Gen 3 2012 Prius T-Spirit - reliable?

[FROSTYBALLS]

23 minutes ago, PeteB said:

At 2010 you probably just missed the 5 year warranty 

In the UK, the five year/100,000 mile new car warranty was introduced for vehicles first registered from 1st June 2010.

[tdwuk]

17 hours ago, QuantumFireball said:

I have a Plug-in. I'm not aware of any issues besides what has been already mentioned here. As they only came out in 2012, I don't think they are prone to inverter failures.

They are mechanically mostly identical to the standard Gen 3 Prius, except for the larger 4.4 kWh Li-ion battery, external charging ability, and lack of space for a spare wheel. Besides no spare wheel well, they have pretty much the same space in the rear compared to the normal Gen 3 - unlike the new Plug-in (PHV) which has very compromised boot space and only 4 seats.

Thanks, I was going to start a new thread comparing the plugin hybrid to standard hybrid.  I have two cars that I am considering:

Plugin Hybrid 2014 86k miles sold by cab company - I believe these are all T-Spirit spec with leather or pleather and heated seats for approx £12k

2012 62 reg T-Spirit Hybrid - 65k miles £11.5k

I want the first one as I am keen on the plugin even though I live in a flat at the moment, charge points everywhere and I believe it gets 15 miles out of a full charge.  Excuse my ignorance, does it also recharge the bigger Battery as with the standard hybrid when driving or is external power only.  Probably does but I would like to double check.  Also, the 2014 still have under a year of official warranty but I can only buy extra warranty upto 100k miles.

The 2012 Prius is privately owned but was used as a staff car before so would be 2 previous owners.

I am driving an old van with no AC in the current heatwave so the pressure is on to get a car!

Thanks for the input everyone, greatly appreciated.  Buying a car is pretty stressful/

 

[danowat]

Yes, it's still a hybrid, and will still charge on ICE.

As for Plugin vs non-plugin, I had the same question when I brought mine, it boils(ed) down to the type of driving you do, if you do lots of short trips (10 miles or less), and have a plugin point available at both ends, then a plugin is probably a no brainer.

[kithmo]

11 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

In the UK, the five year/100,000 mile new car warranty was introduced for vehicles first registered from 1st June 2010.

When I bought my Gen 3 in April 2010, my dealer was doing an offer of extending the warranty to 5 years or keeping it at 3 years with 3 years free servicing. Taking into account the inherent reliability of the Prius (and Toyotas in general) I took the latter. I traded it anyway at three years old and 18K miles and apart from petrol and insurance, with free VED, all it had cost me in 3 years was the cost of the MOT (passed). 

[QuantumFireball]

1 hour ago, tdwuk said:

I believe these are all T-Spirit spec with leather or pleather and heated seats

I think they're somewhere inbetween T4 and T-Spirit spec. They don't have the larger high-end touchscreen, but do have the JBL amp and speakers (sounds pretty good IMO), half synthetic leather (SofTex?) heated seats, LED dipped beams, full keyless entry, cruise control, but only 15" wheels - not necessarily a bad thing.

Quote

I believe it gets 15 miles out of a full charge.  Excuse my ignorance, does it also recharge the bigger battery as with the standard hybrid when driving or is external power only.

In reality it's more like 9-12 miles, depending on conditions. It will only fully charge the Battery from the mains, once the Battery is depleted (and you can no longer use EV mode) it will maintain a lower state of charge matching that of a standard Prius. On long descents you may get enough regen to be able to use EV mode again, I occasionally see the range go back up to maybe 0.4-0.8 miles depending on the hill.

I find the climate control works very well, although I had to get mine re-gassed this year.

[tdwuk]

I finally managed to sit in a Prius, it was a plugin 2015.  There was no auto parking mode from what I could see and I noticed that the keys had an AC button but I didn't know how to use it until I got home and read about it - very nice in this weather.

The car I saw did not have the charge cable so I don't know how long it is, I tried searching online but only copies are available like this one https://evcables.co.uk/index.php/ev/by-car/toyota/toyota-prius.html.  The Prius appears to be Type 1, this place sells type 1 to type 2 - I assume charging ports are different?  I saw in a video that the supplied cable has a standard 3 pin 13a plug.

Also, I don''t think there was dual climate control as in my Verso 2008 there was a Dual button.

The wife and I took a look at a Ceed and thought nah, Prius it is.

Quite excited now, next step is a test drive and research on charging points - the ones around me on Zap Map all seem to be faulty.

[danowat]

My wife had a Cee'd for less than a year, it wasn't a particularly great car.

[Catlover]

The 3 pin charge cable is ideal for home use but will likely take longer to charge - ideal for overnight. Faster charging will require something other then a 3 pin plug, used when you are on travels and get to a charging station.  To me this is an ideal situation when the numbers of charging stations may be a bit thin on the ground at the moment.

In fact I think a pug in Prius is a good choice - it covers all situations....its a plug in, an electric vehicle, and has an engine. Covers everything to cope until pure electric vehicles will cover more miles before charging, and more charging points required.

[tdwuk]

I am set on a plugin 🙂

I have 3 offers 2015 30k miles £16

2014 £16,250 19k

2015 £16,200 48k miles 

Does 1 year make a difference?  Is 48k miles too high?  All are from Toyota dealers with 2 years Toyota warranty.

[QuantumFireball]

The Gen 1 Plug-in doesn't have anything resembling fast charging. It will only charge at a rate of 2.2 kW max (230V @ 10A), so if you're using a public charger or normal 13A socket it will be charging at the same speed. Takes about 90 minutes for a full charge. You may hear yanks talking about different charging speeds, but they normally only have 120V AC at home.

For public chargers, you'll need a Type 1 to Type 2 cable, and it will only work with chargers that support single-phase AC. "Rapid" chargers (usually the ones with tethered cables) will be of no use. For charging at home, you use a portable EVSE (often referred to as a "granny cable", and would have originally come with the car) and a normal 13A socket, or get a proper charging point installed (though you won't benefit from faster charging with this car).

Did you check the compartment under the boot floor for a cable?

You're right, it does not have auto parking or dual climate control (no Gen 3's have this). I think adaptive cruise control was an (expensive!) option, maybe real leather seats too.

I think age matters more than mileage with the batteries, so I'd go with the newest if possible.

[ian rooke]

Hi the yanks use 120 v (1 phase)for lighting  240 (two phases ) for heavy consumption items like cookers,aircon etc so they should have access to 240v charging 

[QuantumFireball]

OK, they'll have 240V in their home as you say, but not usually in a place available for charging their car. The standard portable charger they get there is for their normal domestic 120V 15A socket (NEMA 5-15).

[ian rooke]

HI it's good to know we have something the yanks don't .I do notice the Battery is only good for 11 miles is it a smaller Battery or are they better at estimating the distance they can go on it 

[tdwuk]

1 hour ago, QuantumFireball said:

The Gen 1 Plug-in doesn't have anything resembling fast charging. It will only charge at a rate of 2.2 kW max (230V @ 10A), so if you're using a public charger or normal 13A socket it will be charging at the same speed. Takes about 90 minutes for a full charge. You may hear yanks talking about different charging speeds, but they normally only have 120V AC at home.

For public chargers, you'll need a Type 1 to Type 2 cable, and it will only work with chargers that support single-phase AC. "Rapid" chargers (usually the ones with tethered cables) will be of no use. For charging at home, you use a portable EVSE (often referred to as a "granny cable", and would have originally come with the car) and a normal 13A socket, or get a proper charging point installed (though you won't benefit from faster charging with this car).

Did you check the compartment under the boot floor for a cable?

You're right, it does not have auto parking or dual climate control (no Gen 3's have this). I think adaptive cruise control was an (expensive!) option, maybe real leather seats too.

I think age matters more than mileage with the batteries, so I'd go with the newest if possible.

Thanks for advice.  I checked the boot compartment for the cable, just the jack was in there.  I assume they remove it because they get stolen.

I guess I would need 2 sets of cables in the car.

Looking for a 2015 🙂

[QuantumFireball]

The jack has its own special tray underneath the front passenger seat, not sure why it's in the back.

If it's a main dealer, I think it's worth trying to push them for the portable charger (with the 13A plug on it) as it should have come with the car and the OEM charger is stupidly expensive (£500+?) otherwise. You can buy third party ones for a lot less, but they're probably not as well built.

[Catlover]

1 hour ago, tdwuk said:

I am set on a plugin 🙂

I have 3 offers 2015 30k miles £16

2014 £16,250 19k

2015 £16,200 48k miles 

Does 1 year make a difference?  Is 48k miles too high?  All are from Toyota dealers with 2 years Toyota warranty.

Is 48k too high?  I don't think so. I bought my Gen3 with 105,000 and didn't blink at it. Checked its service history, took for a test drive, generally cautious - bought it. 

I did a lot of research on forums, you tube, eBay, autotrader etc. Now I you going to sell a car you obviously promote what you done to it recently ie new brakes, new timing belt fitted etc. Never once did I see any seller of a Prius put "new HV Battery fitted", and because of its cost you would promote that in an advert if you selling. Right!   So having never seen that sort of speel means HV batteries are pretty reliable. And in any case there are places around the UK that replace faulty CELLS for around £70-£80, so no big deal. Toyota are happy testing HV batteries every year and putting 1 year warranty on, up to 10 years - so they have confidence in the HV Battery to be able to offer that.  The automatic system appears to be bullet proof too, and I not seen/heard many problems re the engine either.  Prius's in US are running about with 250,000 miles on clock, you will find Prius in UK (for sale Autotrader/ebay) with 180,000 plus. Not saying that's what you should buy, just saying these cars do a lot of miles if looked after.  

I bought my Gen3 with confidence with 105k, sold it 6 months later with 110k and with a clear conscience when I told the dealer someone is going to get a good car.  Sold my Gen3 to buy a 2 year old Gen4. Just love them.

[QuantumFireball]

The HV Battery in the Plug-in is different technology (Li-ion instead of Ni-MH), and as they've only been around since 2012 are a bit of an unknown. With the Plug-in, I've only heard of Battery failures on examples in funny countries with suspicious histories (the cars possibly dodgy Japanese imports). Actually finding replacement cells/packs could be a lot more difficult, but I haven't heard of any failures in the US or Western Europe yet.

[danowat]

There are Prius taxi's running around with mileages in excess of 300-400k

[PeteB]

57 minutes ago, ian rooke said:

...I do notice the battery is only good for 11 miles..;

It will vary during the year, and like the estimate of range for the fuel tank contents that Gen 3 & 4 Prius have it takes into account recent driving history.

My only experience of a PiP was a 2013 model lent to me for a day while my car was being serviced.  It was still plugged in but fully charged when I arrived at 07.30 on a cold November morning, and showed 9½ miles range.  This turned out to be pretty accurate.

This was probably low partly because of the temperature, and being a demonstrator like as not was not driven sympathetically to benefit EV range and recent days.

[QuantumFireball]

Yeah, I get around 9-12 miles depending on conditions. Lots of hills around here, but I notice I get more out of it in flatter areas.

[seljon]

It’s a pity that the 1st gen plug-in didn’t have a better Battery pack. In contrast, I had a 2013 Ampera for 3 years which I loved - got 30-40 miles on electric, could do any speed in electric providing you had enough charge, could heat or cool car in advance by pressing key fob, fully loaded with kit, the most comfortable seats I’ve ever had in a car. It was also really rapid whether in electric or range extender mode. After 30,000 miles it had averaged 105mpg. Only downsides were 2 rear seats and limited boot space.

So what did Toyota do to update the plug-in? Introduce a car with less electric range than the Ampera and copy it’s limited rear seats and boot! Bizarre. Shame Vauxhall never brought over the second gen Volt which addressed the Ampera downsides and gave bigger range. Also a shame that Toyota, the hybrid pioneers have so far left the EV market to others.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Vauxhall/Opel dropped the Ampera due to low sales - 15,000 over three years in the UK, it's biggest European market. It also didn't meet the Euro VI standard.

[QuantumFireball]

13 hours ago, seljon said:

It’s a pity that the 1st gen plug-in didn’t have a better battery pack. In contrast, I had a 2013 Ampera for 3 years which I loved - got 30-40 miles on electric, could do any speed in electric providing you had enough charge, could heat or cool car in advance by pressing key fob, fully loaded with kit, the most comfortable seats I’ve ever had in a car. It was also really rapid whether in electric or range extender mode. After 30,000 miles it had averaged 105mpg. Only downsides were 2 rear seats and limited boot space.

So what did Toyota do to update the plug-in? Introduce a car with less electric range than the Ampera and copy it’s limited rear seats and boot! Bizarre. Shame Vauxhall never brought over the second gen Volt which addressed the Ampera downsides and gave bigger range. Also a shame that Toyota, the hybrid pioneers have so far left the EV market to others.

As the Toyota hybrids are series-parallel hybrids, there's more going on with the drivetrain and different compromises have to be made. The Prius Plug-ins also had larger fuel tanks than the Ampera/Volt.

I also think Toyota maybe be more cautious about making the Battery safe, to the detriment of cabin/boot space. A Chevy Volt caught fire a few weeks after being crash tested at a NHTSA facility - it was determined the batteries were the source of the fire. I've not heard of similar incidents (post-crash fires) with any Toyota PHEVs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicle_fire_incidents#Chevrolet_Volt

Vauxhall/Opel are now owned by PSA, so we won't be seeing any more GM PHEVs or EVs here. There are plans for a Peugeot 508 petrol PHEV, so may see that powertrain in Vauxhalls eventually.

[seljon]

21 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

Vauxhall/Opel dropped the Ampera due to low sales - 15,000 over three years in the UK, it's biggest European market. It also didn't meet the Euro VI standard.

The low sales were due to a number of factors,  not least the challenge for people to pay £38k list price for a Vauxhall but also because it meant taking a blind leap into the unknown with such a new, unproven technology.  The interior also divided opinion somewhat!  I would say that number of sales was pretty good for a car that had minimal promotion and in which most Vauxhall garages had no interest.  I would be interested in the numbers of first gen Prius which Toyota sold in the UK given their similar lack of promotion of the car - we never used to see another one other than a few in London.

[PeteB]

9 minutes ago, seljon said:

... I would be interested in the numbers of first gen Prius which Toyota sold in the UK given their similar lack of promotion of the car...

about 1500 from end of 2000 to late 2003.

Only 60 Toyota dealers were allowed to sell or service them, until the Gen 2 was launched for the MY 2004.

To be fair, I don't think Toyota would have been able to make many more if the demand had been there.  I heard that the European launch was delayed because they were selling faster in the US than Toyota expected, helped along by a number of celebrities taking a shine to them.

Great quote - http://electrifyingtimes.com/priusdiaz.html  para 3 re Jay Leno interview with Cameron Diaz!