Hello dear members, I have recently started working as a taxi driver with prius, but paying 500€/month for rent decreases my earnings significantly, therefore I decided to buy my own one, I’m looking to buy a 2nd or maybe if i find a cheap and good one a 3rd gen Prius. What would you suggest me to pay attention to when buying and how to indicate serious issues? I am not a big car guy, I know how to change wheels, change a bulb etc, but no real mechanic knowledge, in my country everyone uses gas for priuses, but many people lie that there was never gas added and they also lie about real mileage. What can I do to avoid being ripped off?
Do your best. Try to find someone you can trust. Especially a mechanic if you can't fix your own car. Cars are expensive to fix these days and hybrids even more, because there are so few that know how to. And they are easy to break, really any car is easy to break when doing work on them, especially the newer ones, because so few mechanics know how to ( fix the new stuff ) without breaking it in the process.
the big issues with the gen 3 are head gasket, and brake accumulator. personally, i would stay away. i'm not a big car guy either, and those repair costs frighten me. i would go with corolla or something like it.
I would recommend a 2nd gen Prius (2004-2009) 2009 is the best one of the 2nd generations. Sometimes you can get one from a used car dealership, they seem to fix up everything before they sell it or, if there are a lot of problems, they won't want it on their lot. It will make their name look bad. Lower the miles the better it will be. And less chance of having problems. Hope this helps you out.
