rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk about what you should know if you're
gonna buy a Toyota Prius, now anybody who knows me has been watching me for a
while knows I'm not a big fan of hybrid cars because they cost a lot more to buy
and it cost a whole lot more to fix when they break down, but if you're really
into hybrids the Toyota Prius is the one to buy, they've been making these things now
more than twenty years and this particular one is nine years old it's
one hundred and ten thousand miles on it and really has had very little problems
at all I just finished a brake job on this one, it's the first time it's had to
have the brake pads replace realized since this is a hybrid car when you
brake normally a lot of that energy instead of being wasted and turned into
heat by the normal brake rotors and pads it uses the system inside to
regenerate power to make electricity charge the big old battery in a trunk so
that when you take off it can reuse that energy to make the car, so consequently
if you don't drive like a maniac these brake pads are gonna last a long time
these particular ones lasted 110,000 miles before they wore out too the first
time, now if you do a lot of in town stop-and-go driving these things get
phenomenal gas mileage they actually get much better guests much stop-and-go in
town then you're doing a highway because on highway
they don't regenerate anything you're going 60 miles an hour you going 60
miles an hour, now they do use what's called an Atkinson
cycle engine it's still a four-stroke gasoline internal combustion
engine it's a different design it's more efficient than ones that have regular
cams in them, they do have less power but when you're cruising at sixty miles an
hour you really don't care about power it just needs a certain amount of
horsepower to run itself and no more, so granted it still gets good gas mileage
on a highway but it gets much better gas mileage in stop and go traffic so
guys that are uber drivers taxi drivers they love these things, now if you're the
type of guy that buy some brand new you don't mind the price go right ahead
they're very dependable finding used ones
with higher mileage is a big gamble because eventually the battery packs in
the back wear out. it costs thousands of dollars to replace them with a brand new
one and yes there are rebuilt or refurbished ones you can get since there
are a bunch of little batteries all connected together when they do go bad
some of the little cells go bad there's machines that can test them very
expensive time consuming and if you find the ones that are bad you replace them
but but you either go bad one they're 7 to 12 years old if you're replacing some
of the bad ones the old cells are all 7 to 12 years old. guess what they're not
gonna last forever put in these recondition batteries
maybe they'll last a year or two but that kind of stinks when you think about
it. cuz if the original battery went 7 to 12 years 1 to 2 years isn't that good if
you really want to keep one and it needs a battery. my advice is buy a new battery
don't buy one of these recondition ones they just don't seem to hold up over
time. but my main warning about buying a used one is this there's a generator
inside here these cars don't have alternators, let's say the alternator
went bad my old Celica takes me 15 minutes to change the alternator cost me
maybe a hundred and fifty bucks for a good alternator, and on
the Prius in order to replace it you got to pull the engine and transmission out
of the unit take it apart buy a really expensive generator assembly, put it back
together again, last time I priced it out it was about a
six thousand dollar job and I had a customer with one the generator went bad
so I told her so while your generator is bad you know it's not worth fixing, I
explained how the system work and that it was about a six thousand dollar job
but I said you didn't buy a new you bought it used then she said, yeah I
bought it used and they took her for a ride it had like a hundred and fifty
thousand miles on it and she'd paid like ninety five hundred bucks and about a
month previous to this I had a customer sell his ten-year-old Prius that only
had a hundred thousand miles on it and he sold it for eighteen hundred dollars
so she way overpaid for the stupid car used, didn't believe me so I said well
like I said didn't charge for anything, I said talk to a Toyota dealer they're gonna
tell you the same thing, so she did and he told her the same thing
it does cost $6,000 to fix it, but we'll take it off your hands and it will
recycle it which is better for the environment, they didn't offer any money
for the car I couldn't believe that one I called up about 10 Toyota dealers
nationwide and said I got this ten-year-old Prius do you buy use
priuses and they said sure, but then I said well you know it needs a generator
every single one who said no we don't want it me hung up they knew that the
repair was much more than the vehicle was worth, so if you're feeling in a
gambling mood and you want to buy used Prius go right ahead if it runs good
take it to a mechanic like me to check it out just don't pay much money for it
because in the real world when they're 10 years or older they're worth
practically nothing, like I said if you can't afford to buy one new if you want
to get a hybrid car the Prius is definitely the one to buy, if your into
electronics they got every gizmo on earth is you'd ever want to, got all kinds
of electronic gizmos you can play with look at regenerated electricity, the
knobs like this have electric mode economy mode, power mode you can play
around to your heart's content with these things, really got lots of room
even the back seats pretty big on these things, if you're really into science
learning stuff huh your kids will get a kick out of it
that's got the speak mode you can talk to it all kinds of stuff on it, and yeah
it's a Toyota so this thing may be nine years old have a hundred and ten
thousand miles on it but really everything still works on it
doesn't look like a GM where the electronics go haywire when it gets old
so if you're thinking about buying a Toyota Prius, now you know a little bit
more about them, so you can make a wise informed decision, so if you never want
to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell