I am seriously considering buying a 2012 Prius v from out of state. The Prius has about 85K miles and appears in good shape based on the pictures listed by the dealer. The carfax is also showing regular service intervals primarily done at the dealership. My only concern is that the last service captured by carfax lists the following and then 1500 miles later the car is being offered for sale. Maintenance inspection completed Oil and filter changed Tires rotated Wheels checked Body electrical system checked I'm also hesitant since i am buying it out of state and am weary of putting money down sight unseen as i will be getting on a flight and will then be driving it back. Are there any known electrical issues that i need to be concerned about? Should I be worried about the Body electrical system checked service item. Is 85K too high? Will there be lots of maintenance down the road? I drive 66 miles total for work every day. This will be my first hybrid so i want to cover my bases. Lastly any tips for buying a vehicle out of state. Is it a good idea or should i just wait for a local one to pop up? Thanks!
If it were me, I would look locally. It would be different if the car was new. Best of luck to you, and welcome to Prius Chat.
HellOnEarth - Trust the hesitancy from your gut feeling --- pass on it. Keep looking for a local v wagon with less miles on the odometer. 85,000 miles over four model years cranks out to ~20,000+ miles per year. It was driven High-Miles-Per-Year hard, and is just 15,000 miles away from the 100,000 miles warranty on the Traction Battery running out.
Thanks guys. I was able to get the sales guy to send a video of the car in motion. The speedometer seems to be flickering but he assured me that it is the phone camera and not the actual speedometer. Just wanted to share it with you incase some one wants to try it with their vehicle Sadly i cannot share the video link as i do not have four posts and have not been a member for over 24 hours. I will post some additional posts below and try to post the link below Also got some service records since it was pretty regularly serviced at the dealership. Uploading them for your comments. The second page has the electrical system error description. Has any one experienced that on their car. Still confused about getting it or not
strange, not sure what that code is about. could it just be low fob battery? what if it's an issue down the road?
Ok trying to be sneaky now ww.sendvid.cm/0ttkuulp add another w at the start and replace cm with com and you can see the video
Watched it too here, about five times. Interesting that at the beginning of the video, it doesn't seem to flicker for a couple of seconds.
Here is the Toyota error code from dealer write up; U0142 Lost communication with body control module “B.” U0155 Lost communication with instrument panel cluster control module. Reference link; Hybrid vehicle air conditioning service - Automotive Service Professional I could not reproduce your flicker on my nice compact digital camera, nor on my camera phone. I still need to test taking video in daylight with camera pulled back.
Chazz thank you very much for all your help and trouble. The U0155 Lost communication with instrument panel cluster control module sounds scary and reason to pass on this one
I did manage to reproduce the dashboard video flicker on my smartphone camera, only in sunlight with camera more than 2 feet from speedometer.
