Advise on living with an older Prius

June 12, 2017

I'm looking to get a late gen 2 Prius and wanted to do get prepared before I make the jump. The main reason I drive an old car is that I have a very trustworthy mechanic that only works on one make of vehicles (he advised me on what to get to avoid maintenance issues). So with that in mind, where do I start looking for a reliable mechanic in the Surrey/Hampshire area?

June 16, 2017

So I take it he has said that he won't service a Prius?

I'm also Hampshire way but do my own servicing. I'm not in any way, shape or form a mechanic, but one of the main reasons I went for the prius is because the maintenance schedule is so simple- it's mainly just fluid and filter changes. No belts etc. It really is so straightforward and for anything with the brakes you just unplug the 12v.

The caveat to this is that if something major does go wrong it seemed to me like it might be a dealer job- so with the transmission, inverter etc. There do however seem to be a couple of independent toyota mechanics around Surrey so not sure if they will work on hybrids. You won't be able to get around the fact that there are a lot of mechanics who just won't touch them. I use Mr Clutch for MOTs and they refused to even adjust the handbrake pedal in their workshop to get it to pass. This involves two spanners at the pedal itself and they still refused to do it, so I had to take it home, spend ten minutes doing it myself, and then take it back. Stupid really but this is what you will get. Most on here I'm sure will just use Toyota because it's simpler, and you may find their pricing isn't too bad.

It is a potential negative point but by no means insurmountable. I'm sure you'll find someone even if it is the main dealer.As an aside if you do buy one, personally I would be changing the transmission fluid in a 10+ year old car, which isn't on the toyota UK schedule.

June 17, 2017

On 6/16/2017 at 10:32 AM, drives said:

So I take it he has said that he won't service a Prius?

I'm also Hampshire way but do my own servicing. I'm not in any way, shape or form a mechanic, but one of the main reasons I went for the prius is because the maintenance schedule is so simple- it's mainly just fluid and filter changes. No belts etc. It really is so straightforward and for anything with the brakes you just unplug the 12v.

The caveat to this is that if something major does go wrong it seemed to me like it might be a dealer job- so with the transmission, inverter etc. There do however seem to be a couple of independent toyota mechanics around Surrey so not sure if they will work on hybrids. You won't be able to get around the fact that there are a lot of mechanics who just won't touch them. I use Mr Clutch for MOTs and they refused to even adjust the handbrake pedal in their workshop to get it to pass. This involves two spanners at the pedal itself and they still refused to do it, so I had to take it home, spend ten minutes doing it myself, and then take it back. Stupid really but this is what you will get. Most on here I'm sure will just use Toyota because it's simpler, and you may find their pricing isn't too bad.

It is a potential negative point but by no means insurmountable. I'm sure you'll find someone even if it is the main dealer.As an aside if you do buy one, personally I would be changing the transmission fluid in a 10+ year old car, which isn't on the toyota UK schedule.

No he wouldn't touch anything other than a VAG car and it's not like he's desperate for work.

I fully intend to do the basic servicing myself and upgrade the cells to gen 3 but I won't be able to diagnose any issues that might pop up. I'll be aiming to get something past its prime (and then some) and I don't know how to change suspension parts, wheel bearings and so on.

I'm just not used to going to the dealer to have things fixed. That's probably my only superstition. Well that and not to feed gremlins after midnight :)

June 17, 2017

Fair enough- like you suspension and wheel bearings would be beyond what I'd take on. I did try and get techstream working so I could diagnose faults but I just can't get it to work- it is a bit too much effort. You can obviously pull the basic codes with any scanner but unlikely I think you would be able to diagnose the specific problem, or indeed even if you could, fix it because it's likely to be something complex.

This is the negative- these cars from what I have read appear to be very reliable but if something serious does go wrong it may be a dealer job, and mega expensive as a result. I'd suggest priuschat is a much better source of info relating to regular faults. Certainly with the gen 3 there is some preventative maintenance that should be done which can help prevent expensive problems down the line, which is not on the toyota UK schedule.