Dave Merrill
Axe-Master
My daughter and her spouse are moving from Boston to Seattle in March, and due to convoluted circumstances, it may make sense for me to keep their 2014 Toyota Prius C, and have them buy a replacement used car when they get there.
I'm driving an '06 Accord with 290k miles on it, figured I'd drive it until something breaks that's not worth fixing, but that day can't be that far off. It's got significant rust, and the check engine light is intermittently on for emissions reasons, only passed last inspection with the help of some cans of Miracle Stuff (tm), came back on a month later. In short, it's got some life in it before major repairs, but probably not a lot. Gets a bit under 30 mpg.
So, given that, do I want their Prius? I think it's got roughly 60k miles on it, not sure, will find out. It won't cost me anything directly, since I actually own it already, but I'll be on the hook for some of the cost of a new used car for them. OTOH if I don't take it, I'll probably have to replace my Accord fairly soon.
I'm mostly worried about maintenance costs for the Prius as it gets older. Just replacing the normal battery, not the big motor one, was surprisingly expensive. Is that typical for these cars? What if the big battery needs to be replaced, that must be big bucks. Has anyone here done that?
I don't know exactly, but I think it gets somewhere north of 50 mpg. That's not hugely important to me or the planet, since I don't drive that much, but it's still a plus, and I would like a smaller car. There are those other convoluted circumstances in play too, but here I'm just trying to figure out if taking their Prius would be a good idea for me.
What do folks think?
I'm driving an '06 Accord with 290k miles on it, figured I'd drive it until something breaks that's not worth fixing, but that day can't be that far off. It's got significant rust, and the check engine light is intermittently on for emissions reasons, only passed last inspection with the help of some cans of Miracle Stuff (tm), came back on a month later. In short, it's got some life in it before major repairs, but probably not a lot. Gets a bit under 30 mpg.
So, given that, do I want their Prius? I think it's got roughly 60k miles on it, not sure, will find out. It won't cost me anything directly, since I actually own it already, but I'll be on the hook for some of the cost of a new used car for them. OTOH if I don't take it, I'll probably have to replace my Accord fairly soon.
I'm mostly worried about maintenance costs for the Prius as it gets older. Just replacing the normal battery, not the big motor one, was surprisingly expensive. Is that typical for these cars? What if the big battery needs to be replaced, that must be big bucks. Has anyone here done that?
I don't know exactly, but I think it gets somewhere north of 50 mpg. That's not hugely important to me or the planet, since I don't drive that much, but it's still a plus, and I would like a smaller car. There are those other convoluted circumstances in play too, but here I'm just trying to figure out if taking their Prius would be a good idea for me.
What do folks think?