I bought my first hybrid tonight. It's a 2007 Prius with 201k miles. It's a garaged, clean 1 owner. The drive belts and water pump were changed at 150k miles. Everything seems to work great. I've never had a Toyota, but my mother in law has a Sequoia with 290k miles, so I'm hoping the Prius will treat me good, even though it's got a lot of miles. Is there anything I should know about hybrid vehicles? Anything that I shouldn't do?
Hello and welcome to these PriusChat forums. You could read up on the 5 stages of hybrid warm up that I link to in my signature, so you can understand a little better what your car is doing. Make sure you start a fund for HV battery replacement, you will need one sometime, these things do not last forever -- but how long they last (HV Batt) is variable. $10-20 a week will do. Also read the hypermiling techniques link (also in my sig) if you want to squeeze out the best economy from the car. But, other than that, just drive the car normally, don't try to force it to use the electric motors, don't drive like a granny (no offence to grannies) and look after the car by washing and polishing it, continue with the maintenance. Garage it if you can. Look after the Prius and it will look after you.
Wow, I am going to try the pulse & glide techniques on my commute. I drive 30 miles each way every day. There are roads other than the freeway I can take. Thanks for the info!
You can get good MPG on the freeway too (with practice), if it is relatively flat -- 63-94 MPG (US) on the instantaneous MPG meter for reasonable distances.
OMG, 201k miles on your first Toyota? I sure hope you got it cheap cause you'll need the savings for the upcoming repairs. I hope you're good with DIY repairs, if you're thinking of going to the dealer for service, it'll cost you an arm and a leg at 201k+ mile repairs.
Nah, I think your car will be fine minus the inevitable hybrid battery at some point. As long as the car was maintained and driven reasonably, the mechanical components should be fine. There may be some other wear and tear components along the way such as wheel bearings.
I'm pretty good with cars, I usually do my own work. I'm coming from the VW/Audi world. This is my first non-VW/Audi in 12 years. I've changed timing belts, head gaskets and pretty much all of the above. I didn't have a very big budget, so that's why I went with high mileage. I opted for high mileage over older car. What kind of repairs other than the battery will I be looking at?
Front struts / rear shocks Brake pads and shoes engine coolant pump inverter coolant pump serpentine drive belt catalytic converter exhaust system if the car has encountered winter road salt keep an eye on engine oil consumption until you understand the usage amount
If you own a Prius you should 100% own a mini vci (need laptop) or bluetooth obd2(need android device). With that you can periodically monitor you battery temp in the hot summer as well as keep track of battery voltage of cells. The HV battery fan gets dirty over time which effect performance and causing batteries to get hotter than normal. Many here recommend cleaning it every 60k miles or earlier if you have pets.
Ok, is that similar to VW's VAGCOM or VCDS? I have an OBDII cable with a usb end that I used with VCDS on my VW's and Audis. I also have an OBDII reader. Is that what you're talking about? Also I just recently switched from Apple to Android. I have the Nexus 5x, it doesn't have the micro usb charger it has the usb-type-c charger. If I could use that somehow that would be awesome. I'll have to check on that. Thanks for all the info! It seems like I'm going to have a new hobby. I'm hoping it will be less maintenance and repair than my money-pit VW's though.
Oh, and I got it for $3700. I think that's a good price, or at least it seems to be a good price in my area.
For a working 2007, I think that's a good price for SoCal. Although the miles are kinda high, there really isn't much you can get for $3700 these days......especially on a working, garaged kept, well maintained vehicle. Now the question is as the miles get higher......are you willing to invest significant money to repair something that breaks?
