Today I bought a used Prius

In reply to John Welsh :

That clears it up a bit.  I'm having difficulty finding vehicles that fit my criteria, but that is likely because I am (mostly) interested are older (pre OBD-II) and those seem to be Dealer/Dismantler/Rebuilder/Scrapper/Exporter/Other Licensed Business only.  I also am unsure what "Non Auto Licensed Business" would mean, and why they are allowed to bid on some items that aren't up for bidding to the public.   

I have bought plenty of vehicles through different auctions, including government, online, and the public lanes of dealer auctions over the years.   But this is pretty difficult to wrap my head around right now.

From what I've seen on Copart, older vehicles are just less prevalent in general. Most of my searches on there bring up far more post-2000 cars than pre-2000. Maybe IAAI is different, not sure. But also, it really does vary a lot by state. Some states (PA, GA, several others) anyone can buy anything. In many states, you have to have a license to buy anything. And then in a few states, it's one or the other (public can buy salvage, but not clean title, or the other way around, I've seen both) it's definitely tedious to sort through and try to wrap one's head around it.

Crap, now I'm looking at IAAI auctions. 

Like I said, I am searching nationwide.

Some thoughts on old salvage vehicles...

If you have a 2010 Volvo with 150k miles it might be worth $12k and you carry full coverage insurance on it.  

If you have a 1995 (pre-obd2) Volvo with 150k miles it might be worth $1.2k and you DO NOT carry full coverage insurance on it.  

If you cause the accident in your '10 Volvo it will result in an insurance payout to you and your car going to auction.

If you cause the accident in your '95 Volvo it will NOT result in an insurance payout and you are just SOL.  

If you are the victim of the accident in your '10 Volvo it will result in an insurance payout to you and your car going to auction.

If you are the victim of the accident in your '95 Volvo will likely just get $1.2k in cash from the other guys insurance company and keep driving the car. Though, sometimes your car will make it to auction.  

So, older cars are less common in the auctions and generally older cars are less common on the road.    

Cooter said:

Like I said, I am searching nationwide.

And I am searching only one town so that I can go and see the cars in-person before bidding.  

John Welsh said:

Cooter said:

Like I said, I am searching nationwide.

And I am searching only one town so that I can go and see the cars in-person before bidding.  

I am not sure what that has to do withanything.  My reply wasn't to you.

I am also not talking about how the older vehicles are less prevelant, but the fact that there are a great deal of cean title older vehicles that aren't available for the public to bid on.  And it seems to be the case nationwide.  

In reply to Cooter :

That's fair, I hadn't understood that you meant clean-titled cars.

This P4 needs to go down the road this Weds to its state rebuild inspection, so, tonight after dinner I put some time into fastening the replacement bumper cover.  

Start:

The replacement bumper cover for $100 has this imperfection.  Something like a bump into a parking curb stopper.  If you get the plastic hot, you can reshape it pretty easily.  A heat gun is one way but that just gets you a small warm area. But, a pot of near boiling water will get the whole area warm and gets it warm quickly.  

Before:

During:

After:  

I now have the light mounted, all the top fasteners attached and the sides attached as well.  Still to go for this weekend is the underbelly aero shield attachments to the bottom of the bumper cover and the plastic fender liners.  For tonight, it was getting too dark to work in these shadowy portions.  

That repair looks awesome!

I'm calling this one done.  Though, it could still use a passenger side mirror.  The power control doesn't make it move yet it wobbles and shimmers on it's own.  $40 will get me a junkyard model in the right color silver or $40 will get me a new, black, aftermarket version.  We'll see.  

• $648 purchase
• $107 bumper cover
• $24 fender liner
• $10 rear tail light bulb and epoxy to fix a headlight crack
• $53.50 Inspection
• $882.50 for a running Prius w/188k miles

I think I will keep this one but who knows, there is a red one I am looking at tomorrow.  If I do sell this one then I also have to factor in these transactions:

• $882.50
• $47.74 tax and title #1 (salvage)
• $18.50 temp tag
• $17.00 title #2 (rebuilt)
• $1,019.24

Hours invested:

• 2 shop and buy
• 2 pick up
• 2 junkyard w/ travel
• 3 bumper install
• 1 title & BMV offices
• 3 inspection w/ travel
• 13 hours total

Oh, I have not cleaned it either.  Its in good shape but should allot for $100 detail.

If I was selling it I would ask $2900 and accept $2,500.  

Future tires will be needed before winter.  I have been buying Falken 201's for $75 mounted (65k tire) or $300 (that includes tax.)  

The 185/65-15's the Prius calls for are super cheap.  The cheapest route is Amazon's SuperMax (though 600 tw) are $35, shipped and then even if $15 each to mount that is still $50.  $20 to mount is $55 so $200 - $220.  Lets call it $230 w/ tax.  

At the end of the day, I took this one for a drive. I've got to say that this 188k example drives just as well as my 135k daily driver Prius.  

I just looked at those SuperMax tire reviews on Amazon and there's some scary stuff in there. But even if you don't go with those, that size is cheap in every brand. 

I didn't catch the SuperMax reviews but I did find it humorous that the Amazon listing for them highlights the phrase, "minimal driving noise."   Somehow that just seems to say, "we know they are loud but they are only as loud as they have to be."  

Westlakes in the same size are $39 each.  

To me, these are both "used car lot tires" where the seller wants to be able to say that the car has 4 new tires.  If I keep the Prius, I'll put Falkens 201's on it, just like my other two Prius.  I've been real happy with them.  

You mean these? I'm shopping some 'regular tires' for once for a station wagon i just bought. Will probably be around 205/60/15, 205/65/15 etc although i'm not nailed down on size other than skinnyish 15". I honestly haven't bought non-lowprohighperformanceshortbywide tires in so long i'm having to refresh myself. The last tires i had on the Prius before i sold it were Ohtsus that i was happy with mostly because they never did anything that bothered me!

In reply to Vigo :

Yep.  

I run dedicated winter tires so I have no comment on their winter ability but for summer (and I think you have summer all year) they have been great.  

I like the site tirebuyer.com.  I also check ebay and have bought them from tirebuyer.com via their ebay listings too.  Most of the times I buy them there is a $40 rebate available (which there does not seem to be right now.)  

Falken also makes a 250 which is a little better (75k tire) but a little more expensive but watch for sale prices too.  

"At the end of the day, I took this one for a drive. I've got to say that this 188k example drives just as well as my 135k daily driver Prius.  "

what goes wrong with a Prius mechanically ?   Are there any engine problems ?

I remember on the old Top Gear where someone  modified the  "petrol" engine and doubled the HP ......

Thanks for the info

californiamilleghia said:

"At the end of the day, I took this one for a drive. I've got to say that this 188k example drives just as well as my 135k daily driver Prius.  "

what goes wrong with a Prius mechanically ?   Are there any engine problems ?

I remember on the old Top Gear where someone  modified the  "petrol" engine and doubled the HP ......

Thanks for the info

My comments about driving the same had as much to do with "every car" things as it did about "hybrid car" things.  I was happy there were no loud bearing/CV noises.  No shakes at hyw speeds, No weakness of brakes, etc.  

What goes wrong:

In these Gen2 cars it seems that leaking water pumps can be an issue.  But, they seem to only leak, not fail so if you were to pull over when the coolant/high temp light comes on there should be no catastrophic danger.  Probably easier to just watch for puddling in the driveway.  I am happy to report that I have never had any WP issues.  Though, I ran my P2 thought the Toyota VIN thing linked to earlier and it said that my P2 got a WP replacement at about 98k.  I bought with like 110k.  

I have heard stories of burning oil but..these are also cars pushing 200k+ so it hardly seems like a "problem".  

I was confident that the hybrid battery was good from testing/readings I did in the driveway.  

Im not aware of any petrol engine mods

Thanks for the info !

Do you deliver :)

In reply to californiamilleghia :

I've had many cars shipped.  I am confident that I could get one to you cheaper than you could come get it yourself.  

It is possible that there will be a Prius up for sale soon.  I saw the red one today and aside from some faults, I'll be bidding on it.  

That looks like a lot of car for 2500. 

Im the winning Pre-bidder on the red one.  I had to go a little higher than I wanted.  The auction will go live in about an hour

Edit: did not get the red one.  It would have taken $1,918 (or more.)  Much higher than I wanted to be.  

Sorry you didn't get the red one John, that Sucks. There will always be another though. IF you decide to sell, you have my contact info. talk at you later.

BBC

This is a screen shot I took off my Android phone while running the Torque for Prius App on the red car at inspection.  You will see that cell #12 of the 14 battery cells was reading low at 15.1 v

For this reason, the red one was giving me pause.  

This was a charity donation so someone "gave this car away."  This often happens due to death or repairs that exceed the perceived value to the owner.  My suspicion was that they had been told the car needed a $3k battery replacement.  I was willing to accept the idea that I could use this as my first foray into DIY battery cell replacement but I was not willing to spend what was getting near "full retail value" for a car that had this or other yet unknown problems.  

Additionally, I had run the red car's VIN through the Toyota link listed earlier and got back nothing of recent activity.  If there had been a perfect record of dealer service or some other swaying factor I might have gone higher but there was not enough factors to sway me.  

My local branch auctions 500 car per week.  Something else will pop up.  

Billy, what kind of MPGs is your dashboad telling you?  

I ask because when I had yours i managed a 50 mpg trip but my P1 & P2 tend to average 42 mpg.  

Just the other day I drove this P4 to the inspection office which is 1 hr each way.  This is the same trip where your car read 50 mpg.  I thought for yours that was an anomaly of perfect conditions including 50 degree outside temps

Sure enough, P4 on the same trip returned 51.5 mpg but with 86 degree outside temps.  

John 

in real life drives by, not hypermiling mode, I am getting about 45mpg. Most of that is in town and I drive it like a normal  car. I have gotten as much as 51.2 on a trip with cruise set at 68mph. Love the damn thing. It is truly a cockroach. 

This post really interests me! I hate to thread jack but I am going to look at a 2010 with 142k. What should I look for when giving the car an inspection? Is there an app for iPhone to check the batteries? Thank you so much y’all are the best!