Noobie GenII Owner

Hello all! As of yesterday I am now an owner of a 'new to me' 2009 with 202,000 miles. Firstly, I want to say how impressed I am with this community here. During my search for a commuting/trip vehicle this place served to teach me a TON about what to look for and I'm excited to continue learning about these cars. More on the car! This is a base package (I believe), still learning; but does have a back-up camera. No bluetooth, has AUX, cloth seats and everything works as intended. I found this car searching for a Civic or other similar older gas sipping car and paid $3,100 for this one.

A bit on the car' history as it fascinates me to have this much history on it. While the Carfax showed a decent amount of quality info, no major issues, I was SUPER excited to get home and find a full history on the car through the Toyota owner's portal. This specimen has been meticulously maintained and hasn't missed a single service interval since new, very pleasing to my OCD. A chunk of the hot topic issues have been previously handled, inverter coolant, inverter coolant pump, engine coolant, oil changed every 3-5000 miles based on history, air filters, plugs, serpentine belt, brakes, alignments, chassis lubrication - the list goes on and on. Outstanding items for me to personally check will be transaxle fluid, pull tires off and closely inspect tie rods, ball joints, brakes, etc. Best I can tell, the vehicle was taken in 201,667 for CEL. Ended up being catalytic converter, the dealer quoted $2,145 part plus $230 labor to me on the phone when I called to verify service. I can only presume the owner decided that wasn't worth it (as I would also say), the vehicle was donated, appears a new catalytic converter installed (which can be had all over for under $300 I found) and sold to me.

The Prius will replace my 2015 GMC Sierra as my daily driver, which receives about 16 MPG average without a head wind . My wife and I recently moved into a rural setting which has resulted in my gas spending with the truck moving into the hundreds each month, which simply became a bit ridiculous and any future hike in gas prices would've caused significant issue. I'm not only excited to save at the pump, environment but mechanically while the truck can relax in a shop until needed.

I'm a tech tinkerer who plays around with PC's, radios and enjoys DIY vehicle maintenance. In my reading here this car seems to be very DIY friendly so far. Hybrids have always fascinated me, alternative energy in general. Our last home had a 25 panel 6.5kW grid assist solar system, dabbling in those projects definitely makes me interested in hybrid tech. I hold an amateur radio license (KD0LDK) for any of those out there and work full-time as a municipal firefighter, volunteering on the side. My truck historically has and will continue to be my 'baby' as its highly modified with radio and other emergency equipment. A large hobby of ours is Overlanding, off-roading and one of my largest being storm chasing under contract. I'm intrigued to blend the little gas sipper into storm chasing .

Anyhow, that's a novel length intro but I'm pretty pumped to learn here and contribute where I may be able. These seem to be amazing little cars from what I've read here and I've been pretty happy with my increase to 47MPG average over the last 130 miles yesterday

 

Thanks!

I had been researching that aspect quite a bit, I've looked at some conditioning equipment but it seems by the time I buy that I could just wait until this one goes belly up and rebuild the battery. What was the name of the supplier you used in Olathe? And thanks!

Thank you! It's a constant work in progress. Here's an older walk-around video, it's changed quite a bit since this and I'm due for an update. Attached is a picture of the custom equipment console, since the video this is probably the largest update thus far. Now that I have a DD I can kind of re-work a few things on the truck next spring.

It is a 5.3L gas, I was getting 20+MPG when stock but due to added weight, 8 ply tires and bumper I've taken a chunk off that.