am a Gen1 Fan! You don't say much about the other factors of condition or mileage, but they are very well built cars and there's really no reason it couldn't last for years. Luscious Garage is in SF and is a very good source/service. To cut to the chase, you should buy a mini vci & an old XP laptop. That will give you access to techstream, the OBD2 software that Toyota uses. Be careful, you may decide you like the little Prius more than the fancy Volt. Oh, and welcome!
They are all much of a muchness, try and buy one from a US seller who has good reputation feedback. No, any 32-bit version of windows will work. I'd go for 32-bit Win 7 myself. The only caveat would be where the seller guarantees that the cable drivers are 64-bit. Be very careful as there are not many of those about, and some of them do not install well. You may want to check out VxDiag VCX Nano for Toyota, it is bit more expensive (but still good value considering the Toyota sanctioned Mongoose Pro is ~$450). In any case you can afford to buy several MVCI until you find one that works satisfactorily as they as so cheap.
Another thing you may want to invest in is a grid charger from Hybrid Automotive to recondition the pack with. That is an awfully heavy battery to play whack-a-mole with every time a module fails. And yes, it will fail again at some point. Once she gets used to driving, it wouldn't hurt to invest in a newer battery since those 1st gen batteries are just about dead weight.
I love my Prius, original owner at 93,000 miles and have never ever had a serious issue. I’m starting to do routine maintenance myself. I know some day I’ll encounter battery issues and I’ll invest in a reconditioned battery or replace cells as needed. I can’t imagine buying a new car at this point when I only drive but maybe 2,000 miles a year. Take good care of it and it will take good care of you.
