Extended Warranty On Used Gen Prius & A Couple Of Q's

[i_am_macca]

Hi,

I just picked up (well will do on Friday) a 2006 T-Spirit with 74k on the clock.

It's been serviced by Toyota and stamped every time, right up to 70k.

I 'heard' from a couple of posts on here that it is possible to buy an extended warranty from Toyota - is it really worth doing?

I couldn't see what the cost is from the Toyota.com site either so I wondered if anyone else could give me an idea of the price..

On the car itself, I noticed that in the Service menu, a couple of the items on there were highlighted in red. I couldn't work out if that indicates a problem or not. The Oil and Service were both marked with red although it said there was still another 5k miles to go.

I'm planning on getting it serviced/checked over by a proper T garage (this dealer is not a Toyota) as it's been sat around a little while.

I also noticed it wouldn't go into EV mode when the Battery displayed only 3 bars - is that an issue?

thanks for your help!

[Grumpy Cabbie]

It all depends on your personal risk taking. Some prefer to pay £1,000 for the extended warranty, others prefer to take their chances.

The gen2 Prius (2004-2009) was over engineered and has proved much more reliable than the gen3 (2009-). If the 12 volt Battery hasn't been replaced, now would be a good time, otherwise expect weird electrical gremlins and odd error codes. There are many reports of the gen2 Prius going well upto 500,000 miles without major issue!

EV mode is only accessible in ideal cercumstances and will disconnect when the level is low (usually 3 bars) or the Battery temperature is too high or too low. EV mode is only really of use for showing off to friends, moving the car on your drive etc. Let the car sort iself out the rest of the time - it knows what it's doing.

[sushd]

I couldn't see what the cost is from the Toyota.com site either so I wondered if anyone else could give me an idea of the price..

We are nearing the 1st anniversary of owning our Gen2 09 plate and have received a warranty quote from Mr T. - 610 for less than 10K miles and 680 for unlimited mileage.

[timberwolf]

Depending on when the car was registered, if I've done my sums right?, you may have up to 2 years remaining of the 8 year/100K Hybrid warranty (it is a more inclusive Hybrid warranty than the later/latest generation hybrid gets).

The warranty that covered the non-hybrid parts was only for 3 years, and there is another warranty for corrosion/paint but I can't recall the length of that one.

[i_am_macca]

The gen2 Prius (2004-2009) was over engineered and has proved much more reliable than the gen3 (2009-). If the 12 volt battery hasn't been replaced, now would be a good time, otherwise expect weird electrical gremlins and odd error codes.

Thanks. Is there a preferred/recommended 12v to replace with or is this something I should leave to the T garage?

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Word has it that they generally fail about 80,000 miles/ 4 or 5 years of age. At about £100 replaced it's a fairly cheap fix for peace of mind. Whether you feel you want to pay that or wait for the issues is upto you. Toyota dealers (Worldwide) appear to have a poor record of diagnosing a failling 12v. Infact there's a recent thread on the subject where someone had their 12v checked 3 times by a Toyota dealer using their special gizmo which declared the 12v ok despite weird symptoms. Once said customer complained the 12v was suddenly noticed to be failing and replaced.

Have a google for Prius 12v problems and you'll bring up many links. It's not a design flaw, it's just that because the 12v doesn't crank the engine like in a traditional car, it can quietly fail until it's too weak to boot up the main computer which will throw all sorts of weird fault codes causing lots of misdiagnosing by the dealers.

Your call :)

[i_am_macca]

Thanks all.

I booked in with the closest T garage to my office. It 'recommended' the Full+ (yeh of course it would be time for the top one...) so I took that and asked them to do the Battery at the same time.

Thanks again, much appreciated.