Once upon a time, if you wanted to feel all ecologically warm inside, the answer was to drive a Toyota Prius. However, an embedded carbon debate wouldn’t end well for this hybrid. Better to focus on what the Toyota can definitely do well, then: drive around town using very little petrol and almost never go wrong. No wonder it has proved uber-appealing to the private-hire brigade.
Let’s fast forward past the now very tired original from 2000 and consider the second-generation model.
Made from 2003 to 2009, it’s a more practical hatchback with a bigger boot, making it an even better minicab. It had a more complicated propulsion system, but it was better than the original. Overall, it will return around 50mpg.
Ease of driving and ride comfort are, of course, Toyota’s main priorities for the Prius, so if you have any need for fun, it’s certainly not the car for you.
There were several trim levels: T3 got you a CD player, T4 cruise control and T Spirit an uprated sound system, sat-nav and parking sensors.
There isn’t much to look for, just a main dealer history and the annual battery health check, which extended the battery warranty for 11 years.
The one key thing is the state of the battery. Toyota offers a Hybrid Health Check, free with a service but £39 on its own, which is available on vehicles up to 15 years old. They won’t check imports, mind, because of the chassis number.
A replacement battery will cost you around £1000 and the ECU for it pretty much the same, plus fitting, of course, but a salvage yard could halve that cost.
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Prius is fabulous engineering: legendary longetivty, low emissions, low brake wear (all that regen saves discs and pads). It's all very smooth and quiet.
Toyota's ongoing success is due in no small part to the hybrid tech pioneered in the Prius, which much of the motoring press sneered at when it was new.
Rarely any need to replace the entire battery, they can be reconditioned and individual modules can also be swapped. There are Priuses that have 400,000 miles on the original battery! Mine was up to 100k when I sold it and I never had a single issue with it. Nonsense about them being complicated, the transmission only has about 20 moving parts and the electric motor does away with the need for a starter motor and alternator. If they were unreliable and the battery was a liability then why do you see so many still around plying their trade as minicabs? Gen 2s while still be giving reliable service long after any Polo from that era has been sent for scrap.
The replacement cost of the hybrid battery is probably a deal-breaker for acquiring an older hybrid car out of battery warranty (or about to go out of warranty), even a Lexus.
Howevr, the real fun and games will begin as the current crop of EVs go out of battery warranty.