Is there a point where you don't risk a long drive?

This thread gets me thinking that once we get past covid and people start venturing way further away from home more often, many of our old Prius might not be as reliable as they used to be and the current covid issues of low charge on 12v and hybrid pack is going to shift to more difficult post-covid mechanical problems.

 

Do you regularly need to do maintanance with a 2000 mile window? If so, then you might want to reconsider. My car will happily do 10.000 miles between intervals with no issue at all and the only thing done during maintanance is change oil and filter.

 

I’ve been to test depth on a sub that was over 30 years old and built by the lowest bidder...IN CALIFORNIA...during the 60s.... so I look at risk assessment perhaps a little differently than the OP.
I make quarterly trips to my beloved home state of Indiana.
I make sure that all of my maintenance is up to date, I have AAA, I do all of the necessary preflights, AND I have an emergency fund with a comma in it.
After that?
I relax and enjoy my trips.

Ships are safe in port, but that’s not what ships are FOR.
That’s a quote from a famous (some would say INFAMOUS) Navy Admiral who also inspired the term “debug” to describe fixing a computer problem, and was famous for interesting visual aids.

Her name was Grace Hopper, and even though she was rejected for being too old and “too small” while trying to enlist in WWWII, she was still on active duty during my second enlistment, finally retiring just shy of her 80th birthday as a Vice Admiral.
There’s a destroyer on active duty (DDG70) that PROUDLY bears her name.

YMMV

 

If the vehicle is well maintained and in good shape road trip away.

Plenty of older high mileage vehicles that are in better shape then newer, low mileage vehicles that are abused and neglected.

Hard to answer this question on a concrete level all things considered.

 

Not to mention a long-standing award given to outstanding young contributors in computing.

 

Amazing Grace - “The only phrase I’ve ever disliked is, ‘Why, we’ve always done it that way.’ I always tell young people, ‘Go ahead and do it. You can always apologize later.'”

 

2015 with 90K Kms on meter. 1500 Kms one side done in one go. Took about 17 hours. Car worked like a charm. No issues at all. Maintained on liqui moli 0w20

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

This is the best answer to this thread... There's really nothing left to say. It's a perfect answer!

 

"This is the best answer to this thread... There's really nothing left to say. It's a perfect answer!"

Indeed, 'cept for the, y'know, ships occasionally sinking part...

 

Especially if your first way to fix a car problem is to take it to a dealership...

 

+1

 

Calling for road service or a tow is extra tricky from a ship, and it can be darned aggravating standing around on the water waiting for them to show up.

For a time in my life I had a partner with a sailboat. Little 20 foot cabin cruiser, nothing too glamorous. It was around 25 years old at the time. It did put one in a clear maintenance-oriented mindset, for sure. There's a lot to be said for knowing the condition of the vehicle, up close and personal, from working on it.

We did have an engine failure one day, on the way to Mackinac Island, in fog, on an approach shared by big fast ferries. But the alternative plans and provisions all worked out, and we made it to the island without incident under sail. (In fact, my skipper took us clear into our assigned slip under sail, right next to an imposingly glistening yatchit. There were folks at the marina asking if they could watch her do it again). With the tools on board, the engine got repaired before the return trip.

Reading about ETC on the 30-year-old sub reminded me that, back when I was flying more often, I had a habit of glancing at the manufacturing data plate on the aircraft's door jamb while boarding, and it didn't seem that uncommon to see a date 25, 30 years in the past.

 

And yet, it is easier than airplanes. <G>

 

Back when I flew regularly, I did the same thing, and as a matter of fact I thought about that while I was typing a reply to the OP.

You ought to see how old some of those data plates are on military aircraft, and not just the BUFFs.
There are still KC-135s in service with serial numbers starting with FIVE....
Military contract aircraft are also not spring chickens, since many of these are cast-offs from the bigs.

Deep into the 2000s I was still regularly flying tri-motors (L1011, DC10 and one aging 727....)

 

The MD-11 was still in production in 2000.

Though when I hear "tri-motor", my first thought is Ford, probably because it was among the first planes I saw as a kid.

 

[QUOTE="TMR-JWAP, post:

HV Battery: look at the SOC display every morning and compare it to what it displayed the last time you parked the car. If it's significantly lower (like 2 purple bars) you are starting to show early/mid stages of failure. If you SOC display has pretty wide range swings in a very short period of time, same thing, because that is caused by a weak/low capacity module showing a low SOC and then that same module charging up it's voltage very quickly due to being low capacity.
maintain the engine as recommended by Toyota, and check oil level weekly. Sometimes failures happen.
[/QUOTE]


There is talk of a lithium replacement .. .. literally the modules are in testing .. someone on Torque posted an article claiming he had 3k miles on his .. 1/2 the weight .. 4 times the power ... -- Not sure if these are drop in modules or a pack u need to buy ... this would give new life old cars ... where most peeps worry about 'hybrid battery'replacement/failure' when the word 'hybrid ' is mentioned ..

 

I’ve taken a number of road trips and the number of miles on the car has never been a concern. I only ran into a problem on one road trip, in which a 2003 Chrysler Sebring developed “engine sludge” (a known failure of the model) halfway through a cross country move, and I had to stay at a hotel for a couple nights and rent a car to take me the rest of the way. As was said earlier in the thread, if the car is well maintained and there’s a comma in my emergency fund, then it’s good to go.

 

In a Chrysler maybe. 70k is nothing dude

 

In a 2010 with 200k I would be Leary if the inverter has not been replaced. My experience was that it can fail quickly with no warning even after the software update.

 

idk, i read too many horror stories here. i don't go further than 5 miles from home