Lifetime of a Toyota Prius

Oh no! The 2002 I bought a few months ago has only 3K miles to live!

Seriously, the reason so few batteries are stocked is because the demand is so low. I've lost count, but altogether I've heard of perhaps a dozen main battery replacments. The symptoms in each case pointed to failing connections within the battery, possibly within individual cells, rather than loss of capacity. Age seems to be a minor factor. I've never heard of a Prius being scrapped because it needed a main battery.

The supply of batteries from wrecks greatly exceeds the demand. A member of the Yahoo! Prius Technical Stuff forum bought a main battery on ebay for $600 for experimentation... not bad, considering the core value of a battery is $200 US from Toyota.

I hadn't heard if the owner of the Yahoo! Prius forum reached 200K miles on his 2001 yet; the last I recall was something like 194K miles. The first owner to exceed 200K miles was probably the famous (in some circles) Vancouver taxi owner whose service record extends through 206K miles -

Compare this with Ford Taurus automatics, which had a design flaw in the forward clutch piston that effectively limited the life of the vehicle to

125-150K miles.

Mike

How old is your information may I ask?

Eric posted about passing 200,000 miles at:

according to his signature on his most recent post, , hisvehicles are up to: Eric Metzler in Enfield, Maine '00 Silver Insight #223, "Alumena"

106,000 miles, 57.1 mpg over last 72,000 miles '01 Green Prius, "Genie" 205,000 miles, 40/46 winter/summer mpg '04 Tideland Pearl Prius pkg. 9, "Puddleglum" 70,000 miles, 46mpg (less in winter)

and another hybrid taxi owner in BC is now over 254,000 miles as well:

Meanwhile, I still can't believe that people are still quoting the CNW paper with a Prius lifetime of only ~100,000 miles... That report is so riddled with poor assumptions (causing bad math) as to reek of anti-hybrid propaganda.

(I suppose that if you counted all the vehicles disposed of early by accidents, as opposed to those scrapped by age/wear/repair costs, then maybe you could sufficiently drag down a vehicle's lifespan, but that doesn't help with longevity questions but more with insurance questions... (I guess this is similar to how infant mortality rates greatly affect a population's life expectancy.)

Some articles for further reading:

(benchtesting of hybrid battery) (fuel economy andbattery capacity testing once 160,000 miles are reached on a ClassicPrius, GenI HCH, Insight) (HEV testing) vehicles tested are expected to have a life cycle of ownership ofonly 8 years) (California Code ofRegulations, title 13, requiring vehicles to have a useful life of(depending on passenger vehicle) 5 years/50,000 miles (whichever occursfirst), or 7 years/75,000 miles, 10 years/120,000 miles, or 10years/150,000 miles. See Division 3, chapter 2, Article 2.1, section10 and 17. (BTW: 2004-current Prius qualifies under the 10 year/150,000mile criteria.))

My real concern was not so much the battery life as the vehicle life. If the battery last 7-10 years thats quite reasonable. But for toyota to say the car itself has a life of less than 10 years concerns me. I am very much a buy and drive till it dies sort of car owner. I have previously had a manual Mazda 626 which lasted 21 years (1 engine recondition) and a Mitsubishi Nimbus which is still going strong after

14 years (one replacement automatic transmission and another not so far away).

For the price of a Prius I would expect a lifetime of at least 16 years (if not 20). When I calculate the total purchase and lifetime running costs (petrol, insurance, maintainence, tyres, etc) for a Prius (assuming lifespan of 10 years) and compare it to a V6 Camry (assuming lifespan of 16 years) I get an annualised cost for the Prius of AUD$7500 per annum and for the V6 Camry of AUD$6800 per annum.

That means that even with the much lower petrol costs, the shorter life makes the Prius a more expensive option. The calculation would be completely different if the Prius was made to last 16 years (the annualised cost for the Prius would drop to AUD$6100 per annum).

So is Toyota saying you pay a premium to be environmentally responsible?

______________________________________________ Sorry, Phil. I can't discuss this with you any further unless you adjust your newsreader back to indenting replies. Until then, happy motoring.

My real concern was not so much the battery life as the vehicle life. If the battery last 7-10 years thats quite reasonable. But for toyota to say the car itself has a life of less than 10 years concerns me. I am very much a buy and drive till it dies sort of car owner. I have previously had a manual Mazda 626 which lasted 21 years (1 engine recondition) and a Mitsubishi Nimbus which is still going strong after

14 years (one replacement automatic transmission and another not so far away).

For the price of a Prius I would expect a lifetime of at least 16 years (if not 20). When I calculate the total purchase and lifetime running costs (petrol, insurance, maintainence, tyres, etc) for a Prius (assuming lifespan of 10 years) and compare it to a V6 Camry (assuming lifespan of 16 years) I get an annualised cost for the Prius of AUD$7500 per annum and for the V6 Camry of AUD$6800 per annum.

That means that even with the much lower petrol costs, the shorter life makes the Prius a more expensive option. The calculation would be completely different if the Prius was made to last 16 years (the annualised cost for the Prius would drop to AUD$6100 per annum).

So is Toyota saying you pay a premium to be environmentally responsible?

=============================================================== Your question really highlights an area of contention: when is a car at the end of its useful life? I have mostly bought cars that were at what the previous owners considered the end of their useful lives for 30 years. My belief is that 80-100K miles is the sweet spot. At 50K miles it is very hard to tell how a car has been treated; at 100K it is very hard to hide. Any car that is in good condition after 100K miles is likely to give at least 100K more before it is really done. Exceptions are those with time bombs, like the Taurus automatic transmission and some of the '80s GM ABS. Years seem to matter most in how the interior holds up - the Royalite plastic suffers most.

That's the thing we don't know about the Prius. Is there a vital part - battery, hybrid transaxle, inverter - that will not reliably make it past a particular milestone? In terms of miles, I am confident the answer is "yes" because plenty of people have made it into the 200K mile area wthout trouble. It's the years we don't know about; the model has only been out ten years now. OTOH, in those ten years no trouble spot has emerged.

There is no "sure thing" in buying cars, but our two 2002 Prius cars have been the most reliable cars I've ever owned. I've only had two new cars before and they were both *far* less reliable than the Prius. One of the Prius we bought new in November 2002 and the other I bought a few months ago with 103K miles on it. I handed down my 22 year old, 240K mile Volvo to my son-in-law when I bought the second Prius :-) 'Research and decide' has served me well.

Mike

When has any car company officially said what the expected life span of a car is?

If vehicle life is determined by parts availability (and I'm not saying it is for sure) then if Toyota says 10 years, that quote could be understood as their legal requirement to supply parts. And *if* that's true, whoever Phil personally spoke to is manipulating the facts. I think it's also called a little white lie. Pure speculation on my part (no pun intended).

ah... "yes" meaning "no!" because plenty of people have made it into the 200K mile area wthout

The only one I can think of is Rolls Royce. They used to say a Rolls is designed to last 50 years and that it was the last car anybody had to buy, but that was a while ago.

Mike

Longer than the expected life span of a lesbian "relationship."

In 2004, the first lesbian couple married in Canada, the ones responsible as to why homosexual marriages are legal in Canada, now wanted a divorce but they were unable to because there is nothing in the law permitting a divorce among homosexual spouses. What does this say to us? They were together for decades and couldn't stand each other for a week of marriage once their queer fantasy popped and the reality set in that they were sinning against nature.

Wonder who shifted the "stick" in that relationship. LOL.

HTH. :-)))

Wrong web sites:

These fleet reports show:

- Department of Energy achieved more than 160,000 miles for hybrids including Prius

- Canadian Prius taxi with over 332,000 km

Then you can also go to Ebay and look at the used Prius mileage. In short, we're seeing mileage exceed 109,000 miles and everyday, they get more miles.

Bob Wilson

So, I guess the question is - how do you define vehicle life expectancy? Is it how long the car should last if outside forces do not interfere (just the health of the components of the vehicle), or is it the average of all of the vehicles of that type last (even adding in early deaths due to accidents)?

I'll note that I was just watching the show "Understanding" on the Science Channel, episode titled "Widgets" (from 2004), which stated that the average lifetime for an automobile is only 14 years.

OK so how did they come up with that average?