Toyota Prius - any first hand experience?

[chadr]

I'm toying with the idea of a (used) Prius as commuter/2nd car....and was wondering whether any forum members have first hand experience of them? All comments welcome.

I'm trying to get a comparison of it versus a "conventional" car of a similar size i.e. Focus/Auris/Astra etc. Especially interested in real-world running costs, not the brochure figures. Would be looking at keeping it for at least 3-4 years.

P.S. And no, it's nothing to do with being "Green" - more on the merits of the Prius as car in its own right. IYSWIM.

 

[Andrew Prince]

You're better off with a small, efficient conventional car when all the costs are rolled in. The Prius just about matches the economy of the small turbo-diesels and is much more expensive to buy. And check with your friendly Toyota dealer how long the batteries last and what the cost of replacements is
My 2c

 

[Beau]

Im not too sure on what the running cost are on the Prius, but I own a mk4 Golf 1.9tdi and I get a good 50mpg with it. I have got up to 65 mpg with it at one point. And it is quite a quick little run around and very reliable. You can pick up a good second hand one for £1800.

 

[Crispin]

You can do better than a Prius. Second hand - the batteries have had it. They'll not hold a charge very well and you'll be lugging the things around for no point.
Even at it's best, there are better cars out there.
My wife has a Nissan squashi which is a 1.5TDi. Standing start to about 60 it gives my 120 a good run for it's money (not really fair but you get the point), it'll happily do 80 on the, er, private road and offer up 46-50mpg. It does mainly central London driving with no thought of economy and has a current average of 41mpg.

Have a look at the vw blumotion cars. There is a polo diesel which reportedly does 80mpg Maybe not a family car (when compared to the LC) but the other offerings are nearly as good.

You can do a lot better than hybrid
I used a taxi driver each morning and evening to ferry me around for a while in Aberdeen who had a prius. Traffic was very stop-start for about 20 minutes of the 30 minute journey. When he picked me up the batteries were full (according to the display), by the end of the traffic, they were dead and running on petrol. Pointless?

 

[J66P]

Have a look at the vw blumotion cars. There is a polo diesel which reportedly does 80mpg Maybe not a family car (when compared to the LC) but the other offerings are nearly as good.

I run a 2.0ltr Tdi Passat Estate Bluemotion and hit 67 to the gallon going to South Wales the other day at 70 on the Cruise just about all the way, averages over 50 to the gallon and I dont drive steady.

 

[Crispin]

I don't understand the love of hybrids. The way diesels are going is so much better. If you can get that out of a car the size of a Passat, what more do you want? (Makes me wonder why I bought the bloody iQ )

 

[chadr]

Thanks for the comments so far, yes I'm throwing the net quite far and wide, hence why the Prius got snagged....usually it's not my cup of tea.

I'm trying to work out whether buying a separate "commuter" car is worth it in the long run.....

I've started a longer commute and do anywhere between 200 to 350 miles per week depending on how many days I need to be in the office. So best case is around 10k and worst case is nearly 17k a year in commuter mileage.

In the Colorado, on LPG @80ppl it does about 19mpg, so approx we are talking about £2k to £3.5k in fuel costs. If I had a car that did 50mpg on diesel that cost would go down to around between £1.4k and £2.1k. However then you also have added VED, Insurance, servicing and of course depreciation to account for too.

This is all obviously assuming that the LC will be kept on as "leisure" vehicle.

 

[Rob]

My old MK3 golf TDi did 50mpg easily and you can get one for peanuts these days (my sister bought a perfectly good one for £440 3 years ago with 160k miles on it and its still going 25k later without issues). Mine had 225k miles when I threw in the towel and sold it to some poor fella, will the Prius even get close to this mileage without several batteries and get anything near 50mpg on motorways? Hybrids are heavy, expensive to buy, expensive to put right, boring to drive and not that fuel efficient due to all the weight and tiny engines. Just get a TDi eurobox and you will not regret it (some PD models should be avoided BTW)

If you want to see a return on investment in less that a year, I would seriously recommend a MK3 Golf TDi with less than say 170k on the clock. They are fun to drive too

 

[chadr]

Thanks - yes, anything with the VAG 1.9TDi engine are towards the top of my list, so too are a few with the PSA 1.9/2.0HDi which seem quite decent too.

 

[Crispin]

I'm trying to work out whether buying a separate "commuter" car is worth it in the long run.....

That was my sole reason for getting the box.
The (rough) maths:
I do about 80 miles a day to work and back.
LC was costing a tank (£120ish) every 5 days
iQ was bought on 3 year finance, option to hand back within time. It costs me £117 a month, £25 a year tax.
It costs me £40 to fill the tank which lasts around 5 days.

For £174 a month I could have got a brand new Civic (fuel specs about the same) but insurance was a killer for me (over a grand).

I looked at second hand diesels like Rob's comment but I did not want another old vehicle. If it squeaked, moaned or went kurrr-clunk, I want to take it back to the dealer to be fixed for free.

 

[Crushers]

your quandry is the same the wife and i have dealt with over the last couple years.
we ended up getting a summer commuter, Toyota Yaris.
the RVR was returning 29 mpg. comfortable, reliable 4wd.
the Yaris we looked at claimed 45+ mpg. small but comfortable, not AWD so it would suck in the winter. ($6900 purchase price. insurance is the same as the RVR so no change except for the parking insurance for the vehicle not being driven that season + plates)
she drives 50 km each way to work. (500 km/week plus weekend runabouting)
now we are going into our second year with the Yaris in the summer. It is nice having the much better fuel economy when filling up
but
if we had to take a loan to buy the Yaris then we would have the monthly bleed from our bank account.
and even though we don't have the bank loan to pay back we do have $6900 missing from the bank account.
we also have 2 vehicles that might end up with repair bills. we could sell the RVR and recoup most of the investment on the Yaris but the Yaris is a fair weather vehicle. She could drive one of the LC in the winter (my suggestion ) but then that would suck the return mileage of the Yaris.
so now, is it worth it to buy a commuter vehicle?
take the fuel savings - cost of vehicle and associated costs.
extend it over 5 years and see if you actually save any $$.

the real sad part of owning the Yaris is now we get better fuel economy we now drive more.

 

[Graham]

There are a lot of hybrid Mercedes S400 running around here.
I guess I see at least 3 a week, all different.

Not cheap, but god they look good.

.
http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/ ... del-S400HV

Gra.

 

[LandCruiser1978]

My dad has a 56 plate CLIO 1.5dci and he gets 65mpg on his daily commute to work

I know it's a renault but had it 5 years now and had no major issues with it ..
Think it's just gone over the 110k
Been a good car for him

That has to work out better than the prius
purchase cost + running costs

 

[chadr]

Thanks, yes the Prius figures don't really seem to add up.

I'm hoping to get a decent used small petrol (<1.3) or a diesel - don't want to go new or nearly new as then the capital outlay and depreciation overwhelm any gains (as I'm still keeping the Colorado).

 

[jeepmadmike]

I fancy buying a dead pirus, I like a challenge when it comes to fixing stuff and the majority of spanner monkeys will run a mile from it....

As for owning one for economic reasons don't do it, I would buy something with the new little fiat 1.3 derv lump in it. I have a fiat van on the fleet and it has impressed me the couple of times i've driven it, even driving it totally flat out (ie very very hard) I couldn't get it below 35mpg the guy that usually drives it gets 50+ and it goes really well.