First of all I would like to complement for the site, whatever I searched regarding Prius, the answer always been found here, even I tried to ignore at the beginning. So I've become involved in Prius related questions, as my son decided to get rid of the car what dad gave him and start his own motoring life. He wanted to buy a gen 1 Japanese import car (we live in New Zealand) with intermittent battery fault. As we looked around a gen 2 come up for a very similar price, but with 400k+ ex-taxi. Obviously the car looked awful in so many way but seemed ok mechanically. After a couple of attempt to alter my son from this car he bought it. As it was in the passenger transport industry, needed to be maintained on a certain level so battery, brakes, suspension, steering was fine. Only suspicious part was a rear wheel bearing as one of them was pretty loud, so the first place I ordered a set of rear bearing assembly (which still sitting in the garage as it turned out the tires were the source of the noise...). Also the front of the car was repaired by someone who had no idea about panel beating... That was the first point when I started to search about details and information and found this I just acquired a new project vehicle | PriusChat Based on that I replaced the front end and made it a bit more attractive... Anyway, time goes and last year someone hit him from the back, just enough to make it worth to get through on the insurance process. This time professional repair and the car is still on the road. The summary is if a car survive that long with very minor problems, it is pretty much worth it. I guess he will keep it for a while, at least until finish the uni, than I can predict his next car choice. The small issues hopefully will be addressed and shortly he will pass the 500k km mark... Again, thanks for all the help.
Great to read stuff like this... There are very, very few cars out there that are capable of doing so well for so long. This is an excellent example of how great Gen2 Prius really are!
