Should we swap our 2013 Gen 3 for a 2017 Gen 4 Prius Prime?

I don't see a problem with it as long as they don't get 'seller's remorse' and feel that they were taken advantage of in the end.

A friendship is more valuable than getting a good deal on a car.

 

I have a volt that does 34 mi at full speed or you know 55 70 mi whatever it is regular driving. It's not too bad but the gas engine always comes on if I'm driving it because I'll run it out of the 32 mi before I even get to thinking good that I'm driving. A friend of mine's got one of these plug-in Prius and it's limited to under 50 or something along those lines and 25 mi even less than my volt so that wouldn't be acceptable It seems the 25 and 30 mi is the sweet spot once you want to go over 30 mi at any kind of regular speeds your batteries are going to wind up being 800 2,000 lb whatever it is depending on range If you keep it around 25 or less and under 50 your battery can be massively less heavy and what have you so that's where your trade off point is it seems like that's why there's not a Chevy Volt or a Prius prime that'll go 60 or 90 mi of range on electric at whatever speed because that throws you into a battery where you might as well just consider being full electric with the 3500 lb battery on the bottom of the car or something along those lines seems to be a fine balance in there somewhere or somebody's playing a bunch of games which of the two I don't know no biggie. I'm looking into what the other guy here did . Buy a vote for around $22,000 or something along whatever it is He got a used one so far he says the best 22 grand he's ever spent and I could see that at 22 at 35 maybe not so much. But I will say the volt is a very nice well made vehicle it drives good mine only has 40,000 miles on it and has been on high school duty most of its life Mom taking the kids to school going to the grocery store and the car coming back home in Bethesda Maryland all its life. The person who's getting the generation 3 is getting the worst end of the deal I don't care how it's been kept up generally speaking or at least to me I wouldn't touch it but I also wouldn't be in a prime.

 

Trade offs, going to a gen 4 Prime:

1. No spare
2. Reduced hatch volume
3. Loss of various storage capacity, second glove box and under hatch floor tray for example
4. Weirder interior
5. Aforementioned more complex tech

If you keep the gen 3, clean the full EGR system, including intake manifold EGR passages, sooner than later. More info in my signature (on a phone turn it landscape to see signature).

 

Don't buy a Volt. I had a 2019, loved it! I could stretch the battery miles to about 65 by staying under 65 mph. I sold it for fear of parts availability down the road due to it being discontinued in 2019. Parts availability is now an issue. GM does not have any new hybrid batteries for the volt, not even to cover for those cars still under warranty. Also their BCM and another part, I forget what is is, people are waiting 3-6 months to get that part, can't drive the car during that wait. My 3rd concern was that not every dealership has someone trained to work on them, so people were waiting2-4 weeks until a trained Volt tech could come to that dealership to work on the car. Lastly, a lot of misdiagnosed problems due to service people not knowing enough about the cars, so the parts cannon gets loaded and the owner pays for many expensive repairs that weren't needed and STILL have their original problem.

 

Mine's a 2012 the first generation only 35 or 30 mi on whatever and you mean to tell me after 11 years battery tech changes and all that people like electromotive garage can't come up with a more MAH battery in the same space given the 11-year advancements you would think the 2012 was owned by my brother It's never had the gas engine on until I got it I mean literally it only went 12 miles a day at best bethesda's a small DC bedroom community Rich folks live there soccer moms and all that four Mile 8 mi a day on their cars dropping kids off picking them up by way of the grocery store and that's it. And it was free basically not a scratch on it and brand new tires so I drove it home.

 

nice car, i'd buy/trade at the right price:

2013 - egr/head gasket issues coming due. brake actuator and hybrid battery at some point likely.

2017 - biggest flaw is the potential exhaust coolant heat exchanger leak, which you can head off at the pass or keep a close eye on coolant level.

all the best!