Gen 2 owner considering a Gen 3

putting more money into your '05 is a very personal decision. i wouldn't have kept it this long, so my opinion is worthless.
i went from an '08 to a '12 and am very happy with it. not a fan of the flying bridge, but got used to it. it's pretty much the same car otherwise. some say gen 3 isn't built for the long haul like gen 2, and 2010's have had some oil burning issues around 100k.
as far as sound, it depends on the package. i'm not impressed with mine, but neither was i on my '04 or '08.

 

Have experience with both. Me personally I like gen 2 more. I feel the gen 2 is more reliable I agree with Bisco the flying bridge is not my thing. Get another gen 2 I did. Gen 3 does have more pep and better mpg. At the end of the day they are great cars it's a prius

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Gen3 has quite a bit more cargo room and you can get c v pip or lift back but I am still in Gen2

About 3-4 more ft3 in a Gen3 much of which is in the back so with sleek Gen4 look I do not know if we see that much space again soon and the PiP does not crimp on main cargo area

 

We have a Gen 2 and a Gen 3. Love them both. Definitely better MPG with the Gen 3. Flying bridge is in the way. Gen 3 more cargo space, but less backseat foot room.
Gen 3 more peppy. I do prefer the real leather seats in the Gen 2 over the "softex" faux leather in my Gen 3.

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I have owned both a Gen-II and a Gen-III since 2010. You will love the Gen-III once you get used to the different location of the controls.



Bill the Engineer

 

I put 124K miles on my 2008 in three years, took it up to almost 200K, before trading it in on my 2011. It was using a little oil and I was starting to hear rear wheel bearings complaining. The trade-in happened fast, as these opportunities sometimes do. I had just replaced the tires on the '08, which was certainly bad timing on my part. I've put about 65K on my 2011 now, drive about 35K a year, and I'm pleased with it. It is a personal decision to repair/rebuild or replace, and continued trouble-free operation mostly luck if you believe in that sort of thing. My version 3 with NAV (that I do not use) has premium sound with similar speaker placement to my Gen II (which had the JBL 6-disk) but seems to have more stereo separation and image. Volume only goes to 55, which is plenty loud.

 

Wow 295K miles; 240K miles on your end. Nice.

P0420 will likely require a new replacement cat piece ($1K OEM) or a weld on cat ($100+). However, given the oil consumption rate, the engine is well worn.

P1121 requires the 3-way coolant control valve to be replaced. $150 part, $20/gal of Toyota SLLC.

Hmm, don't know how handy you are and if you have tools. This would be a good project car for an engine swap, $500 for a used low mileage engine. If you have dependents, a hand me down for them as you upgrade to a Gen3?

 

I bought a gen 2 at 100k miles for the purpose of flipping it to make some money off of since it was a one owner in pristine condition.Put about 10k miles on it within like 3-4 months and I ended up liking it enough that I sold it for a bit more than I bought it for and invested in a 2014 gen 3. The overall experience is the same. Im still trying to master the HSI to get optimal mpg but its a nice upgrade. The nav i don't use. But the soft ex/leather seats and bluetooth is nice. If i were you i would upgrade. At that the current milage you're at, it'll be more costly to keep it

 

You could list on Craigslist.

I think better would be here on PC's private sale. Private Sales | PriusChat
There is probably someone in your area who tinkers or wants a project car.

CarMax is another good option for used cars.

Trade-in makes life easy, at a cost of less money.

 

I went the opppsite way and bought a 2012 and then a 2005. Both are base models. I was so impressed by the Gen3 I

If I were you, I'd get a newer 2015 Two for less money and upgrade the audio system with a touchscreen Android and apple CarPlay. Entune on the Gen 3 and 4 is quite the garbage. I have Entune on my Gen 3 and use plain old BT audio which takes 30 seconds longer to connect than the aftermarket BT adapter in my 2005. Entune may add another 30 seconds or never connect all requiring restarting the car.

 

I meant get an entire aftermarket system with new speakers, head unit, amp and sub if you're so inclined. The base audio system is as cheap as it gets. The Gen 3 is no better than a Gen 2 IMO. My motivation really is to save you aggravation from the Entune system on a Prius. It's really bad.

Have you listened to BT 4.0 audio yet? BT in 2005 was mediocre but these days I can't tell the difference anymore between wired and BT on any audio system.

 

+1 on aftermarket audio.

You could get a nice double din head unit w/ GPS. Prices have come down considerably; the really nice units are still up there. The one drawback w/ aftermarket headunits is that it may be difficult to fit b/c of the non rectangular dash around the radio; more of an issue w/ Gen2. Gen3 is visibly better b/c the dash around the radio opening is more or less flat. Amazon dash kit LINK. Theft is always a possibility w/ aftermarket headunits. But I

Decent aftermarket speakers will be better than the factory JBL stuff.

5&6 channel amps are cheap. Alpine has one of the smallest sized 5 channel amps that are reasonably priced.
Subwoofers are cheap too.

You'll want to make sure you get good speakers, amp, and RCA cables, b/c these carry your sound. A crappy headunit will sound great w/ good equipment. A good headunit will sound even better.

There are some good fitting GPS headunits, specifically for Gen3, on Amazon, from China. The drawback w/ all of these units, seem to be lack pre-amp (RCA) outputs. The price is appealing though; LINK.

Checkout Crutchfield for headunits for Gen3. http://www.crutchfield.com/m_266150/Car-Stereos.html They may even match lower prices found elsewhere, or drop their price a little.

Its amazing how much car stereo equipment prices have dropped compared to the 90s.

 

I believe JBL cars are a little more difficult to work w/ or won't work w/ after market headunits b/c of the JBL AMP.

The factory headunit puts out so little power, that even a weak aftermarket speaker would sound crappy. Factory output is probably single digits of power per channel, MAX. A lot of aftermarket speakers now a days have a relatively high RMS input, say 25-50watts, with peak input of 100watts.

In theory it should have worked. But reality is a different story as you found out.

I dont know anything about Entune. Look at the sales brochures for the year Prius you want.
Auto-Brochures.com|Toyota Car PDF Sales Brochure/Catalog/Flyer/Info Avalon Camry Celica, Corolla Corona Echo Mark II Mirai Prius Yaris

 

I don't have the JBL premuim audio system so I can't say for sure it is more difficult. I will say that on cars I worked on in the past, the upgraded audio system is more difficult to work with because the speakers are wired to the OEM amp and it doesn't use RCA like aftermarket amps. Therefore, when you try to upgrade the headunit, you'll have to run new speaker wires. On a base unit, you just wire up harness and you're good to go.

Entune is Toyota's version of Apply Carplay. The major problem I have with it is the system is slow and rarely updated. I'll say this, it worked perfectly with iOS 6. After that, it just crashes too often to be reliable. Imagine if you had to wait up to a minute for the system to boot. So by the time the system recognizes your phone or doesn't because it is stuck, you're well on your way. Sometimes disconnecting your phone will fix it. Other times, pulling over and shutting off the car will. I don't know if the new Gen 4 Prius fixes the audiobook problem. For some f*^^king reason, Apple decided audiobooks and podcasts were no longer music with iOS 8 and moved them to a different directory structure. Entune doesn't know anything past iOS 6 and guess what? Audiobooks and podcasts are all I listen to on my commute. I decided to just call my audiobooks something else so they stay in the audio directory.

But then last year. Toyota ended their search deal with Microsoft Bing so you had to upgrade Entune or searches on the navigation will no longer work. I updated and apparently Toyota decided continuing music from mp3's is bad. It's better to start over at the beginning for every digital song. So now my hour long podcasts and audiobooks are useless. Toyota is like Apple and doesn't allow downgrading.

So of course, you can use the AUX or BT audio and everything will be controlled by your phone just fine, which is what I use. If you say you don't have an iPhone, there are also problems with USB drives (Cannot search by file name, can only search my ID3 tags which means you have to use Entunes own sorting schemes) and Android phones. Curiously, Windows Phones are unaffected. but that's because Entune is incompatible with Windows Phone.