Prius Plus/Alpha or Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

pizzacooper · 13-04-2025 08:20PM #1

Hi all, I am in need of a new family car. We've been having a Prius (gen 3) and it is a very good reliable car. I've always trust Toyota and a bit of a fanboy. We know that eventually the Prius will be too small.

Anyway, I've always eyeing Prius Plus because it is basically a Prius with a high, more of a hatchback/MPV boots. But then from the search I came across the Outlander PHEV. Not a big fan of SUV, but maybe it could benefit in terms of taking our son (22 months old) in and out. Wife might like the SUV vision and sit higher up. So far can only afford the prefacelift (latest 2015) though. Something newer would be too expensive. Are PHEV can be plug to the normal house socket??

Usage:

Running errands in town, 20km round trip mostly.
Will be the main family car which mean when ever we have holidays we will use this car for a longer drive.
Occasionally driving to Germany and back, maybe once every two years or so, or every year.
Love to have a good boots space. Our Prius feels more like a sedan because of the low ceiling at the boot.
Have a son, safety is important.

My thoughts…

2015-2017 Prius Plus

++ Toyota Hybrid, E-CVT, very reliable
+ Familiar because we used to have Prius
+ Relatively cheaper than Outlander (on Donedeal, etc.)
- - It is usually a Jap-Import, worry about insurance
- Boring because it is almost the same car we had

2015 Outlander PHEV

++ PHEV helps when go in and out of town running errands
++ Something new
+ Irish/UK car usually?
- Not sure of Mitsubishi reliability, hybrid, electric (It is still Japanese though)
- Will long drive will be worst mileage than the Prius Plus because of its weight and size?
- Can only afford the 2015 model (pre-facelift) I don't care about look, but don't know if the facelift has better something.

Thanks for all the help.

Buddy Bubs · 13-04-2025 08:43PM

Phev from 10 years ago generally have small batteries and electric range. Why not go rav4 and stick with Toyota....sorry I don't actually know what a 2015ish rav4 is actually like

Buffman · 13-04-2025 09:24PM

The outlander battery range should be around 20-30km at this age, depending on usage.

Yes, you can easily live with charging it from a 10Amp granny charger once you've a decent socket installed outside. (5ish hours charge.)

Spec wise a minimum GX4H is advisable, adds things as standard like sunroof, heated front leather seats, xenon headlights, remote climate control-timer heating/defrost, touch screen radio/sat-nav and is a much nicer place to be than a GX3H. (The easiest way to tell the difference if looking is the GX3H won't have headlight washers.)

The 2015/16 facelift had a few minor refinements, nothing major. The 2018 was more substantial with things like a bigger engine and battery and full EV mode.

pizzacooper · 13-04-2025 11:39PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123353994#Comment_123353994

Somehow Rav4 didn't get into my search with minimum year/km/price. I bet being a Toyota and SUV it is probably really expensive. I mean the Outlander I could afford would be 2015. 2016 or even 2015 with the facelift would already cost 2k more usually. But my budget with the car size/hybrid it would probably be around 2015.

pizzacooper · 13-04-2025 11:46PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123354149#Comment_123354149

Thanks. I live in a place where it would be a bit complicated to ask the landlord to install the charger as I will use the "properties" outlet. There is one person in the apartments has Nissan Leaf, and she just plug it to the normal socket inside the barn/storage. Is that good enough? Probably will just be overnight charging, and in the end it is hybrid anyway like the Prius we had. Electric is a good additional to save since normally will be use just in and out of town.

I did not look into spec at all, it is a bit more or less what's out there I could afford. I have about only 15k-ish or 16 at most for the car. So there're actually only 2015 Outlander on Donedeal that fits (I look at km under 150k). Those on on Donedeal just said "Intense+" for trim level.

...Ghost... · 14-04-2025 09:17AM

There was a refinement with the 2016 facelift which smoothed out the engine timing when the car needed more power for takeovers or whatever. I would say that if its just one or two kids, the Prius is plenty big enough. Sure we had a Leaf with four kids in it aged 0-12! Moved from a Zafira to go full electric and we found it very easy to adapt. If we all needed to go somewhere the weekend, we took 2 cars, but you won't have that issue.

kanuseeme · 14-04-2025 11:01AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058406112/prius-plus-alpha-or-mitsubishi-outlander-phev

I had a prius phev and the outlander, I prefered the outlander, the prius was more economical on petrol about 5l/100km to the outlanders 7l/100km remember its a big tank, but it was offset by the longer EV range.

Never had any trouble with it, there is an outlander thread here somewhere.

There is 2 naming systems, the GX3H is the lowest spec , I would aim for the GX4H to get electric heating and pre conditioning, nice warm car in the morning. Top was GX5H

The other is Juro with the lowest spec, I don't know if it has electric heating or what the next spec is.

If 16k was my budget I would aim for this one, 10 000km over your search criteria, you can see in one of the pictures he is using a granny charger at the downpipe.

https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/mitsubishi-outlander-phev/38926870

Good luck.

pizzacooper · 14-04-2025 11:12PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123355967#Comment_123355967

Thanks for the insight. I suppose anything to save petrol is good. I think Outlander might out weight Prius (non-PHEV) in a long run from being on electric most of the time in everyday use. And we commute only to the next town about 15 mins away, at the moment anyway. I have no idea about the power usage when charged everyday though. Probably nothing compare to petrol price.

Would you consider 2015 prefacelift ok? I know things a bit update after the facelift and again later on (which will be too far above my budget). I found some 2015 with about 90-100k miles for under 15k. They are heated seat and sunroof so I suppose the GX4H.

kanuseeme · 15-04-2025 11:29AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123358086#Comment_123358086

It might be worth investing in a OBD2 adapter and download this https://phevwatchdog.net/

It will give you the state of health of the battery. I would imagine that most of the cars of that age will be around 70%, maybe even less.

The most it can use in a charge is about 9 kwh, if the battery was at 100% then I would say 10 Kwh, unlikely giving the age of car your looking at.

So 9 kwh x what ever your unit price is, for 20 to 30 kms,

The fuel economy really depends on the amount of electric driving you do, do enough of 20 km trips to equal 1700kms then a petrol trip from dublin to berlin would return 3.5 l/100km.

I see a lot of really high mileage cars on done deal, you can get a 2015 for 8k or less https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/mitsubishi-outlander-2015/38887063 170 000 miles.

I tend to go for bargains, something I can buy, drive and sell a year later for the same price.

Buffman · 16-04-2025 02:40PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123354985#Comment_123354985

Yes, the ordinary 'granny' plug charger is fine for them, if used correctly with a decent socket and not run on an extension lead out the window or something mad.

I would not worry at all about mileage on them, I've seen them do extremely high miles without issue.

I've had a few over the years, IIRC the 'lowest' mileage I purchased was over 200k km, and I know one of my old ones is up over 250k miles (400k km) with it's current owner and still fine. The only 'unscheduled' maintenance I've had to do on two of them was replace or refurb a front sticky brake caliper, as it wasn't getting much use with the regen braking, and a rear motor mount that the rubber had perished in giving a bit of a clunk when moving off. (Replacement was a Polyurethane bush so shouldn't fail again anytime soon.)

Personally I'd go for one of the GX4H that are on DD for around the €8k mark and save the rest of the €15k for running costs/maintenance, or spend the full €15k on getting the newest highest specced one it'll get.

Prius Plus/Alpha or Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

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