I am considering buying a second hand Prius as my next car, possibly in the next year or so. Not because I'm some sort of Eco Warrior, but mainly because they seem so cheap to run.
I have not heard of any failure issues on any Prius and was wondering if anybody has heard of, or experienced, any breakdowns in a Prius or are they totally 100% reliable.
I was thinking of getting a new-ish one any keeping it for a some years.
Also, after I'm finished with it, do you think a 10 year old Prius would be worth anything after the battery system is out of warranty.
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Keith
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If the battery life of my Makita power tools and my Canon camera is anything to go by, then no i would not touch an older Prius.
I have had ni-cad and lithium ion batteries in power tools and when their new are fine but after a couple of years they don't last 5 minutes even after a full charge.
So the Prius, i would think, would be the same and would probably run on its petrol engine more and more.
I would hate to think of the cost of replacing the Prius batteries as my Makita power tools are round the £70 each mark!.
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"For those of us who have cell phones and other devices with NiMH batteries, that claim may sound unrealistic. Over time, the battery's charge longevity seems to wane, resulting in shorter and shorter usage between charges. Eventually, the battery becomes worthless and we buy a replacement.
But in the case of most electronic devices, the batteries tend to get fully charged, then nearly fully discharged before being charged again. For the power pack in the Prius, at least, Toyota says this would greatly shorten the life span of the battery. A navigation screen converts to show the driver what type of power the Prius is using, gas or electric. To get maximum life out of the Prius battery pack, the car's computer brain does not allow the battery to fully charge or discharge. Toyota says that for the best service life, the Prius battery likes to be kept at about a 60 percent charge. In normal operation, the system usually lets the charge level vary only 10-15 percentage points. Therefore, the battery is rarely more than 75 percent charged, or less than 45 percent charged."
From tinyurl.com/2eq9qh
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I'd be just as worried about the generators / electric motors or electronics malfunctioning.
At least a battery is fairly easy to test.
Mechanics sometimes have a hard enough time fixing ordinary I/C engines.
How are they going to cope with the sophisticated motors & electronics.
It will be down to how clever the diagnostics are.
I wouldn't want to own one outside the warranty period.
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There are 168 cells in the main battery pack. Individual ones can be replaced, or the whole shebang. I'm not aware of any reliability issues, but there are specific sites to look at. The track record seems good, both generator wise and electronics.
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Also after I'm finished with it do you think a 10 year old Prius would be worth anything after the battery system is out of warranty.
No it won't be worth anything, but then again look at any other car thats 10 years old and there worth nothing either. So it doesn't make a jot of difference.
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I believe you get an 8 year warranty with a new Prius which covers the batteries.
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I just noticed, in the new Prius brochure, the battery guarantee is only 5 years or 60k miles, so that's put me off a bit, imagine having a 5 year old car that's only useful for charging your laptop and worth nothing.
What happens when the batteries are not holding a charge then, does the car just run on petrol all the time or would it just stop working ?
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Keith
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Hm, Toyota USA offers an 8 year warranty on the Prius. Only 5 years in the UK?
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I can't comment on 10 years, but I recently traded my January 2004 Prius on an August 2008 one. Just under 100k miles. Only failure was the OEM reversing camera. Chain-cam engine, in case you don't like them. Assuming that loss of battery capacity would show up in fuel consumption, the battery lost nothing in that time. I was still getting fuel consumption within a couple of percent of HJ's road test report for that model. The electrics are not a service item, so servicing costs are standard petrol engine ones.
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The Toyota Prius forums show as many reliability complaints as the Toyota Yaris forums.
i.e not many. Far less than equivalent diesel or petrol cars..
As for batteries? Not seen a complaint.
And the Prius forums over the US where there are LOTS of cars...
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