I bought a Prius | Column

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

I have nothing against the C-max.  Actually they look quite nice.  But, I am reminded of this GRMers experience which seemed to boil down to little internet support and even poorer dealership support for this somewhat rare vehicle.  

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/lets-diy-a-new-appliance-broken-hybrid-dd-content-/178472/page1/

Unlike the printed experience above, I would think Ford dealers would be better.  There has been the Fusion Hybrid as well as current Escape and newley launched Maverick.  But, even all those models combined don't add up to what Ford Dealers likely see the most which is F-150's.  

The 03 Prius I drove  registered 13mpg on Road Atlanta during touring laps. It had lots of green for regen breaking , a lot more than normal.

I drove a rental Rav4 Hybrid the other day, and it was... fine.

Differently from my one experience with a (slightly ratty) 2nd gen Prius, the "torque request" response was no worse than... an automatic? Which I don't love, but they are getting better. Not as crisp as an F30 3-series in the pedal-to-tires connection, but not terrible?

I think that's my single biggest reservation about the driving dynamics for an appliance. I've discovered that while I can autocross the Mini, and it's remarkably good at it for a stock car, that doesn't translate into "pleasing feedback" while slogging through the daily driving.

So I guess what I'm saying is that short of DDing something awesome and fully tweaked, the spectacularly competent blandness of even really good modern cars is wearing down my resistance to just normal modern cars. I half wonder how I'd feel about the Leaf's "dynamics" (or lack thereof) post-Mini...

EDIT: I didn't realize they'd dropped the Prius V...

That car is mine. Well, mine and my wife's. I love it for what it is. I paid $3,700 out the door for it. It had 291,000 miles when I bought it. It is now approaching 300,000. It runs like a dream. We got 50 miles per gallon without even trying. If we actually try, I have hit as high as 60. When my daughter turns 15 in a few months, it will be the car she learns to drive on and will take ownership of it when she turns 16.

In reply to SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) :

Is that a Prius C (compact)?

I seem to remember you previously had a bad experience with a Gen3?

In reply to John Welsh :

Yes, that's a '14 Prius C, the tiny hatch.  My prior one was a Gen III hatch, '10 I think.  They are apples and oranges. The '10 was absolutely miserable to drive. It had no body control whatsoever. The steering was as accurate as a 1914 tractor.  It was just truly horrible to drive in my opinion. While this car is not a sports car by any stretch of the imagination, it's much better. It has respectable body control, the steering is at least decent. It drives not unlike many other small hatchbacks.  The ride is decently firm. I also like the interior much better than the older car. The only downside to this car is the complete lack of power. 99 horsepower isn't going to win many drag races, even against a Schwinn. 

IIRC, the C is based on the Yaris platform.

I'm not as anti prius as I thought I would be.  I haven't driven one but if they have decent ride quality I'd be very interested.  For my use (6hr highway run every weekend)  ride quality and fuel economy are the top two spots on the list of wants.  Unfortunately I don't believe it will come close to meeting my ride quality expectations.  

But I do enjoy the fuel economy game.  With careful and conscientious throttle control I get joy out of  beating cruise control in the mpg game.  My record is 4.6mpg better which was just achieved last weekend. 

In reply to Nick Comstock :

For luxury hybrid there are many Lexus to choose from as well as the Toyota Avalon.

With an epa rating if 45 mpg, the Lincoln MKZ is the highest rated lux sedan.  They made these for many years but the 2013+ look the best. There are tons of them out there.  Heated and AC seats too! 

In reply to SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) & John Welsh:

so, I found out recently, thanks to this thread, that apparently there's a "Plus Performance Package" Gen3 Prius, which has different springs/struts, 17" wheels, and a bigger rear sway bar.  I think I mis-read the original comments about it "enhancing steering response" as it having a quicker steering ratio... rather than the more obvious "different tires/springs/struts and a rsb make it turn in better"

also, apparently the Gen2 Prius can fit the aftermarket rear sway bars from a Vibe.

plus, apparently there's someone building LiFePO4 replacement packs for most Prius.

I am not taking a Prius to OneLap, I am not taking a Prius to OneLap, I am not...

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Is the Gen3 the Persona Package?  I thought that was just leather and lux touches.

Yes, the Gen2s can add a rear sway bar. I think from Corolla but could be Matrix (Corolla wagon.). I have not done. 

In reply to John Welsh :

nope, Gen3 Plus Performance,  although I've seen 24#s listed weight for some OEM Prius 17" wheels... which probably wouldn't be great for performance

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

The Toyota Engineering Gen4 Prius out there on One Lap for 2018 didn't look like that much fun.  I'm sure a Gen2 wouldn't make it any more fun.  Possibly less fun. 

Once the battery runs out you're left with a pretty miserable engine doing all the work. Prius isn't even happy climbing long grades.

twowheeled said:

Once the battery runs out you're left with a pretty miserable engine doing all the work. Prius isn't even happy climbing long grades.

I think the batteries are pretty stout.  As I mentioned above, my Prius C is now approaching 300,000 miles.  The battery is fully healthy from what I can tell.  It fully charges and discharges as it should.  Even if it does crap the bed, a refurbished one isn't prohibitively expensive...it's less than it costs to do a significant repair on some engines.

I think twowheeled's comment is more about the battery running out of capacity and it degrading performance; especially from an on-track perspective.  (I think that particularly hurt the Gen4 when we were at Cresson in '18, where it was impossible to put juice into the pack after 1.3 and before the 1.7 courses which were run back-to-back.).

the Gen2 & Gen3 have a 1.3kWh pack, which seems to have ~0.5-0.7kWh useable (based on Toyota limiting how much it can charge/discharge to improve cycle life), while the 'c' has a 0.9kWh pack, which I'd guess has ~0.4kWh?  Still, the 'c' can surprise people in novice classes.

Not that I'm a big fan of the author; and NJMP Lightning is a short-ish track (at 1.86mi)... but, one can manage the pack for meaningful boosts, and use the regen to help the handling dynamics.  Swapping to the "project lithium" pack would mean a ~45lb weight reduction and doubling of capacity... which probably still isn't enough to 'drive flat out'.

The main draw to the idea, this year... relies on two things:  1) the existence of the lithium swap pack (which, admittedly is a risk as well);  2) that a bunch of other slow cars are headed to OneLap this year as well,  which with some weight loss, a Prius is 'in the range of matching 25:1 pwr/weight'.

The route seems to favor shorter tracks this year; and on the surface there's a chance at a class podium (2 teslas entered, and 1 Panamera Hybrid), but there's a 3rd Tesla on the waitlist... which probably dooms that possibility.  So, that's the attraction to the idea on my end.

Then again, it's probably nearly impossible to find a co-driver that would want to attempt such a fools errand.

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

As I should know for this, you have given it great thought and consideration.  Certainly more than my knee jerk reaction of, "not much fun."    I should not have doubted you.  

As for co-drive, I'd like to but "life since covid" has caused me some debt and until I get that wrangled, the tank is pretty empty for "personal fun" endeavors.  

Since Tim might be shopping a Prius and Klayfish just did, it might be a good time again to highlight the Owners section of the Toyota website.  

Set up a free account with username and password (but this requires no proof of Toyota ownership.) 
Then, once you have an account, plug in the vin of the car you own or the car you are shopping.  
This will then give you the ability to see all the dealer service records done at any Toyota dealership in the US...for FREE.  

One of my favorite things about Prius is it is amazing how many of them are dealer serviced for everything.  I bought (took a risk) on a salvage Prius with 188k miles because I could see that the car was so dealer serviced that the PO was even buying tires from the dealer.  Its a great car!  

John Welsh said:

 

One of my favorite things about Prius is it is amazing how many of them are dealer serviced for everything.  I bought (took a risk) on a salvage Prius with 188k miles because I could see that the car was so dealer serviced that the PO was even buying tires from the dealer.  Its a great car!  

This.  My car piled on all of those miles in just 6+ short years.  One thing that attracted me to it was that the Carfax showed it had been meticulously maintained...and that shows in the car (inside and outside).   Through some digging, I found out the guy was a medical supply delivery person so he ran up and down the highways carrying supplies.  

SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:

twowheeled said:

Once the battery runs out you're left with a pretty miserable engine doing all the work. Prius isn't even happy climbing long grades.

I think the batteries are pretty stout.  As I mentioned above, my Prius C is now approaching 300,000 miles.  The battery is fully healthy from what I can tell.  It fully charges and discharges as it should.  Even if it does crap the bed, a refurbished one isn't prohibitively expensive...it's less than it costs to do a significant repair on some engines.

No you misunderstood me, I'm talking about the state of charge of the battery. Under full load the engine won't charge it and once drained you have the little engine whizzing away with no help from the MG motors

John Welsh said:

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

As I should know for this, you have given it great thought and consideration.  Certainly more than my knee jerk reaction of, "not much fun."    I should not have doubted you.  

As for co-drive, I'd like to but "life since covid" has caused me some debt and until I get that wrangled, the tank is pretty empty for "personal fun" endeavors.  

While I'll admit to doing some 'fishing' here... since I think you'd have useful background, and fun with the crew that's doing this... but also, since anyone else that might be open to the idea might wander across it.  I would be upset, though, if your participation came at the expense of y'alls' wellbeing.  I can grok many of the ways the last bit of time have been impacting things for all of you.

additionally, writing it out like this is helpful in isolating the risks of this idea.  Like, it's easy to run numbers and some simulations, but it's also important to step back and think through where those numbers are lying... or telling an optimistic story;  ala the idea that doing the battery conversion is probably mandatory for being 'in the window of performance' with the Mazda2's, Fits, and Rios... and it's a bit of an open question how/if a ~2900# Gen3 (or a ~2750# Gen2) is going to handle on 205's.

The necessity of 'Going Full Duebler' is not lost on me.

Question for the gen 2 Prius experts here. My wife's 2006 has began intermittently throwing hv battery codes, surprisingly my launch scanner that is normally very good at near factory level diagnosis will only pull generic codes from it, p3000, p0a80, c1241 & c1310.

So I need to look into with drprius or tech stream to see if I can narrow it down.  Any recommendations as far as battery, rebuild/replace?

The car uses a bit of oil so I am not sure if we will keep it long enough to justify a new Toyota battery, but would like to get a few more years out of it

In reply to Caperix :

We're ya located?  

In reply to Caperix :

Do you have TechStream or Dr. Prius?  I have a copy of TechStream but I'm not sure its a good copy.  I've had technical difficulty getting it to launch properly.  I have Dr but I rarely use it.  I do use Torque Pro but it's android only which I am too.  

With cars as high as 227k miles, I have never had hybrid trouble.  At least real trouble though I have had the car throw the red triangle before.  On occasion that has happened, I might scan for codes and Torque Pro returns no codes but then I hit, "clear codes" and the red triangle goes away and stays away.  I refer to this as sometimes these cars get confused.  

I do have my torque set up to read the individual voltage of each of the 14 cells.  Dr will do the same.  

Battery replacement: by going to FB Marketplace and entering the keyword "prius parts" I have found dismantlers.  This is one I have dealt with before near the Cleveland, OH market.  His replacement batteries are reasonable...like $500.  

Engines: from me, on car-parts.com junkyards and Prius dismantlers sell whole 1.5L engines, with reasonable mileage for $300.  I looked, 105k for $300, 160k for $200, 97k for $300
I have never swapped a 1.5L so I don't know how difficult the job is.  

 

From my Prius thread, some chatter on Dr Prius and Torque for battery cell voltage...

This is someone else's screenshot of Dr.  Though the graph is overly dramatic, the voltage numbers for all 14 cells are generally the same...all generally 15.5

Similar that I did with Torque Pro on a car I did not buy because I was concerned with block 12 having lower voltage than all the others:

This car was not throwing a hybrid code but I feared that #12 was weak and the beginning of an issue.  

Don't read into that one car is showing 15.5's and the other 16.3's.  These voltage readings vary while driving from 18's to 14's whether adding power to the battery or taking power from the battery at that moment.  The key is that they generally read equally across all 14 cells at the time of reading.  

I also can be reached directly...jwelsh02...yahoo...