New owner of older car

Hi everyone, I am a new owner of an 09 Prius with 150k on the clock. Always wanted one of these things.

Found this at a dealer, and wow, it drives like a brand new car. Everything feels great. My other rides have all had around 150k on the clock as well, and none of them, even the Toyota Sienna, felt this good.

Did a Dr. Prius battery test, said it was at about 50% life, so maybe a few more years on it before replacement. (and maybe not!) The cells all seem to be close to one another in voltage while being charged/discharged.

I do have a CEL, 0402 and the dealer is replacing the 02 sensors and maybe the cat if necessary to clear it up.
My only slight worry is that the oil was pretty black when I changed it and the filter had *gasp* a bit of rust. So maybe it had not been changed for a while. Probably burns oil too but that's okay. (this might aslo lead to a clogged cat!)

This is truly a car for nerds. I am a nerd and love it. My 110 mile a day commute loves it so far.
My commute is almost ideal for a hybrid, about 10 miles of 50mph side road, then 40 miles of highway, then 3 miles of city. I have only run through one tank (to three bars) and averaged indicated 49, and actual 42 mpg, but I know that the gas tank volume variance means I should average this out over a few fill-ups.

Anyway, just wanted to say hello, and thanks for having all of the technical knowledge up here!

 

fotomoto, what a great resource, thanks!

This afternoon I learned that the car had had regular dealer service, had the gas pedal, steering spline recall stuff done, loads of tire rotations, had the electric HV water pump replaced at 56k, (is this the inverter pump? I think so.) and generally been well care for for it's first 100k miles.

After that, it went dark, until I self reported an oil change.

 

Yup, I suspect that this may be the case. I wonder if the flushing system referenced by mikey would clean things long enough to clear the CEL long enough for an emissions check. I don't mind the CEL, but I do like to be able to have an inspected car!

 

Hey want to hear a rollercoaster of a story about the car?

I brought the car to a local garage that does hybrid cars, and they said the catalytic converter was definitely bad.

Fast forward to last week, when I did some careful reading (while on lunch at work), and realized that my car, in New Hampshire, had the catalytic converter covered under warrantee for 150k miles! I knew I was right around there, so heart in my throat I walked to the car, and it had .......


149,850 miles! Phew! I made an appointment at the local dealer for the next morning. However the drive to home and back from work was 100 miles. So I stayed at a cheap hotel that night, greatly relieved that this megabuck repair would be covered.

Dropped it off, went to work, and got a call later from the dealership- someone had previously replaced the factory cat with an aftermarket job, welded straight to the manifold, so they could not cover it under warrantee. Someone didn't do their due diligence, and paid money to eventually make a much more expensive job.

Soooo back to trying to make the used car dealer fix it. The probably won't, so I probably have to find a used toyota cat from a junkyard.

Still love the car though.

 

Here is an update!

The dealer did put a lot of work into fixing a vapor emissions leak, for free which cleared up one CEL code. I don't think they are going to tackle the cat. However, they inspected it, so I am good for a while.

My commute mileage is averaging a little over 50 MPG. After changing the oil to synthetic just after getting it, it hardly burns a drop. Looking up the service records, it was faithfully dealer maintained VERY well for the first 100k of it's life.

One garage said it needed a front wheel bearing, but I hear no noise, no ticking, no vibration so I think they were reaching.

Next on teh list is the coolant pump and change the transmission fluid- My son's first car (mazdaspeed 6) is also taking some repair priorities though