Hello everyone. Any advice on years to avoid and how many miles is too many for a used purchase. Plus what to look out for. Cheers!
Head gasket mainly it is why I went for the gen 2 but to be honest, still would like the 3 or at least try one to compare. Years to avoid are i think from about 09-14 there are other things to but think the head gasket is the main one but others will say too what issues they have had. It is seemingly a better driving car than the 2 but everyone is different.
My 2011 is at 210,000 miles are still going strong. We just got home 2 days ago from a 3,000 mile road trip. It handles great. You will hear a lot of stories about head gaskets and EGRs. Fortunately that only happens to some.
The odds of a 3rd gen for sale having some major problem are quite high: 1. neglected EGR system and consequential blown head gaskets, often temporarily masked by a stop-leak product in the coolant, around 150k~200K miles 2. low friction piston rings were used, till some point in model year 2014, prone to bad oil consumption, around150k~200k miles 3. brake booster failure
Sold my 10 year old Gen 3 plug-in last year because I was worried about possible upcoming repairs. I kept the mileage under 100k for better resale. The hybrid battery was still holding 17 kms of EV range, as opposed to 20 kms when new. I probably sold it a bit too cheap, $9300, because the buyer interest in it was intense, and it was sold within hours of posting it for sale. In retrospect, I probably could have kept it a few more years, but it's always a crap shoot whether it will eat you alive for repairs or not.
Sounds frightening. Maybe a gen 4 makes more sense. Lots of Jap imports for sale in the UK with lowish miles for about £10,000 which is about a 33% discount off of a UK spec car.
If it's within your budget, you might want to consider a Gen 5. Considerable improvements were made over the Gen 4.
It is weird why the gen 1, 2, 4 and 5 and basically all ok but the 3 is rubbish compared to them. Just what was going on with Toyota and that model, we're they cutting costs in material or something then realised after many many complaints they better sort it out.
They were trying to improve mpg over gen two, but made design mistakes with the pistons, rings and egr circuit. Unfortunately, they rushed it to market and let their customers do the testing. When things started failing after warranty, Toyota left them high and dry
The budget is £5000 to £10000 which in dollars would be $6500 to $13000. Here you are looking at approximately 10 year old cars with between 50,000 and 100,000 miles for that money.
too good to be true? i hope it didn't blow the head gasket due to a leaky exhaust coolant heat exchanger (a fairly common early gen 4 problem), and they are covering it up with sealant.
