I have had Prii since 2001 (back when it was a sedan). Had good experience with them until recently: 2011 prius with 110K miles had to have it's engine replaced. Decided to do that instead of getting another car because anecdata tells me this was an aberration.
I somehow ended up paying $2k for a 2009 Prius with 80k miles on it in 2019. I've driven it for three years and it has not had one mechanical issue at all. Absolutely perfect.
I felt the same about our 2007 Prius. It never really had any serious problems until we replaced it this year. We ran into one issue this year but it was a known thing that was fairly straightforward to replace, and although not cheap, not that expensive.
My wife wanted to replace it with a newer model because she wanted bluetooth. But I miss my old car -- it was amazingly reliable.
I feel strongly that you’re likely to get another 10 years out of it if you keep up with regular maintenance. My non-Prius Toyota is 17 years old. The outside looks like a war zone from being a city car but the interior is in great shape and everything works perfectly. A family member has a Prius approaching 300,000 miles. Good cars.
[edit: Regular maintenance is key! I take mine in to my local mechanic for an oil change and inspection 2-3 times a year. For elderly cars, don’t wait for a noise or a light to go off :) ]
My 2005 Prius had one major fault from when I got it in 2012 until this year. It goes to show that sometimes adding complexity can increase reliability. Amazing car.
The article was about consumer goods in general, so data about cars overall is more relevant than a single brand. Nonetheless, the Toyota Prius is, by reputation, a very reliable car. Here a used car website used it's data to estimate car model's lifespan, finding that a Toyota Prius has a potential lifespan of 250000 miles, much greater than anything from the 1980s.
Toyota Priuses have been sold for over 20 years (closer to 25 actually!) and they are very reliable. There are Prius taxis with half a million miles on the original battery.
My family has owned a 2013 Prius (50-60 MPG) and driven it over 100k miles in 9 years. It's needed a single 12V battery replacement a couple years ago, and nothing else besides regular oil changes/brakes/etc. (excluding body work, of course).
I own a 2020 Subaru Crosstrek (30-40 MPG, auto braking, blind spot monitoring, etc.) that has been driven ~50k miles in 3 years, and nothing else besides regular oil changes so far. Hasn't even needed new brakes yet.
Just because old cars are reliable doesn't make new cars unreliable.
But how often do you have issues with the engine. My last 3 cars never had a single engine issues for at least 175.000 miles. Its very rare today to have big engine issues.
My 91 pickup and 99 minivan's engines are still going strong with well over 200k miles, rarely having anything major wrong with them in the entire time I own them, whereas my 2004 and 2009 cars both with ~100k miles have been nothing but total maintenance nightmares. Timing issues, computer failures. Sheer nightmares.
> Toyota Prius > argument about long term reliability
But you can tell a bit about their long term reliability by looking at heavy users like Taxis and Ubers.
The Prius is used because it is cheap, cheap to run, and cheap to maintain -- even by outlier users like Uber drivers (also note drivers are usually buying consumer versions).
Arguing about 23 years is a strawman - which would mean you could never buy anything new because new models haven't yet had even a few years of usage prediction.
I had 250k on an +20 year old Toyota pickup, though things slowly start to crap. Leaky carb diaphragms due to ethanol, harmonic balancer wearing out, corroded brakes lines, bad clutch cylinder, dead ignition module. Donated that after buying a new Toyota pickup. Had that for 12 years now with zero problems.
Purchased a used 2015 Nissan Leaf recently and very happy with that. We'll see how the battery holds up.
I think many will ditch their cars not due to engine wear, but for stupid reasons like their smartphone not linking to the stereo.
They can't pry my 2001 v8 4wd 14mpg[1] Tundra bought new for cash from my cold dead hands because I am seriously thinking of when I die I get laid out in the bed and the whole shebang put in an enormous hole and buried somewhere. I'd prefer if it was hauled out by helicopter over the Pacific somewhere and oops dropped.
125K miles, 3rd suspension, zero problems, manual windows, door locks, seats mirrors, everything. The odometer seems to be digital. It even passes GA emissions now.
[1] It was so... liberating when we started buying Priuses and I discovered I could drive them like race cars and get 44mpg more or less reliably. X-country + urban miles almost all go there. The current 2015 is so comfortably very dumb.
They’re reliable until they hit their warranty and then everything breaks.
My wife’s BMW 335 started having massive problems right about the time the warranty expired.
Meanwhile I drove my Honda to 175,000 miles with never a single problem except the A/C broke once. I only replaced it with a new Honda because in wanted the new model year features.
reply