Keep or Sell 2012 Prius V?

Its a no brainer at 8k miles a year and gas now at $2.50 a gallon.

Sell the Prius now for a higher than normal price and keep the Honda. The Prius could have an engine ($4-7k) and a brake booster ($2.5k) in its future, especially a 2012.

 

We have and keep both, and wouldn’t trade either, a 2005 CR-V SE, and a 2012 Prius v Five, using both around town, with a bias toward the CR-Vs seating height, and the Prius on long-hauls, with a bias for the better road manners, a total of 8,000 miles annually.

 

sell te prius before it implodes

 

Any way to tell?
You could call a few dealers and ask how much for a health check with printout.

Only other way I can think of is to start DIYing one thing at a time.

 

I'm with @rjparker on this one.

If you drove a lot, and/or if fuel were expensive, then the potential downsides of Prius complexity would be offset by constant savings at the pump.

But if you aren't driving a lot, that leaves you owning all the risk but less able to cash in on the reward.

Sell the Prius.

 

Unless you have a bad head gasket now there is little a Toyota dealer or anyone else can tell you about pending issues that have not happened yet. But they do know the engines are flawed in a basic way given the low tension rings and pistons. They do know the brake booster problem. There are also inverter issues.

The first issue was recognized and covered for 60k miles but was not advertised or discussed here much in the early days. Primarily because the gen3 engine doesn't typically burn excessive oil, won't dump oil in the intake manifold creating carbon or usually does not blow head gaskets or engines until 100k miles or more. Lately age is taking them out earlier than the 150-200k mile experiences of a few years ago.

Brake Boosters are also flawed in gen3s but coverage has expired for most at ten years or 150k miles. They are a safety issue and a large expense.

Inverters are still covered unless someone outside of Toyota messed with them first. Being stranded suddenly is no fun; been there done that.

The early v's prior to 2015 also have poor crash test results on the driver's side. Be sure your medical insurance is comprehensive.

However unsuspecting Uber and other delivery drivers love Prii, often from afar. After they date it once they commit and often learn the ugly side later. Which is good for the seller in today's low inventory market.

A Honda several years younger is the smart choice. Maybe a little homlier on the outside but with a heart of gold. You don't want high maintenance women or cars. Ms Honda will keep you happy and they are low maintenance types anyone can take care of.

 

The latest CRV’s are direct injected, turbo charged, 1.5 liter, and there’s been oil dilution (with gas) IIRC. But that’s more recent than OP’s?

 

We maintain our ‘fleet’ on schedule and drive them until they give up.

Turbos (other than a few notable race track examples, Porsche 917/10 and 30, Nissan GTP-ZX) have never interested me due to tight packaging, heat, bearing coking, and potential for and costs associated with early failure.

 

The 2017 crvs started the 1.5L turbo DI engines. The 2.4L port injection engines were rock solid honda engineering. They were still an option through 2020 on the low end crvs. In reality the faster higher mpg turbos DIs have been ok so far but their long term maintenance costs could skyrocket. Kind of like high mile gen3 prii. A 2.4L can routinely go 300k miles on dino oil without major maintenance.

In most other aspects the gas honda crv beats the standard rav4, especially ride and ergonomics. Rav4 rules as a hybrid and has been in short supply since it came out two years prior to covid.

 

I used to avoid turbos for their complexity and expense.

But I have seen a difference: about 15-20 years ago everyone started repackaging their cooling systems to include a header tank higher than the turbo. This seemed to provide some crucial post-shutdown cooling which worked well to prevent bearing coking, and with that problem knocked down even more of the masses (like me) could enjoy that boost.

So, since then I've personally run a Subaru through 12 years/200k miles on the factory turbo, and I don't have any particular fears for my current Mazda turbo.

I probably wouldn't have chosen it a la carte, but in both cases that's just how the car I wanted was equipped, and I learned to deal with it- much the way Toyota sold us the hatchback we wanted, and it just happened to be a hybrid.

 

Honda and Toyota occupy the top two spots on my "cars that I like enough to buy and recommend" for the past 25 years. That said, if you don't "need" (or strongly like) the Prius, then sell it. While many of these hybrids have gone 200,000+ miles, they are more complex (more that can break) and fewer shops that can/will work on them.

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