2008 Prius dash lights dark--would you buy?

Salesperson selling a car with 237k miles? RUN.....

Anyways, there could be other things you need to check. The combination meter is a given, the 12v battery might just need a little top up and shouldn't be a concern (if they replaced it with new)

The common potential problems at that mileage would be brake actuator and HV battery failure. But there could be many things wrong with a 237k miles car. You'll need a good inspection before going through with this purchase

 

The brake problem is a big deal It's getting hard to find to use brake part and the new ones 1400 bucks plus tax No getting around that no place to get them cheaper matter of fact the price may go up because people are hunting them down to fix these cars in the grand scheme of things it's not a huge deal of a repair if the rest of the cars and even reasonable condition hell I'm driving one right now that the brake lights have been on for months no problem at all to stop drive it everyday almost a hundred miles oh well The Prius cannot not not stop not this model anyway It's built into the car that way some manufacturers in the '80s did this like BMW when they had those $4,000 Bosch ABS break actuators when they first came out You may or may not remember those problems I was in the car business at the time it was quite the thing many of fella I knew with plenty of money got rid of the whole car because of the $5,000 ABS problem or whatever the cost would be. 237K miles on a gen2 It's just starting to become personalized to the person that's driving it seriously That's nothing to really even get overly worried about now if you just want a car that you can just do nothing and drive and get about 9 mi to the gallon less gas mileage look at the Yaris no kidding we'll have none of these problems that we discuss here on this list get almost the same gas mileage and have the engine that's in the generation 2 that all you'll need to do is change the oil so that may be a consideration The Yaris can sit half the winter and go right out and be started The Prius will never be happy doing any of these antics If you live in the cold the Prius will never be happy unless you have a garage for it to keep it warm so there are personal and certain things you need to work out for your transportation The 237 wouldn't scare me worth a durn It does interest me that when you have the car readyed you're not getting 13.5 volts from the inverter to the battery the 12 volt but that's a very easy fix again so just depends on what you can do what you want to do and really what you need to do.

 

Do yourself a favor by your son a Yaris they're cheap enough there's no batteries they get about 9 mi to the gallon less than a Prius with none of the worries maybe seven miles to the gallon with It's driven reasonably and they will last as long as the Prius if not longer has the same engine as a generation too just without the battery and the heavy transmission electric motors so that's okay You don't want your son to be driving Uber and Domino's and all that nonsense anyway so with a Yaris he can be in school studying or whatever he needs to be doing not worrying about driving a car that's going to die from sitting the Yaris can sit for 8 months and you can come out to it in the freezing cold and it'll fire right up the Prius is not so forgiving.

 

yaris corolla civic etc. but a $2,000. hybrid is likely going to be a headache

 

Unless you have the "budget" for potential (likely) repairs, then an old hybrid is not a good purchase.

That budget can be money $$ if a shop has to do any work. Easy $5k+ for an OE HV battery and a brake actuator.

It can be much less money if you have strong DIY skills, but you have to have the time (+ space + tools) to deal with repairs. Breakdowns are rarely convenient.

Whenever you look to buy a used car, ask yourself - "why does the previous owner want to sell it?"

A buyer wants to acquire all of the "positives". The seller wants to get rid of all the "negatives".

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Spot on, experts advise from everyone ...
You are in the salt belt road, stay away from all used hybrids...
People will say whatever to sell cars, but hybrid is very complex and not worthy ( unless you getting it from your grandma, you know what I mean ! ).

Good luck,

 

Toyota originally designed this car to go about 200k miles, trouble free. After that, the rebuild process begins. From suspension, brake actuators, electronics, HV battery, Dash lights, MFD screens, exterior paint, basically everything that can fail will probably fail after 200k miles. So it's up to you to buy a car with that many miles and deal with the failures that arise.