Did you buy a Prius with 100K+ miles? Share your story here!

A bit more of an update. The S/H battery traction battery pack is in the '06 Prius and I'm now getting a solar direct charging set up working to recharge the 10kWh battery pack. The replacement traction battery made a huge difference to how often the 10kWh pack was linked into the traction and greatly reduced the current draw out of the plug in battery, so hopefully it might last a while longer now.
The next plan is to buy a S/H kit to converter the Taxi Prius to a plug in unit so I can charge that via solar as well

T1 Terry

 

Just bought a 2006 with 150k on it. They advertised it as a touring, but it doesn’t have 7 spoke wheels. The service records look decent need to dig into them the next couple of days and see what still will need to be done. Sold my 2015 Hyundai Tucson last week, just drove my daughter to speech and doubled my mpg. Ahhhhh, 45+ mpg I’ve missed you (former TDI owner).

I’m hoping we picked a reliable one. I need decent mpg and easy ownership. We want theme park tickets again and it wasn’t happening on 24mpg. But this car the teens that want to drive are going to learn to change the oil. Because mom said so! Lol

I’d love for the info screen thing to not be so yellow - I thought I had seen a fix for that, but now I’m just seeing to replace the whole unit. FL sun is harsh on stuff.

Been reading for a few weeks - thanks for all you share.

 

You went 9 years backwards on car age, may I ask why?

 

So the brain fog was real yesterday - ha, it’s an 08, so only 7 years. Ye gads it’s been a rough few days.

A lot of reasons, mainly because I couldn’t afford the car payment - and refinancing wasn’t an option currently. I’m a single mom with some medical issues, and have 2 kids with similar issues, the last couple of years I’ve driven 20k miles each year, all in a 64 mile radius of my home. And that includes working fine rom home when able - so no commenting and not a lot of “fun” trips. Coming from the JSW tdi the fuel costs were a huge jump for me. I live next to a HUGE retirement commmunity and the “city” traffic is real a huge chunk of the year - I have to buy all cars looking at that number. Very few meet my needs, and since I was going with the “one and done’ payment method I had to look used. Having been a 2 time member of the “high maintenance” TDI club, I went into this purchase eyes open. I do have the backing of my significant other should we need to do major repairs. In hindsight, I should have bought a used Prius when I bought the Tuscan but I had a different set of needs then (my medical issues hadn’t got so bad and I thought I was going to be able to continue to do craft shows). I had made a spreadsheet showing my weekly fuel cost with each vehicle I was considering.

So back to the older car I go, and I ended Wednesday with 49.9 showing on the dash for the 100 miles I drove the kid to therapies - it would have been 23-24 and 1/4 of a tank. The gas gauge hasn’t moved yet on the Tomato (my friends nickname for the car! Lol), and momma is sleeping better (in theory, why am I awake at 2am?) with an anticipated $400 cut to the budget between gas, insurance and payment. Why, I’m almost out of the negative! Lol

And if it helps - I did have Corolla‘s on my list to consider. I just hadn’t found any that met my criteria yet. I rejected more cars than I considered, 2 only made the purchase cut after driving them. We traveled Naples to Miami to Jacksonville and in between looking at what was for sale....

My ex is a mechanic and able to help with that end if needed too. Hopefully I won’t.

Now to consider sleep again - maybe chocolate at bedtime was the problem....

 

Sept 17 bought an 05 Level 3 with 237k needing one HV battery module. Put in an ebay one, it's up to 268k now. Wife's car. 50 MPG summer, 42 winter. Have also done front wheel bearings, rear springs (one broke on the road) and a 12v battery. Will eventually need a speedometer capacitor as it's flaked out once or twice.

June 18 bought another 05 level 2 with 257k, needed coil packs, rear brake lines, and wheel bearings. Also wound up doing front struts, strut bearing, sway bar links, gas tank straps, and I put in the electric-only mode button. At 267k. Has an EVAP issue when it's warm out and I don't want to drop the exhaust and tank to fix it. This one's getting rusty underneath and may be leaving soon so...

Nov 18 delivered me an 06 level 1 with 198k, a bad battery module, and needing one rocker panel, which was included in the sale. I've also treated it to a new 12v battery, a speedometer capacitor, tire PMS sensor. I've kept this one on summer tires and am trying to hide it from the salt this winter. It'll take over for the rusty one when the time comes. Seems to get about 2 MPG less than the others under similar conditions-- but cold really hurts MPG so it's hard to know for sure.

None of these heaps cost me over $800.

 

Wish I could buy them at that price over here in Australia, they do hold their value over here, all the way to the dismantlers yard.

T1 Terry