Hi Everyone, grateful to have found this forum, and thanks in advance to anyone sharing their experiences and knowledge. I've never owned a Prius, but have several friends who love them and have always bought used Priuses (one friend who is on their third) and has finally convinced me that a used Prius is the right option for me right now. Been searching just over a week in ATL and gone through lots of scammy offers so far. Right now looking at a 2014 Prius Two FWD with 106k miles that's in my budget being sold by Toyota Dealer. It's single owner, no accidents, 30 day limited powertrain warrenty (up to 1k miles), buuuuut the carfax shows a big gap in service history. It was serviced at the Toyota dealership regularly for the first 20k miles, but for the next 8 years and 80k miles of driving there is no service listed at all. Dealer is telling me that the customer serviced the car themselves and this is why it doesn't show up in Carfax. They sent the report on the service they performed to prepare for sale, everything's pretty basic, replacing windshield wipers, replacing cabin filter and engine filter, balancing tires, etc. But the big thing (which they sank 2.5k into) is an ABS light that indicated ABS actuator failure -- paperwork says they replaced the "pump assembly brake" and "cylinder assembly brake". I've heard that ABS issues on higher mileage Priuses can be an issue, so in one sense it's nice that it's already been replaced, but the question that comes up for me is whether ABS actuator failure on a Prius with 106k miles is typical or is it indicative of a bad service history as well as an indication there's more big repairs coming soon? I don't want assume that the car's fucked off the bat just because someone serviced it themselves because I know a lot of Prius owners are super knowledgeable but maybe this is naive...
welcome! it is fairly typical in the life of a prius, but there is no specific mileage range when it happens. cause of failure is just poor design or manufacturing, and it is a very expensive component, and laborious, which at todays rates make prius issues sometimes very costly. keep in mind that gen 3 (2010-2015) also have an expensive egr circuit, possible blown head gasket issue, as well as the hybrid battery which will need replacing at some point.
Yeah third gen penance is you get get to tear out the wipers/cowl, pull off the intake manifold, extract the EGR components to clean out the accumulated carbon, preferably every 50K miles. See top two links in my signature. On a phone you need to turn it landscape orientation to see signatures.
Brake system failure may be due to brake fluid that has never been changed. It is hygroscopic and absorbs water from the environment. As a result, brake systems fail. But if the brake system equipment has already been changed, then you should not worry too much about this. The high-voltage battery and EGR can cause much more problems. Check everything carefully.
Just getting back to this thread - thanks everyone, this is all super helpful. Sounds like the most important thing is just that I take the car to a mechanic and get everything thoroughly inspected before buying to make sure there's no big issues that'll pop up right after purchase. Curious if people have strong feelings about taking priuses to toyota service shops as opposed to a non-toyota specific mechanic? Or should I just look for a mechanic who specializes in hybrids and EVs specifically?
if you don't know a good reliable mechanic, it's going to be hit or miss as to what they check, and how they test things. even dealers are suspect in this arena. unfortunately, no one can tell you if the battery or head gasket will fail right after you buy it. crooks even have undetectable ways of covering things up.
