500K Miles, One Prius/One Owner

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all well this morning. Well we finally made it to 500,000 miles!!!

Ema rolled that last week for me on a trip to Florida. For those of you following my 400K thread you know she had 2 Blocks (4 Modules) replaced around 478,000 miles last July/August. Knock on wood she has run great since then.

If you want to catch up on Ema and her long history here are the other thread links:

200K Miles, ONE Prius & ONE Owner | PriusChat

300K Miles, One Prius/One Owner | PriusChat

400K Miles, One Prius/One Owner | PriusChat

I am driving my Prime (Evey) now and Ema is in the capable hands of one of the guys who works for me. Along with the battery blocks the big expense over the last 100K miles was new tires around 485,000. Hopefully she will stay in the family at least for a couple more years but she is getting pretty worn

I shouldn't be sad but am really. I guess the closest comparison I can make is the great family dog that you just love and have shared so much with over the years finally needing to be put down. I think we are getting close.

By FAR FAR FAR Ema has been the best car I have ever owned and ever will own. Even Evey who is amazing will not have her longevity and history. As my first hybrid she holds a special place in history.

I want to thank this Forum and especially Patrick Wong who over the years has helped immensely with troubleshooting, diagnostics, suggestions, etc... Having this forum to turn to for insight and guidance is a great resource.

I purchased Ema in March 2006.
Her Lifetime MPG ~ 46.26
- This is a slight drop from the 400K post but not bad.
Her Lifetime Maintenance Cost ~ $24,000
- Over 12 years that is $2,000/year which is high but includes everything I have ever done to her parts wise. In the beginning their was the suspension upgrade, cross bar for steering, DICE, Dynamat sound proofing, so more than just "regular" maintenance. And at 40,000 miles/year even "regular" maintenance adds up.

I hope everyone enjoys the update. As you can tell I don't post or come here as often anymore. Life just pulled me away from this I guess I will try and be more diligent with Evey.

Happy Driving,
Chris

 

Royrose,

I actually have every bill and every maintenance receipt from anything that has ever been done to Ema so I am sure I could get this informaiton. I just don't know if I really want to, lol.

Another $64,000 question is what is "routine maintenance"? A car that has been driven 500,000 miles I would consider shocks and struts 2 or 3 times routine myself. Also I preemptively changed all the water and coolant pumps every 200,000 miles so as not to run into issues. Is that "routine". Toyota considers ATF WS "lifetime" fluid … …. …. …. …. sorry for the delay had to pick myself up off the floor from laughing so hard but I changed it every 50K after 150K or so. Is that "routine"?

What I can tell you is the only things I would not consider "routine" were the pump failure at 214K that I forgot to replace at 200K. All the work around the corroded BM1 plug and the battery module replacement I did. The catalytic converter failed at 200K and I replaced that which is probably not routine but the way these engines burn oil probably should be. FYI Ema has burned oil for 200-250K with no adverse effects.

When I get some time I will at least breakdown into Upgrades, Routine and Failure costs for you.

Happy driving,
Chris

 

Yes, those modules were the only battery issue I have had so far to date, knock on wood. I did purchase one of the original grid chargers from Hybrid Automotive now Prolong Grid Chargers in 2014 @ around 375,000 miles. If I had done that sooner maybe the battery would have lasted a little longer maybe not who knows.

I don't think it is really time or miles that affect battery life. We have had this debate on here before but personally I think it comes down to discharge/charge cycles and temps really. A battery only has so many discharge/charge cycles in it and then is toast. And heat especially high heat can really cause problems. With most of Emas miles being highway miles here in the Southeast and not city miles or rocky mountain hill climb miles she didn't see a lot of deep discharges either. Which I think really extends battery life. Anyway my $0.02 BUT after 500K miles my $0.02 might be worth a nickel

Ohhh here are the breakdown of "maintenance" costs:
Upgrades - $5,335
- this includes: Dynamat, DICE, metal front skid plate, stiffening plate, Toms tower brace, GMuff sound deadening spray, DVD map upgrades, upgrading to touring suspension, Hybrid Grid Charger

Failures - $4,350 (Had more of these than I originally thought, lol.)
- this includes: D4R light bulbs, front speaker wire, water pump , headlight restoration kit, camshaft sensor, broken wheel stud, new suspension (did this 3 times, put 1 in each category, LOL), BM1 Plug, hybrid battery modules for block 13 & 14

Routine Maintenance - ~$14,315
- this includes: oil changes, oil filters, air filters, ATF WS, tires, brakes (done twice now), tires, occasional EFI service, water & coolant pumps (200K & 400K), coolant changes, spark plugs, serpentine belts, gas cap, etc... etc...

As I said Ema has been AMAZING in every way!!!!!

Happy driving,
Chris

 

Mavi,

I typically bought a 5 quart jug of some high mileage 10w-40 oil like Pennzoil, Quaker State, Castrol, etc... then used 3.5 quarts at the oil change and used the remaining 1.5 quarts as top off between changes.

Some where, not in the Ema thread but in one of the HUNDREDS of oil consumption threads I went into a long discussion on different things I have tried additive wise. Things like Seafoam, Restore, Lucas Oil, Royal Purple, Tec-Clean, Marvel Mystery Oil, etc... etc... The most effective of these seem to be Seafoam or Marvel directly into the oil. I put in Marvel instead of topping off with oil every now and again and did the same with Seafoam occasionally.

By far the most effective thing however was running non-ethanol gas as often as I could and when that wasn't possible using Star-Tron additive with regular ethanol gas. Ethanol is just FFFing evil in my opinion. That in combination with keeping the RPMs under 4,000 really helped oil consumption.

Happy driving,
Chris