Is anyone else planning to keep their Prius much longer than usual?

Who knows? Ironic, we sold our 1997 Toyota Tacoma pickup today to family (107,000 miles). Purchased used in March 1999. Sixteen years is the longest we ever had a vehicle. I leased my 2011 Lexus IS with the idea that as I got older, I wanted more new cars, so a three year lease was my best option. Times goes by so quick, so I figure about three years on my Prius (purchase, no lease). Still want a variety of vehicles between now and my demise.

 

I like my Prius. I only had it 9 months. I take it one day at a time.

 

As much as I'd like to keep my Prius, I average about 40k miles or so a year, so it's really not lucrative for me to keep a car for more than 2 years.

I only had my Corolla a year and a half before I traded it in on the Prius.

That said, I don't see any reason I wouldn't end up with a 2015 Prius.

 

You can use it only for as long as it lasts. The more appropriate question is what can you do to maximize the likelihood it will make it that long. Good question for a knowledgable taxi driver.

 

I know I'll be keeping it at least 4 1/2 more years, since I'm paying 0% on the loan. What's the hurry.

 

Trying to baby a Prius long past it's expected useful life (180K)-that's Toyota's figure, hold no allure for me, as a young man I had to deal with high mileage old cars, now I don't have to, so my 11 Prius will be gone soon to be replaced by a 4 or 5 13 Prius or a Camry XLE hybrid.

 

How you figure, resale value better ? Not a challenge just curious.

 

Possibly the last car I will buy unless we get unexpectedly rich.

 

Yeah! Alternative ones too.

 

I usually get the itch to replace a car after about 18 months. So far, after 20 months and 29K miles with my '12 Prius, no itch. It's proven to be very reliable and practical for my needs. Last night I picked up a nice $10 bike at a garage sale for my fiancee. No problem getting it in the Prius.

 

Yes. In my experience, while used car price guides contend that there's only roughly $1500 difference between model years with an additional 40k added, dealers will lowball on a trade-in offer with a car in excess of 120k miles. I find that once you get into the six figure mileage, trade-in offers fall off significantly. Once I get up to around 75k, I start looking for a new car.

 

You are a good man.

 

I hope to have my 2010 Prius for 10 years. That was my goal when I first purchased it because of the so called "hybrid premium" and that it would take 8-10 years to make up for that extra price in gas savings. I have a feeling that a number of things will happen within those 10 years, most of which has already been addressed in this thread, mainly new technology. But I also think that in those 10 years, the price to fix the Prius will also go down (inflation notwithstanding) because I think the battery will be much cheaper and there will be many millions of the Prius on the road (needing repairs). The problem will be if I start to get nickel and dimed with repairs here and there, to the point where a new or newer car is more reasonable.

Mike

 

We kept our last 2004 until last month when we bought a Black Cherry Pearl Persona edition... Our 04 only had around 69 k on it so this one should last at least that long...

 

We'll keep our GenII and GenIII until the cost of keeping them on the road is cost prohibitive.

I'm hoping for 250k plus.

 

I just bought my 2010 with 86,000 miles on it. I plan to keep until at least 200,000....hopefully longer!

 

We generally keep our cars until the wheels fall off, i.e., the repair costs are greater than new car payments. Our current recordholder is a 1993 Mercury Cougar, 297,000 miles before it blew a head gasket (it also needed shocks, springs, tires, transmission, differential, just too much to justify). We are tickled pink with our 2010 Gen III Prius 5, and plan on keeping it until something supercostly breaks down. We're currently putting on about 25K miles/year, so hopefully we'll have it for about 10 years.

 

Cosgrove, it is not in the maintenance manual, but you might consider doing a drain and fill of the ATF WS at 30,000 miles, then every 60,000 miles.

 

...this is a strong endorsement. You have been a member since 2005 and have only averaged about 1/2-post per year! This is an apparent testament to Prius reliability. Good luck with the new Prius!

We will normally keep a car like this 2006 for 10-yrs or more. We're at 120k miles already, but looks like are settling into a lower miles per year life style. Shorter trips not as good for MPG, but 200k miles on the odometer looks like at least 5-yrs away.