anyone have or know about toyota prius

elheffe

hi.
i was thinking of purchasing a prius. its a 04 automatic. has anyone had any problems with them. a taxi driver told me one night that he thought they were great until he encountered a problem with the batteries. it cost him 2500 crispy euros for a new battery pack. they are not individual batteries but one big one with numerous plates inside.
any thoughts.
cheers

colm_mcm

For every Prius that needs batteries, there's 100 diesels that needs injectors a dmf or a turbo.


It's not common.

JohnBoy26

colm_mcm wrote: »

For every Prius that needs batteries, there's 100 diesels that needs injectors a dmf or a turbo.


It's not common.

Or you could buy a decent petrol car that doesn't need either.

colm_mcm

Indeed you could, but you'd have to ask the question 'why is the OP looking at a Prius' I'd assume they're looking at economy.


Far as I knew the batteries could be replaced individually.

Neilw

I drove one for a couple of months, hated it. Horrible car to drive, it felt numb, wallowy, and heavy in the rear probably due to the batteries. The cvt transmission is not nice either, just doesn't feel right. I averaged about 46mpg while I had it.

Bigus

The 2003 on model doesn't give battery trouble

In fact the Prius gives almost no trouble at all. I drove an Irish one with 232000 miles on it and it was perfect

Google million km prius

650Ginge

Taxi drivers should have a mute button fitted as standard.

I am sure there is truth in what he said but it ain't the big picture.

I have an 06 with 77k miles fine so far.

They are used a lot in other countries as taxis and do mega mileage without failures.

Google 'one million kilometre prius'.

141,000 Kms on my 07.

Water pump replaced as part of recall.

Faults = 0

Average fuel economy per tank usually 60-65 though the fitting of f rated winter tyres sees that drop to 58-62.

If you think you can get in and drive it like a normal car you might be disappointed, it's not a normal car and you have to,learn how to make use of the hybrid system.

It's not a rally car, the steering is light but it handles well and the suspension is ok. It's noisy to accelerate.

If you can get the MK III, it's got a more powerful engine and can get 70+ mpg.

I like the Prius but it took me time to learn to get the best out of it and I do pretty well.

The A4 diesel auto I had averaged 48 mpg.

But the Prius is one of the most reliable cars on the road.

I just checked the car trip computer, I normally don't quote the trip mpg but since I filled up today I had already reset it.

From Carlow town to Tullow, Shilelagh, Tinahealy, Aughrim, Rathdrum, Laragh, Glendalough, over the Wicklow Gap, to Hollywood cross and back.

4.5 L/ 100 Kms over 130 or so Kms. Or 62.7 mpg.

You would think the hills and mountains would kill mpg but the Prius has far better regen efficiency than the Nissan Leaf, simply because Nissan was worried about dumping so much current back into the battery, the updated Leaf in the spring is supposed to,fix that.

In fact the Prius would do much better if it had a bigger battery because when the battery is full braking is done by the disks and pads so lost as heat.

But using the energy gained going downhill works very well when you know how todo it.

Chippy01

As MadLad says ...........................

80,000 miles on my '07, and I can't see me changing it any time soon.

Yes, there is a knack to getting the best out of the hybrid system, and you don't have to drive it like a milk float to achieve this.