I just got an email from my former roommate. He moved to Canada and has discovered that he cannot register his '05 Prius there.
IIRC he bought it fully loaded. (Something along the lines of basic models having an enormous waiting period, so he bought the loaded one to get it sooner.) It has the GPS, which is nifty.
He’ll sell it to me for $18,000, which is what he owes on it. He’s driven it across the country a couple of times, but mostly has been using it locally. I don’t think it’s dented, but there are a couple of scuffs on it from when he was doing some volunteer work in New Orleans and other people aren’t as cautious of his car as he is.
I’ve found that Edmunds gives pretty good information with their used car appraiser.
Also, I’m sorry for your friend, but I believe the general wisdom is that as soon as you drive off the lot, you owe more than the car is worth. So unless your friend is way ahead on his payments, I don’t think it will turn out to be a deal.
I have an 05 Prius. Mine is fully loaded (the #6 package, I think). I owe about 17K and it’s worth 21.5K according to Kelly Blue Book. The Prius is one of the very, very few cars that holds value well, which is one of the reasons I bought it. There was even a time in early 06 that I could have flipped it and actually made money on it.
It’s a great, solid, totally reliable car–you can feel it when you drive it. I’ve driven a lot of cars and none have that “glued to the road” feeling that Toyotas in general and the Prius in particular has. It’s good for road trips and even does ok camping. The mileage is a dream and it’s so safe that my insurance is practically nil. It can haul huge amounts of stuff or people, but still looks cute on the outside.
And the GPS is something I didn’t think I needed but now cannot (nay, will not!) live without. I’ve quit being late to events because I couldn’t find the address.
My only caution to you: I would ask to see your friend’s maintenance records and warranty information. I’ve had a couple of things need tweaking that luckily were covered by the warranty, and which would have been expensive if I had had to pay for it myself. There were also a few minor recall repairs, but nothing big.
If you want to talk more privately, I’m happy to tell you whatever you want to know.
I just used that Edmunds page, and an average Prius with 35,000 miles (you didn’t say so I guessed) with GPS, anti-theft, nav, airbags, etc. is listed at about $16K through a private sale.
You’ll want to run the numbers with the specifics of this guy’s car, but I suspect that $18K might be a bit high. Of course, the amount Edmunds deducts for “average” condition is about $2K. So if you’d rate it above that (clean) it actually works out to $18K for a private sale.
YMMV seems to be a good thing to say here. Anyway, I have a 2005 Prius and I love it. So the car itself = cool. It’s just a matter of whether this would be a good price for it.
I bought a 2008 and have been very happy with it (the price difference between used and new is so small that I thought I’d splurge and enjoy a new car).
Just make sure that you’re comfortable buying from a friend, if something should go wrong. An '05 is probably still under warranty, so that helps. But you really don’t want bad feelings if the car turns out to be worse than you hoped, or if your friend decides he could have gotten more money.
Do you WANT a Prius? If so, why? The lifetime environmental friendliness is debatable at least. It seems to be the feel-good car for those who claim to be “green”.
I’ve driven them, and I’d rank them as average as far as driving goes. Just like any Toyota hatchback, really. It’s not bad, but it’s not outstanding either.
Mileage - it’s slightly better than your average gasoline car of similar size, but the real world differences aren’t huge. Since you’re a biker, you probably like a bit of speed and punch to your four wheelers as well. In that case, the Prius might not be your car.
Coldfire–I don’t know why you’d say the Prius only gets slightly better mileage–I consistently get 45-50 miles per gallon with mine, which is a lot better than slightly. I get over 50 when the weather is right.
I’ve owned or driven several Toyota models over the years, and I’d say the Prius is definitely tops. As far as speed and punch, keep in mind that the electric motor is what starts you out, which kicks ass, and that has a lot of torque, so I actually outrun the other drivers away from red lights. It’s very fast out of the gate.
There’s a lot of hate for the Prius, and I don’t really understand it. It really does live up to the hype.
Depends on where you drive it, I guess. I don’t have first hand experience on mileage, but I’ve heard owners say it does about 1 liter per 20 kilometers. An ordinary hatchback would do about 1 in 15. So yeah, it’s better. Just not dramatically so.
Fast out of the gate? The European models do the 0-100 kmh dash in just under 11 seconds. That’s not slow per se, but a lot of competing hatches will do it a lot quicker for Prius money.
I’m not saying it’s a bad car, no hatred here. I just don’t think it’s the be-all end-all of cars that will solve all our energy problems. Which is unfortunately how it is portrayed sometimes.
It’s true it doesn’t do as well in very cold weather (32 and below), since the gas engine has to be on more, so maybe that’s where you’re seeing the difference. It also has worse mpg in very hot (100+) weather. Still better than just about anything else out there, though. So Johnny, that’s something to consider: if you live where you’re going to have extreme temperatures for a lot of the year, don’t expect the exceptional mileage that you would get in a more temperate zone. (Where’s NoWA?)
As far as the dashing, I’m strictly talking about away from the red light. It’s a car built for stop-and-go city driving, no doubt. I’m not claiming it’s a race car or anything, just that I can beat almost every other car away from the light. Except for my 300 ZX.
I went car shopping with a friend last summer. He had his heart set on a Prius. I was trying to persuade him to get a Yaris, instead. My logic was that the Yaris gets fairly Prius-like mileage, and that the better mileage of the Prius would take more than the lifetime of the vehicle to offset the HUGE cost difference between the two. He got the Prius. In my mind, it was because he saw the Prius as an environmentalist’s status symbol. Environmentally speaking, though, I don’t think the Prius is much (if at all) better than the Yaris. Is there truth to the rumors about the process of manufacturing Prius batteries causing environmental damage?
Zero to 60 in 11 seconds? That’s faster than my 42-year-old MGB!
Coldie: Indeed I do like a bit of oomph, being a motorcyclist. But My '99 Cherokee has over 200,000 miles on it now, and it’s not as spirited as it used to be. (I think I’ll have it overhauled when it hits 250K.) It’s hard to be an aggressive driver up here. In L.A. it’s expected. Up here people drive slow and don’t leave much passing room. (And they camp out in the left lane. Funny, I’ve never seen ‘Pace Car’ painted on any of them!) A car with Prius-class performance is adequate.
fuffle: (NoWA is Northern Washington.) It seldom gets very hot or cold here. Usually 20s in the depths of winter (although it can get colder) and it might get into the 90s in August.
Hey, cool, I’m from Washington! Tacoma-area. I think you would get very good mileage there.
It looks like your friend got the same package I got. If you like your music, it has a great sound system, and a built-into-the-dash theft-resistant stereo.
If you’ll be mostly using it in the city, you’ll find it has a lot of passing power due to the electric motor. Like I said, it’s not a racing car, but it’s great out of the gate and is perfectly adequate for zipping around in traffic.
The only other thing I can think of to add is that to get the best mileage, it does require a slightly driving different style, which is easy to learn and (I think) fun to do. You want to maximize the amount of time that the battery is regenerating. So you’d give it some extra gas on a little upslope (or a big hill) and let up on the gas as you go down. Also you would want to anticipate events more, like trying to coast to a red light rather than go 40-40-40-40-BRAKE. I enjoy it, since it gives me more of a feeling of driving, rather than just going. If you’re a gas-brake-gas-brake-gas-brake kinda guy, you’ll find that mileage suffers.
There’s a chart of the screen to tell you how you’re doing on mileage–if you want to watch it–you can turn it off.
I do anticipate. Irks the hell out of me that other people don’t, as I’ll be setting something up and they’ll go and spoil it. It was easier to anticipate in L.A., since people were more predictable down there. I tend to drive based on the capabilities of the vehicle. I drive the Jeep much more ‘smoothly’ than the sports cars. (Primarily because it only gets 20 mpg or so and it burns less gas when driven smoothly. I’m more willing to spend gas for fun in/on a vehicle that was designed for it.)
So would you otherwise spend 18 grand on a new vehicle?
I’m not sure what Edmunds would say with 51K miles (that’s high IMHO) but if it looks like a reasonable price for that mileage and those options, and you were thinking of buying a car in that price range anyway, I personally would say go for it. Because I like my car. Why not?
I traded in my Golf TDI for a Prius about 2 years ago. However, mine is the bare bones model - I don’t have all that fancy pants stuff you’ve just posted!
