Estimating 15 YRO Toyota Prius Selling Price with Moderate/Serious Problems

[Souschef]

DW had a 98 Caddy that she loved. Unfortunately, it had the original Northstar engine with the stretching head bolts.
When they went out again at 100K miles, we decided to get rid of it. She bought a 2017 Mazda CX-5 that was like a PC on wheels to her. It was also the first car she bought for cash with NO payments.

 

[FiveDriver]

The cost of a battery pack replacement isn't any more relevant than the cost to replace an ICE vehicles engine. Both re likely to last well over 100,000 miles so the vehicle will likely be replaced before the battery or engine need to be replaced. Most battery warranties on newer EVs are longer than warranties on motors for newer ICE vehicles. There are plenty of issues with EVs but that is not one of them.

I am not quite ready to equate the Service Life of the older Prius Battery Pack to the Service Life of an Internal Combustion Engine. My own inline 6 has just turned 130K miles, and with typical oil changes.....I'm expecting to double that.

A random high mileage Prius in a taxi cab fleet may be the exception, but not typical.

 

[Chuckanut]

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A random high mileage Prius in a taxi cab fleet may be the exception, but not typical.

What do you base that on?

 

[Midpack]

We owned a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid and a 2013 Toyota Prius, sold at 128K miles after 11 years and 81K miles after 5 years respectively - never had any issues whatsoever with their traction batteries (vs the 12V battery). I would find out what is wrong with the traction battery before I made any decisions, easily diagnosed by a dealer. Might be a cheap fix, might not. As noted Toyota traction batteries have been known to last way more than 100K miles.

Revitalized Prius batteries start at $1299, new(er) batteries can range from $2000 to $4500.

Toyota Prius batteries have a lifespan of 10-years or 150,000 miles. It is excellent news for all you Prius owners out there! The battery is designed to last for a long time. Also, the Toyota dealer can service the battery at any time during the life of the car.

https://www.wrightgrid.com/lifespan...ten the lifespan of your Toyota Prius Battery.

 

[Bamaman]

Don't give up on the old girl so fast. That car has too few miles to kick to the side, and a little work might payoff in a higher sales price for you.

A VSC code can be as simple as the fuel tank cap is not tight (or a new one is needed.)
And it can be an ABS issue. Many times, people get mud on their ABS sensors--one in each wheel--and they are easily cleaned. Unplug the sensor, unscrew it and wash it in Dawn and water.

Batteries on the Prius' are nickel batteries--in pods. Most battery problems will be maybe 6-8 individual batteries. There are battery shops in larger cities testing and replacing the few Prius' batteries that are not good. And the cars just keep on kicking.

To reset your electronics. Just unhook the positive pole on the conventional engine battery and touch it to the ground pole. Or take it to AutoZone or Advance and see if they can reset your computer.

I've got a year old Venza Hybrid, and previously ran a Camry Hybrid for 3 years. I was careful to buy vehicles with the lithium batteries--for better fuel mileage and longer battery life. I've got a lifetime warranty on mine, but out of driving hybrids 120,000 miles, they've never seen the shops other for a wheel alignment and new tires.

 

[SecondAttempt]

Greetings, I'm waiting on an ODB2 sensor from a friend to check our 2007 Prius error code. The car lost propulsion on the freeway when a red triangle
, vsc ,and check engine light all triggered together. We needed a tow from shoulder. I'm thinking to sell the car which has 96100 miles, but I'm pretty sure will need a new battery pack (pending error code). Wife and I were thinking to go down to 1 car. We already carpool to work. I'm wondering about purchasing another car as I dont want to keep band-aiding the old Prius. It has also lost the electronic dash readout (intermittent). I'd gotten into a small fender bender in February so localized bumper and hood damage. Lost most its clear coat due to being in the desert with previous owner. A craigslist check shows similar Prius's with serious problems on sale for $2000-$2500....what is a reasonable pricing to sell to private party with localized damage, likely needing NIMH batteries, and an intermittent dash would you think? Of course I'd bought newer tires just 4 months earlier for $500 which I need to factor in.......thx. I'm thinking $1600 (would've said $1300 but $300 for newer tires). Thanks.

We were looking at Priuses ~2006 but ultimately did not buy one. At that time Toyota was providing free battery pack replacement for the life of the vehicle. I understand you want the car out of your life. But if you can get the battery pack replaced free first you might be able to get a much better price with a brand new battery.

I've owned a couple of Toyotas and I like them. But both had electical problems that were hard to diagnose but simple to fix - wire chaffing in one case and failing voltage regulator in the other. But you can spend a lot tracing an electrical issue and the codes are often not that helpful.

 

[SecondAttempt]

Edmunds givea a value of $3660 in rough condition with all the problems you described. As someone who has taken a lowball offer for a car I just wanted out of my life I'm not criticizing, just saying you may be thinking too low.

 

[SAinMinn]

I had a car (Mazda RX-8) with problems. Locally there is a 501(c)3 that trains minorities to be mechanics and I donated the car to them. Because they repair the donated cars and are careful to keep the car for the IRS-required time, I was able to take the full NADA value deduction. Maybe I could have netted more selling outright, but the problem was intermittent and serious, so I didn't want a buyer to know where I lived!

Great idea. I'm going to keep this in mind and sort of wish I had thought of it when I needed to get rid of our Prius. This made me recall our local school district has an auto-repair curriculum and their shop is just a few blocks from our house.

 

[misanman]

Edmunds givea a value of $3660 in rough condition with all the problems you described. As someone who has taken a lowball offer for a car I just wanted out of my life I'm not criticizing, just saying you may be thinking too low.

DS had a prius (bought new) and had to replace the battery pack twice. Not sure if mileage but they were pretty happy to trade it in.

 

[Koolau]

I just seen one, 2004 Jetta with 200K miles, no title, didn't run and they were asking $700...

Depending on scrap prices, I've heard of numbers like $400 to $500 just for the metal. No personal experience (well, not in this century, anyway) so YMMV.

 

[FiveDriver]

A random high mileage Prius in a taxi cab fleet may be the exception, but not typical.


What do you base that on?

I base it on a quick search of the massive archives at Google University, which turned up only two hits.

One hit was an article from 2015, citing a taxi cab in Austria that surpassed 600,000 kilometers.
Additionally, a Wiki article mentioned a handful of other high-milers in taxi fleets in North America.

For an EV that sells around 60K units a year over the past 20 years.......that's not a lot of examples of long battery life. I wouldn't count on extended battery life as being typical, it's the exception.

 

[aja8888]

We were looking at Priuses ~2006 but ultimately did not buy one. At that time Toyota was providing free battery pack replacement for the life of the vehicle. I understand you want the car out of your life. But if you can get the battery pack replaced free first you might be able to get a much better price with a brand new battery.

I've owned a couple of Toyotas and I like them. But both had electical problems that were hard to diagnose but simple to fix - wire chaffing in one case and failing voltage regulator in the other. But you can spend a lot tracing an electrical issue and the codes are often not that helpful.

My bold, codes thrown from the ECU are associated with either emission control equipment, transmission issues, or safety systems (air bags, ABS sensors, etc). Not all possible electrical issues are associated with codes.

 

[ncbill]

Greetings, I'm waiting on an ODB2 sensor from a friend to check our 2007 Prius error code. The car lost propulsion on the freeway when a red triangle
, vsc ,and check engine light all triggered together. We needed a tow from shoulder. I'm thinking to sell the car which has 96100 miles, but I'm pretty sure will need a new battery pack (pending error code). Wife and I were thinking to go down to 1 car. We already carpool to work. I'm wondering about purchasing another car as I dont want to keep band-aiding the old Prius. It has also lost the electronic dash readout (intermittent). I'd gotten into a small fender bender in February so localized bumper and hood damage. Lost most its clear coat due to being in the desert with previous owner. A craigslist check shows similar Prius's with serious problems on sale for $2000-$2500....what is a reasonable pricing to sell to private party with localized damage, likely needing NIMH batteries, and an intermittent dash would you think? Of course I'd bought newer tires just 4 months earlier for $500 which I need to factor in.......thx. I'm thinking $1600 (would've said $1300 but $300 for newer tires). Thanks.

Get the battery replaced...here that would be ~$1,500, including mobile installation, for a refurbished battery pack:

https://greenbeanbattery.com/product/prius-hybrid-battery-2004-2009/

Find an independent mechanic in your area about the dash issue & get an estimate.

If the catalytic converter were stolen on any of my vehicles I'd just have it straight piped & buy a 'spacer' for the downstream oxygen sensor(s) so it would continue to pass emissions tests (via computer, no visual inspection here)

 

[Turbo29]

I just seen one, 2004 Jetta with 200K miles, no title, didn't run and they were asking $700...

That doesn't surprise me at all. I have a friend, who is a VW fanatic; he would buy that fix it up, keep it and drive it for awhile, and then sell it. Assuming, of course that the no title issue was solvable.


I also used to have a co-worker whose husband (a mechanic) would buy old Priuses at wholesale auction and fix them up.

 

[Telly]

Speaking of hybrid battery life, how did the New York City yellow cabs that were Ford Escape Hybrids of the 2009 - 2012 design work out? The 2009 - 2012 vintage Escape design still had Mazda engineers involved in it's design.

Background - The 2001 Ford Escape was a Mazda design, based on the then-generation Mazda 626 platform. Ford had a controlling interest in Mazda. The automatic transaxle used was the Ford CD4E, a lackluster trans. 2008 was a body upgrade, 2009 added a whole major powertrain upgrade, a big plus. In my opinion, Ford selling off its shares in Mazda was a poor decision.

 

[SecondAttempt]

My bold, codes thrown from the ECU are associated with either emission control equipment, transmission issues, or safety systems (air bags, ABS sensors, etc). Not all possible electrical issues are associated with codes.

Yeah, I understand. But undervoltage from a bad voltage regulator and intermitant shorts from chaffed wires are things I have experienced and can throw all sorts of codes including the ECU.

My only point is that chasing an electrical issue can get very expensive because it can take a lot of time while repair, like splicing a chaffed wire may only take a few seconds, literally. It's the worst kind of problem to have in my opinion.

 

[meleana]

Our friends bought a Prius years ago when it first came out. Not the first year but a few years later. They got rid of it just a couple of years later and bought a regular gas Mazda SUV.

We keep cats up to 200,000 miles if possible.

 

[Turbo29]

Our friends bought a Prius years ago when it first came out. Not the first year but a few years later. They got rid of it just a couple of years later and bought a regular gas Mazda SUV.

We keep cats up to 200,000 miles if possible.

How often do you have to replace the paws?

 

[meleana]

How often do you have to replace the paws?

. Oops! Not easy typing on these phones!

 

[Koolau]

How often do you have to replace the paws?

Tiger Paws??

 

[pc95]

We were looking at Priuses ~2006 but ultimately did not buy one. At that time Toyota was providing free battery pack replacement for the life of the vehicle. I understand you want the car out of your life. But if you can get the battery pack replaced free first you might be able to get a much better price with a brand new battery.

I've owned a couple of Toyotas and I like them. But both had electical problems that were hard to diagnose but simple to fix - wire chaffing in one case and failing voltage regulator in the other. But you can spend a lot tracing an electrical issue and the codes are often not that helpful.

Yes the code back was P9193 - out of fuel, which was false (the tank was about half full when initial problem hit. The sensor can take a few minutes to gauge the fuel, but never has the time with the overarching cutout now

.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

We just replaced the traction battery in DW's 2007 Prius with a factory Toyota replacement. We could have gone cheaper with a refurb, but since it's DW's car I thought it was worth the extra freight. It cost $2800, replaced by a guy well known in Prius circles who drove 40 miles to our house and did the job in our driveway. The original went 15 years/150k miles, so I guess it lived up to expectations.

On our first Prius, a 2001, the model had a reputation for going into limp mode if excessive oil pooled in the intake manifold. People filled the crankcase to absolute capacity, and blowby (the Atkinson cycle engine produces fairly high compression) would send oil mist through the PCV into the intake where it would condense. The oil could hinder the engine's stop-start cycle, which triggered the limp mode.

I got into the habit of keeping the oil level in the Prius half a quart below the full mark to avoid this issue, which I do to this day. The engine consumes no oil, which isn't always the case for Toyotas of a certain mileage.

The instrument cluster failing could be a more problematic condition than the battery. Mice got into a friend's Gen 2 Prius and chewed up the wiring behind the dash. I believe he said it totaled the car. Mouse urine on circuit boards probably didn't help things.

As for high-mileage Priuses, people interested in seeing some examples can check out these forum threads:
https://priuschat.com/threads/299-999-mile-club.79235/
https://priuschat.com/threads/200-000-mile-club.57091/