2004 Toyota Prius: Open Thread

Would you buy a 2004 Prius as a used commuter car? One of my co workers has a long congestion filled commute and is looking for a used economy car that gets great mileage.

He currently spends about $300 a month in gas on a 99 4 cyl Accord (about $4.50/gallon here) and seriously want to cut that down. I suggested the Prius as a used Civic wouldn't get him enough of a mpg gain to justify replacing the Accord.

(He's not a car guy, just needs reliable practical transportation that doesn't suck his wallet dry every month)

Is the speed governor really set at 99mph?

What's the worst MPG ever gotten in it? If it's not below 20mpg please give it to the editor who can properly hoon a Prius.

What happened to the front license plate?

Can you still drive solo in the carpool lane with that yellow sticker?

How's the battery life holding up from initially?

Have there been any thoughts of doing the plug-in hybrid conversion?

Describe the feeling of regenerative braking compared to a car without.

What are the upcoming major maintenance procedures coming up? Is this a car that's going to get to 200k+ at all, hobble along to there, or get there easily and look forward to the next 200k?

Is there any way to predict how much longer the battery will last? And when it does need to be replaced, how much $$$?

Great questions! Keep 'em coming. I'll see how many I can get answered.

@liquoredonlife, re: that HOV sticker, I believe that expires at the end of this year.

How well did the Prius' electric A/C system keep up with the record heat? Could it still operate in electric mode only or did it have to fire up the engine?

As a matter of fact, there is something I would like to know about it.

WHERE IS THE LEXUS RX400H!?!?!?!?!?!?
(don't try hiding it, everyone can clearly see it in the "Vehicles" column

I quote:
"This month signifies two full years of Lexus RX 400h ownership. Our reasons for keeping it in service this long are primarily to test the durability of its hybrid system. This is also why it doesn't receive too many blog posts." - Mike Schmidt, March 12, 2008

That was two and a half years ago. So after four and a half years, have ya'll not determined a single thing about the durability of its hybrid system?

Yeah, I have a question. Why?

"Yeah, I have a question. Why?"

Reliable, practical and uses half the gas of most family sedans. Easy answer.

Have you ever completely drained the battery (well, at least enough to show an empty battery indicator)? Have you ever "overcharged" the battery (say, going down an incredibly long hill)?

What was it doing to get 10,000 miles put on it in the desert?

I'm not really interested in the prius whatsoever but...

What has been the out of pocket cost of ownership?

The advantage of a hybrid is to save money on gas (and the environment i suppose if you're into that) but does that compensate for the outright cost to own/maintain it?

Investigate let me know what you find out if anything.

Have you recuperated the purchase price in fuel saved (rough numbers are just fine) versus a comparable Corolla or Camry, after 85k miles? I'm assuming you still have the fuel log.

I like you guys keeping some vehicles long-term (especially the bread-and-butter vehicles), because most of us working schlubs don't want to spend money on a new car every 30-40k miles. I do that many miles in 18 months!

-TheGraduate
1996 Honda Accord LX, 216,000 miles
2009 Hyundai Sonata GLS-V6, 49,000 miles

OK, so I am the odd-ball car guy that actually bought a Prius. I am active in the Prius enthusiast community and don't regret buying the car, but I do not wear blinders to its flaws either. They are very practical to own but not fun to drive in the enthusiast sense. It's more like driving in a video game- very much an appliance-car. Service costs have been average or better, it doesn't call for anything different from other Toyotas.

There are several known Priuses with over 300k miles, including some taxis. The only full battery replacement that's known was in a first-generation Prius (different battery design) and at 325k miles. They seem to hold up fine. New batteries are under $3k from the dealer now, and as these cars start to age and get crashed, there are junkyard options too.

Regenerative braking in a Prius is unremarkable. They tried very hard to make it drive like a regular car, and it worked. The only quirks I have noticed in the brakes are that you hear the electric pump run occasionally (the electric pump, not vacuum, provides the power assist), and the rear brakes can get a little grabby in the rain. I think because they get so little use (the regenerative braking does almost all of the work) that they get surface rust that messes with the friction. If you make a hard stop once or a gentle stop in Neutral with no regen braking, it doesn't do it again for maybe 30 minutes. I assume that means the rust got rubbed off.

Top speed- 2004-2009 Prius is limited to 105 mph by the 5000 rpm redline, not one of those top speed limiters that are there for no particular reason. When driving at 80+, you do start to hear the engine when climbing hills, etc., but it's not as intrusive as in many small cars. The engine sound is so distant and disconnected to what you're doing with your right foot that you start to think there is a motorcycle cruising in your blind spot. I actually caught myself a few times looking around to see whose engine I was hearing before realizing it was mine.

If you drive down a long hill, you can charge the battery up to the point when the computer shuts down the regenerative braking and goes to 100% regular friction braking. Sometimes if you come to a stop after that, the computer will decide that the battery is now a little overcharged and will start spinning the engine up and down with no fuel supply just to burn some excess juice. Like everything else in the Prius, all the hybrid business is transparent if you aren't paying attention though.

If you sit in traffic with the AC on for long enough, the battery gauge will go down to the bottom, and the computer will respond by firing up the engine to make electricity even when you're at a full stop. When you step on the gas at that point, the computer favors using the engine to do all of the acceleration work without using the typical amount of battery assist, so the engine revs up enthusiastically compared to usual. If you try to accelerate hard at that point, though, it will still give the usual amount of electric assist- full throttle acceleration is always the same except in extreme circumstances (i.e. race to the top of Pike's Peak). Except when you've drained the battery like that and when you're climbing hills at high speed, engine sound is very subtle. You hear every sound in the car, including some rattles, because there is so little engine noise to muffle those noises.

If you run out of gas (here's me with my innocent face on), it will continue on using battery power alone for a short distance. Toyota highly discourages this but I can tell you that I limped the last few blocks to the gas station on battery power once.

The electric A/C works fine. If anything it's an advantage- it doesn't get wimpy when you're sitting in traffic at idle like belt-drive A/C does. The heat can be a little wimpy if you aren't driving it hard enough, though- the car just doesn't make a lot of waste heat when puttering around in city traffic. It does fine on the highway, though, and the 2010+ model has a gadget that collects heat from the exhaust and dumps it back into the cooling system to help the engine heat up faster and the cabin heating to work better.

Other odd sensations: coming to a stop and feeling the engine "stall". I am used to it now but if I take somebody for a ride in my car, they still find it odd. But hey, it meant to do that, and if you step on the gas, it moves off just the same. It's kind of eerie to sit in stop and go traffic with the engine off, yet with the A/C running full-tilt. The absence of engine noise and vibration can be quite pronounced.

+1 @ mlowery85: what the heck was the car doing in the desert for 10k miles?

thanks wyounger

Very useful commments.