The Prius has more rear legroom and yes the low Tax and low fuel consumption appeal. If I were really green I wouldn't own a car.
Both Focus and Prius have very good NCAP ratings and both seem very safe cars. The Ford would be easier to fix if anything went wrong, but more costly to run. The Prius would be cheaper to run.
Regarding the batteries I assume they will die one day, but I hear and read that very few have failed yet in any Prius. I bet they are the very best NiMH cells and I believe that such cells are good for the constant top up and drain that the Prius gives them.
I am interested to in the more usual car wear: steering, suspension, tyre wear and corrosion.
Thanks
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If I were really green I wouldn't own a car.
Though in order of greeness a Prius does not come second to no car at all, a Focus is much more green because it contains far less embbeded carbon. And as for when those batteries do need replacing, well you have got an Aygo there in carbon terms.
The problem is that the system is hypocritical, if we are going to reduce RFL road tax and BiK based on CO2 emissions then we should also account for embedded carbon.
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I bet they are the very best NiMH cells and I believe that such cells are good for the constant top up and drain that the Prius gives them.
They might be the best there is (cannot comment on that) but eventually will hold less and less charge and eventually need replacing. I am not even sure they are NiMH (which have a memory effect in phones and laptops) but aren't Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer for sure.
At some point these batteries will need to be replaced. Nobody knows when yet (hoe many years, how many charges, etc.).
I am not sure your reasons for a second hand hybrid are valid. You can get more leg room in say a Skoda Octavia I am sure.
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I believe the gen 2 pruis had a 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on the hybrid system
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So if this is an 05 then it's okay until 2013 then ;-) And then it becomes costly if it goes wrong.
I remember the first Apple Mac laptop... it had lead acid batteries. I am not joking :-) And it cost over $6000 then: tinyurl.com/OriginalMacLaptop
Edited by rtj70 on 04/10/2009 at 00:38
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Why does everyone get wrapped up with if you want to drive a Prius its because you want to save the world !!
If you look at the facts
Its a reasonable roomy car
Its a automatic
its a Toyota so should be reliable
its a well specified car
Road tax is low
its fuel consumption is respectable
Those points alone should make it a car for some people to consider on its own merits !!
Just my thoughts
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Why does everyone get wrapped up with if you want to drive a Prius its because you want to save the world !!
I didn't. But at some point the batteries will need replacing at someone's expense.
There are other roomy, automatic, well specified Toyotas that might cost less. How about a Avensis diesel estate?
Edited by rtj70 on 04/10/2009 at 00:51
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rtj70 this was not meant to be a dig at your comments !!its just that people seem to think you are trying be environmentally friendly if you buy a prius and it is a good car in its own right ! that is what seems to come across in most forums
You are quite right about the Avensis and at that age it would be cheaper but sometimes people want to be different rather than follow the crowd
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There are quite a few around, so I imagine they have their merits. Lets face it, if you buy a Focus, you are confirming you have zero imagination and I doubt a petrol auto Focus is as economical as a Prius, infact the Focus 1.6 auto or 2.0 auto have combined figures of around the 35mpg, so even if the Prius did just 50 mpg, it would still be way ahead on a like for like basis.
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There are quite a few around so I imagine they have their merits. Lets face it if you buy a Focus you are confirming you have zero imagination
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... ... ... or that you enjoy a car that handles well, crisp turn in, satisfying to drive, well made, cheap to service an has about half as much embedded carbon as a Prius ... ... ...
Take full like for like carbon costs and it is unlikley a Prius would ever pay for itself in carbon terms, certainly not in comparison to a good 1.6 ish turbo diesel.
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so even if the Prius did just 50 mpg, it would still be way ahead on a like for like basis.
Depends on the type of driving though doesn't it. Around town the Prius will do well but on open roads not so well compared to a diesel. And it probably cost more to buy.
Now if you drive into London a lot... or are a celebrity in California wantign to look good... get a Prius.
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or are a celebrity in California wantign to look good... get a Prius.
And park it at LAX when you take the Lear Jet to Cannes! ;-)
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cuthbert - quite right. It's a good family-sized automatic hatchback, with mind-boggling leg-room, and almost no car tax. (£15 this year, £10 next year - it's been going down and down for several years).
On the "embedded carbon" costs, all the sane-looking studies I've seen suggests that the an 05 Prius will have already saved enough fuel over the Focus to have repaid the couple of tens of percent energy costs.
Seriously, how much more expensive do you think the Prius can be? There's nothing terribly exotic in there, apart from the NiMH batteries, and they're recycled at end of life. (With a couple of hundred pound deposit on them). Mostly it's clever electronics - embedded intelligence, rather than energy.
And from what I've read replacement batteries are fairly readily available second-hand (at least in the USA where the Prius is more common). Priuses get written off due to accidents far more often than they need batteries replaced, so there's no shortage of spares from scrap. You'll just need to pay more than the Toyota deposit, and find a garage with sufficient clue to fit the replacement. (Not rocket science, but would need the electronic interface test tool gizmo, much like any modern car surgery).
And on the up-side, the Prius isn't going to suddenly need a thousands of pounds replacement for some wacky six-speed automatic gearbox with 1000 moving parts. It's much simpler mechanically.
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There's nothing terribly exotic in there, apart from the NiMH batteries, and they're recycled at end of life
But what's end of life. NiMH has a memory effect so the usable capacity goes down. If they get to 8 years (Warranty says they will) what then? And if they hold less charge the engine will cut in more and more. So over time the engine will run more often.
NiMH is not the solution for batteries. Who has a mobile that doesn't now use Lithium Ion batteries due to the problems with NiMH?
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As the OP is buying a used car, arguments about embedded carbon are irrelevant.
I looked ta buying one. You get battery packs on ebay from crashed cars being broken - c £300 iirc
I concluded not much went wrong but a full Toyota SH was a must.
Edited by madf on 04/10/2009 at 10:36
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There are plenty of cars that are just as roomy/comfortable (someone has already mentioned the Octavia)... as I see it the car's use and how long you intend to keep it are probably the deciding factors as to whether you are prepared to pay several grand more for one over a similar but conventional car... its just like the diesel vs petrol arguement.
So lots of urban use and keeping if for a long time get one, high mileage outside urban areas get a diesel, in between get a petrol...
2005 Prius's start at £5k according to Autotrader... conventional cars up to £2k to £2.5k less.
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It's not just that the Prius is an economical car with admittedly unknown long term costs, it is in effect a slightly smaller top range car eg Lexus etc, due to it's incredibly smooth and uncannily silent engines and drivetrain.
That may not be such an issue on a motorway, but that smoothness and silence really is quite addictive in urban use, and quiet country lanes, they truly are a delight and very light to drive where you can enjoy that refinement, your neighbours if you care about them will never hear you leave or return, unlike with many Diesels.
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To be honest I was very close to buying a Pruis .
I end up with a diesel verso automatic mainly because they had reduced the warranty on the new Pruis to 5 years /60,000 miles
I do not think the Pruis would have been much cheaper to run in the type of motoring that I do .
I considered it because it was roomy, had lots of gadgets, it was automatic ,
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I like the Prius, but would only really consider buying one if I was mainly driving around town. It's not as good around the twisty bits as a Focus and on the motorway the engine noise gets a bit tiresome if you're continually having to slow down and accelerate back up to speed. Having said that, the same also applies to most 4 cylinder diesel automatics I've driven.
I don't give a stuff about the green credentials of the Prius I just like the driveability advantages of the petrol/ electric drivetrain and the fact that someone managed to design a car which doesn't have a gearbox.
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One thing that has not been mentioned is deprecation on the focus compared to the prius
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the fact that someone managed to design a car which doesn't have a gearbox.
I thought it did - a CVT, according to a post in another recent thread?
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>I thought it did - a CVT, according to a post in another recent thread? >
Yes its a CVT gearbox !!!
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Yes its a CVT gearbox !!!
Toyota refer to it as an eCVT or PSD for Power Split Device. It's not a conventional mechanical CVT gearbox. It's a set of planetary gears which connects the petrol engine, electric motor and generator and combines the outputs of the petrol engine and the electric motor to achieve torque variation. It's much smaller and lighter than a gearbox and also does away with the need for a clutch or fluid torque converter.
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NiMH batteries do not have a memory effect. Nicad batteries perhaps did, but NiMH don't, which is I suppose why Toyota and Honda use them.
Also, all the talk about diesels ignores the fact that the produce particulates which affect people with and cause some to suffer from asthma. My girlfriend and her sons all suffer from asthma so a diesel is not for me.
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Also all the talk about diesels ignores the fact that the produce particulates which affect people with and cause some to suffer from asthma.
So do petrols, BM, and the ones petrol produce are smaller and more easily sucked into your lungs... they are just as bad as each other, just that dieselhaters like you try to make it out to be different. And I suffer from asthma so have a vested interest as well... give me one bus rather than 20 I/C cars any day.
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Thanks for all the replies.
Regarding diesels: there is much UK comment about the Particulate problem and that, not the emission from a petrol engine, is the asmatha casue. Diesles are gereat for a bus or train but currently not so good for cars, imho.
For me a Prius has the advantage of low running costs; tax, insurance and fuel, compared to a Focus. Also, going back to 2006 the UK price difference seems not that great. Ignoring the clever electronics, they are both cars with the same parts that might wear, with the Prius seeming to have a tyre problem. The saving in running costs would, I think, pay for tyes more often than I would need with a Focus.
Also the Prius is bigger and better in the back. I don't intend to drive like the foolish Clarkson!
So I'll probably go for a 2006 Prius and wait for a good one to come up.
Cheers
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rtj70 - my point about the recycling was with respect to the energy cost.
NiMH is still a better technology than LiIon for this sort of thing. Cheaper, safer, longer life, better able to cope with enviornmental extremes.
The memory effect is avoided in the Prius because it uses only a fraction of the capacity - the batteries never get near being fully charged or fully discharged - "zero" on the battery indicator is actually 40% of nominal charge, "full" is 80% of nominal charge. And in usual driving, you often don't see it reach "full" or "empty". It only needs about 20% of the total battery capacity most of the time - the battery gets exercised more if going up and down hills.
After 8 years, yes, the capacity may reduce somewhat, but that still won't have much impact on normal driving conditions. You don't need that much capacity for the hybrid system to have sufficient buffer capability to give useful energy savings.
Interestingly, the reason you don't see fully-electric cars using NiMH is that a key NiMH patent is controlled by Chevron, and they don't permit NiMH batteries above a certain capacity for automotive use. (Yes, some "oil company buys up and suppresses new energy technology" stories are true).
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I don't think I've seen this written down anywhere, but have been told by a friend who like me has a pacemaker that we shouldn't go in 'electric cars'. Serious magnetic fields can reprogramme pacemakers at random.
Bit annoying, that. I'd quite like to try a Prius if the opportunity arose.
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A recent article on buying used Priuses (Autocar 9Sep09) noted that batteries arn't a problem (as long as the recall to fix corrosion on the contact points has been done) - it's the inverter that can cause trouble - requires regular coolant changes - four figures to replace. Also transaxle CVT can wear out on hard-driven cars. Says 5 years or 60k warranty on Mk 2, by the way; Mk 3 - 8y or 100k.
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>>Says 5 years or 60k warranty on Mk 2, by the way; Mk 3 - 8y or 100k.<<
No its the other way round was the article in Auto express ??
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They might be the best there is (cannot comment on that) but eventually will hold less and less charge and eventually need replacing. I am not even sure they are NiMH (which have a memory effect in phones and laptops) but aren't Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer for sure. At some point these batteries will need to be replaced. Nobody knows when yet (hoe many years how many charges etc.).
I would suspect that as the betteries will gradualy degrade, Prius drivers will not really notice it overe severeal years but there will in fact be a substantial change in the behaveour of the car althought it will not be apparent unless you were to do a substantial distance in your 8 year old 100,000 example, install new batteries and repeat the same substantial difference.
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At some point the batteries in a hybrid will need servicing. I have no idea when that might be though.
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And I wouldn't want to be the bill-payer when they do....
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In urban driving, a hybrid makes a lot of sense - not leaving the engine idling when stationary being the most obvious. However, there was a recent test by a rival publication which I can't link to here, which drove a Prius and a BMW 520d (Efficient Dynamics model) at the same speeds, on a 545 mile run from London to Geneva and back. Despite being significantly larger, and significantly faster, the BMW used less fuel on the trip.
I suspect if the test had involved stop/start stuff around London, the advantage would have gone to the Prius. The point is of course, it depends on your driving style and where you drive in the first place. Remember Top Gear driving the Prius flat out around the track, and then pacing it in a BMW M3? The BMW (cruising gently at these speeds) was significantly more economical than the Prius, which was being caned. A completely irrelevant example in the real world of course - who is going to take a Prius on a track -, but it illustrates the point perfectly.
I love the idea of the hybrid from a technical viewpoint, but apart from in constant urban use, I really can't see what they offer over a diesel, particularly the likes of the latest BMW units with the Efficient Dynamics wizardry.
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DP puts the position fairly and without prejudice - as he always does.
The new mark 3 Prius is much more effective as an all-rounder (see my thread of a week or so ago), but the 2005 model that Bluesman has in mind would be screaming away at high revs - sounding as if it's being caned - even in normal acceleration on to a free-flowing motorway. But great in town.
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With my Dad's new Prius mk3 whilst cruising on the motorway, if you just slightly dip the throttle, you can hear the revs rise & hear it boom & growl.
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Bought a 2004 Prius 3 yrs ago with 25,000 on the odometer, traded it a month ago on another, this time 2008 model with 6k on the clock. Ran the first one to 95,000, and then p/x'd it because, here, anything over 100 k is almost unsaleable for any reasonable price. No problems at all in the 3 yrs that I had it. [ serviced by the same Main Dealer from whom I bought it.] Mostly 50 / 50 town and motorway driving. Mine was Japanese spec, so may be slightly differently tuned to European spec. It is not economical for short runs to the shops etc, because the engine will run if the exhaust gubbins [ catalytic converter etc.] is below operating temperature, so you will not save anything on fuel in that case. The battery is good for a couple of miles at best.
We don't salt roads here, but I live near the sea, but no corrosion problems. Passed MoT every time.
If you decide to have a test drive, make it a long one. There are driving differences, such as speed changing with change in power mode, and you will end up being cursed by those on cruise control until you recognise the change and allow for it. You have no control over the mode of power delivery.
Seat comfort is sworn at by some and sworn by according to others . I find them quite comfortable, and have done several 400-mile runs in a day without discomfort. Another reason to have a long test drive.
The Prius is not rated for towing, so, if you want to tow a trailer, no Prius.
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It is not economical for short runs to the shops etc because the engine will run if the exhaust gubbins [ catalytic converter etc.] is below operating temperature so you will not save anything on fuel in that case. The battery is good for a couple of miles at best.
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Is that right? I'd have thought that the short run to the shops is exactly the time when the electric power should be in use thus saving fuel/emissions... its well known that millions of these journeys take place every day, if it doesn't work then I can't really see the point...
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As I mentioned, the battery is a short-range one when used in "electric vehicle" mode, [even more so if there is a hill in the way]. If a run to the shops is only a few hundred yards each way, then yes, battery is OK. { As long as you remember to take it out for a decent run to recharge the battery. Otherwise the computer will run the engine anyway. }The main purpose of the battery is as a booster to a petrol engine which, if used by itself, is too small for a vehicle of this size when decent acceleration or hill-climbing is required.
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From reports I've read the latest model is capable of longer runs just on battery power. According to one website up to 2km if you keep below 31mph. For me this would be more than enough for a trip to the supermarket.
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For me this would be more than enough for a trip to the supermarket.
Except until they bring out the version you can charge at home, once the battery is flat you will need a decent run to top up the batteries again. If you only do short runs it will mostly use the engine.
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Except until they bring out the version you can charge at home
There are already hacks to do this I believe - in much the same vein as "chipping" an engine, so you can get your hybrid car reprogrammed and fitted with a 240v socket for overnight battery charging and a much lower electric-only running threshold.
The cost per mile then becomes even lower.
Edited by Dave_TD {P} on 15/10/2009 at 00:28
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Now thats sensible... but also begs the question why, on such an expensive and supposed "advanced" car, the manufacturer hadn't already done it... I doubt it would add very much to the cost of the car, and at least then its "green" credentials would be less dubious...
Edited by b308 on 15/10/2009 at 10:00
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A cynic might suggest that givernment might be more inclined to give tax breaks on a car which must burn taxed fuel for all its use rather than a car which could be powered by untaxed electricity some of the time or even all the time for some users.
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