Tomorrow I’m considering buying a 2014 five with 45,000 miles on it. Car is in great cosmetic condition, a couple very small marks on rear bumper. Asking price was $13,500 but we agreed on $12,500 purchase price. What I see from comps this car should be around $13,000-$15,000. He is the second owner and selling after owning for only 3 months, which smells fishy to me. He bought from a dealership and has inspection paperwork from them. The car is 4 hours away and we agreed to meet in the middle tomorrow. Due to a time crunch I most likely won’t have time to get the car in to a mechanic to have it inspected. Should I take the risk and buy without inspection? Or should I plan for next week, set up an appointment for inspection, and hope the car doesn’t sell? He’s had it listed for almost 1 month. Note: the seller is totally willing to let me have the car inspected but since today is Sunday I cannot call a mechanic to make an appointment for tomorrow and I’m almost certain I won’t be able to find someone to do an inspection first thing Monday morning. If I am able to find a mechanic to inspect first thing I will do that but I just want to be prepared before I have to make that decision tomorrow.
Sounds like a good deal for one of the most expensive regions to buy a used Prius... Have you entered the Vin# into Toyota owners website to look up service history? If I were you I'd go for it, but that's because I can fix Prius for cheap. Anyways hope it works out... If you run into car problems I'm a couple hours drive north of you and am willing to help you out so you can save on $$$.
welcome! i'm comfortable if i know the cars history. if not, i'm not even comfortable with an inspection. there are too many important hidden things that cannot be inspected, especially on a prius. reset trip a, and take her for a long drive under varied conditions and see what she returns for mpg's. keep the radio off, and listen for odd sounds. are you familiar with prius sounds? did he say why he is selling? all the best
You're within the warranty period for the hybrid battery, which is a good thing. But you should at least have a carfax type report which should verify if the car has been in an accident. If the car has a salvage title, then the warranty is voided.
I actually bought my current one without a mechanic inspection; the seller was an independent used car dealer and wasn't willing to have cars go off the lot for an inspection. I didn't like that part, but I otherwise liked the car, so I accommodated him. I had just recently looked at another Gen 3 that I was able to take for an inspection, and I was glad I did, because on the lift they showed me all kinds of signs of extensive body repair and paint overspray, etc., that was not consistent, shall we say, with the clean Carfax. I passed on that one. So the one I could not get inspected, I looked over very carefully myself, including the details I had just been shown on the other one. I showed up with a way to read codes, a borescope, a thermal imager (super easy way to confirm the heated seats, mirrors, and rear defogger are working), and put every switch and feature and control through the test. (I did not take plugs out and borescope the cylinders; that felt a little invasive to do on a guy's car lot. But I did use it to get a lot of views under the car without putting it on a lift.) I probably spent a couple hours there just poking around the car. Everything I checked looked ok, so I bought it, and it's been a peach.
Except for a collision, unless the oil has never been changed, there isn't much that has had time (or mileage) to be wrong with it. If you're familiar with how a Prius runs and drives, test drive it and see how it does. Why not ask him why he's selling it and see if that sounds legit? Maybe he has trouble getting in and out of it, who knows?
