Potentially buying a 2018 Prius Prime Plus Monday Feb. 3, 2025, got some questions

The one thing I remember Adv and Premium owners talking about that the Plus does not have is the sheep game. The plus has a simple set of 5 small squares and a number between 0 and 100 beside them instead of the sheep icons. It's a teaching tool where the computer shows how close to optimal your driving style is to the Primes programming efficiency preset values.

If $ is no barrier, I'm sure it's possible. It wouldn't be easy or cheap as OEM parts can be prohibitively expensive. An example is a (one) headlight assembly is over $1000.

Personally, I wouldn't. But I like learning about a car and doing as much of the work on it as I can. And I wasn't happy about the conditions I found after the 3 year 30K mile free service ended. While all the boxes in my maintenance booklet were all checked and I know some of the checked boxes were not done to the car.

In your southern location, if you drive the Prime only in EV mode and never run the gas engine it's possible to make the MPG (mpge) number keep raising.
With 46k miles already on the car,
I'd recommend you take pictures of the Odometer and both Trip A and B (showing the mile and mpg in the pictures) for your records. Even if you never look at those pictures ever again.
There are 5 or 6 meters to scroll through besides the odometer and trips A and B and they are controlled by the little button below the control ring on the left side of the steering wheel. ( I hope that was described in an easy way to understand).
Only tap that button to switch between those gauges, if you hold that button down it will reset the MPG gauge you just switched to. (Big Bummer if done unintentionally) !

Site unseen it appears to me to be normal.

I'd list what I'd look at on the little screen ( it's call the MID (Multi Informational Display)) above the 6" screen in the Plus trim,
but that would probably be overkill as far as trying to present ALL that information in one sitting.
It took me several years to grasp most of it.

As few as possible.
Just make up a list of the most generic to any car questions and simple questions your kids (if you have any) could answer off the top of their heads, ( if you get a sale critter that knows anything about a Prius, I'd be greatly surprised. That goes for the rest of the dealership employee as well, except perhaps the parts counter clerks).

 

IIRC, the larger screen doesn't support Carplay of Android Auto.

I suspect they are giving their hybrid fuel economy with any electricity from the grid being counted as free energy. Tracking the efficiency of the two modes separate isn't simple.

It is possible it is a real mpge number. Calculating that isn't much different than doing mpg. The kWh of electricity used is divided by the kWh content of a gallon of gasoline to get the 'gallons' of electricity to add to the gallons of gas used for a trip.

 

If you don't mind, any more detail on those issues? And what's the miles on it?

One issue with early 4th gen years was coolant leaks in the Exhaust Heat Recovery system, a component bundled as a single part with the catalytic converter, so very expensive to replace, perenially in "short supply". It was apparently rectified in later years, but I'm unclear just when, maybe 2019 model year??

 

It's not outright impossible, but nobody has ever done it for less money and hassle than just buying the up-trim version of the car in the first place.

And I'm putting that gently.

Good luck and have fun!

 

How much is a base gen 5?