After almost 17 months of ownership, I finally sold my 2006 T-Spirit yesterday after two stints on eBay. I really loved the Prius but an increasing annual mileage due to changes in my job made me rethink the kind of car I need to drive, and I decided I didn't want to wake up one morning and find a car with 100,000 miles sitting on my driveway!

Selling via eBay meant that I reached out to a big audience (and thus generated a lot of interest), but for every genuine message from a buyer there was a silly one too making low offers. Showed the car to three people and in the end the winner's bid happened without them seeing the car - I had really gone to town with the listing and description to sell it hard. Drove over to them the next day and did the payment using cash at the bank and came home on the train - very painless.

My ownership experience has been extremely positive. The car had absolutely no faults in the 20,000 miles I added to it and regularly returned an indicated 55-60mpg driving in and out of London (50mpg in winter). Mine had the leather and with the T-Spirit spec, inside was a nice place to be. Now using my wife's Audi A3 and will probably source a cheap diesel hatch in the New Year.

Just wanted to add that I've always found this forum very interesting and am pleased to see how much busier it has got since the Gen III car has been launched. Lots of good advice and interesting experiences - will drop by from time to time!

I'm surprised by your choice, but obviously we don't have all the details (and some factors, understandably, may not be for public consumption).

Wish you all the best, and hopefully things will change again and you can come back to driving a better car again.

LOL - nice post. I don't have anything to hide about selling the car!

What I've learnt most about selling the Prius is that its value is very sensitive to mileage. I saw a 2006 Prius with 60k on the clock (20k more than mine) listed at an independent dealer for £2k less. Despite the reliability and build of the cars, clearly some are worried about what happens to the battery and technology later in the car's life. While I think this is unfounded, I didn't want to risk losing a whole heap of cash on the car - particularly since the Gen 3 model is out - so decided to sell.

I was watching your sale but it went way over my budget. Shows you what a difference a well presented sale with clear photos makes to a listing. Yours was a perfect example of a good listing, lots of info, lots of good quality high-res pics etc.

I've just bought an 06 T-Spirt. It lacks leather and the IPA but came in at a little over half the price you sold yours because it has 96,000 on the clock.

For me the miles don't matter. Worst that could happen is the battery pack fails but I can get a recon easily enough and it seems that most are happy well past 150k miles so the chances of even that happening are slight.

Otherwise mine is in first class condition, ex-company car with one owner/driver from new as verified by the mountain of paperwork, service receipts etc that came with it. It's been serviced every 10k with oil changed every time and has clearly been looked after as it looks like new with no stone chips, no wear on the upholstery and mechanically A1.

So I'm a happy bunny and enjoying being a Hybrid owner.

Cheers Darren - I read your post when you joined when you were looking for a T-Spirit, but decided not to get in touch when you mentioned your budget. I also had some nice comments from other viewers on eBay, so if anyone is thinking of doing the same as me, go mad on the listing detail!

It sounds like you got a great deal, too. For every depreciation loser there is always a winner and you can't go wrong at that price. I've also read of several owners on PriusChat.com who have gone well over 150,000 miles with no problems, so there's every reason to be confident in the technology. It's just a shame that the general public and the car trade don't seem to share that view.