I'm looking at a 2014 Toyota Prius Four, and am wondering if it is plug in or not? Is it nickel based battery or lithium based? Also, what is there to watch out for when looking at one? How do I tell if the hybrid battery is bad? How do I tell if it's burning oil? Is $11k a bad price? Also, why are some priced $6k and others $15k or more? Are the 6k ones basically guaranteed to require a battery swap/timing chain replacement? Or is there more to the story? Or does it have to do with engine setup/VVT-i? Is it the intake or the exhaust that gets clogged up? I'm getting conflicting reports from reviews. How much different are the cars in this gen? Someone mentioned that they had ironed out most all the kinks in the 2014, but what about the 2015?
Looks to me like they've added some sleeves liners and some various add-on parts and are thinking that's got the problem straightened out but you got to wait for these cars to get 150 plus thousand miles on them to even get in range of the real problem seems to me they are both 2 Z FXZ engines which is fundamentally the same engine that's been in Corolla for quite a few years I think in the Corolla they don't run the low tension rings in that poor oil control ring I don't think but I'm not positive of that I haven't had to pull the two Z engine in a Corolla down yet.
You say Conflicting reviews? But post vvti, 2014 kinks all worked out, required timing chain change and clogged exhaust haha. That oughtta fuel conflicting info on here.
1) you can tell the plug in if there is a door on the right rear fender. the plug receptacle is under there. 2) plug in is lithium, non plug in is nimh 3) if there are no trouble lights, and it starts and runs fine, the hybrid battery is good. if the charge icon is oscillating between high and low, the battery is on its last legs. 4) check the oil level, but it would take serious investigation to find out how much oil it consumes. 5) price depends on condition, package and mileage. check kbb.com 6) various pricing can mean a lot of things. each vehicle for sale merits due diligenc. nothing to do with engine set up, they're all the same 7) intake manifold ports, exhaust gas recirculation valve and cooler all get cloggedover time. 8) some time during 2014 production, different pistons and rings were used. toyota might have a spec on what vin #'s. all 2015's got the improvement. 9) all gen 3 are susceptible to brake actuator failure.
Most likely if it is really a "Prius four" it is not a "Prius Plug-in" First, the name is wrong. Second there were only two trim levels on the Plug-ins back then IIRC. Mike
regular brakes it's an electric system under the hood. they are known to fail, but we don't know in what numbers. mine is getting worse, but still working okay.
my thoughts are that due to the cost of gas primarily, the older gen 3and 2 are what became of the honda civics. there seems to be a slew of minority mainly garages that basically flip them. they show to pvt sales or auctions etc and buy them for probably around 2500 then do the maintenace like the erg or hg etc.. then resell for 6-9k depending on yr. locally where i am the 2013-15 can pull depending on miles upto 18k whick seems redic
Checked out two prius' today. One of them had this odd humming coming from the passengers' side of the engine. Not sure what it was, but it sounds sort of like a transformer hum. Is that normal? Not really familiar with hybrids.
