That car is too old to qualify for Toyota CPO status or CPO warranty. It may meet that dealers pre-owned inspection standards but for Toyota, vehicles up to 10 years/125,000 miles are eligible for silver CPO certification.
That dealer might offer an equivalate powertrain warranty and roadside assistance, but will the warranty be honored at all Toyota dealers?
I get what youāre saying. Donāt really know and wasnāt worried about it. I have it in writing from them, and if disaster strikes, theyāre the ones Iām dealing with. Itās just a basic powertrain warranty in any case, and the basic powertrain is the least of my worries.
But thatās all beside the point. The discussion wasnāt about the warranty. I was just saying that I had confidence that they delivered to me, in good faith, a car that was thoroughly inspected and turned over to me in good shape, including evidence that they were serious about it.
I have no illusions about the fact that Iām talking about a 13yr old car on which all sorts of things could go wrong. Just like a zero yr old car. But in my case, 90% of āX goes wrongā is my problem. For 40 years, thatās been 100% my problem. Not worried. Iāve got tools.
That saying needs to be on a T shirt
It may mean a lot at this dealershipās lot, but not necessarily all Toyota stores. Itās really the owner that determines whether the CPO requirements are met. The checklist can be falsified. Consumer Reoprts says the same thing @VOLVO-V70 does about CPO vehicles. That doesnāt mean your dealer cheats, but there are apparently enough that do to make the CPO designation suspect. This is a general comment since 2013 cars canāt be CPO.
Over on TW, of course it is mainly a Tacoma forum, so lots of storyās about how bad Toyota dealers are as well as lots of storyās about how good Toyota dealers are, and it seems to be the same ones members complain about, it is like most any other retail(ish) business, it all depends on the people that work there, and of course managementā¦
The little sister city (but still bigger than the current one) next to me has 3 Mickey Dās, when I stilled lived there I mainly almost only went to one cause the other 2 messed up the order often and the employees just didnāt give a crap, but the smaller one closest to my house was awesome, always got it rightā¦ (drive through only, havenāt been inside one in 15 years)
Hereās my opinion . . .
ANY vehicle will get very expensive to maintain and repair after a certain point, even a Prius
As for CPO status . . .
I worked at a dealer for a long time. In the beginning, CPO inspections were āgravyā . . . meaning it paid well enough for the mechanic to actually perform a thorough inspection
after awhile, the times were lowered and management just wanted everything without a broken windshield or obvious wreck damage to just get āpushed throughā
Every time I noted a car needed something, such as tires or brakes, I was treated with contempt and spoken to as if I was the one who committed an egregious error
The despicable way employees were treated is just one of many reasons I left
You remember what Joe Pesci said about drive throughs, right?
Yeah, I have learned to check my order before leaving the lot, sometimes the windowā¦ lol
A lot of the various drive throughs I go to know me cause I normally have one or both of my pitties with me and they love talking to them, at my old Mickey Dās they called me the Pit Bull guyā¦
Congrats on your new ride, Cigroller.
I did buy a 2010 Toyota Camry with 86k miles in 2012. It had 4 cylinders and was fully loaded for $16,000
The previous owner averaged 40,000 miles per year !
The interior smelled like new and there was no blemish.
I donāt know why the car was listed for so cheap except the high mileage. It gave me zero issues while I owned it.
It was the SE model, too, so it came with my favorite feature ( moonroof).
Curious: how much does the battery cost ? I heard theyāre relatively expensive.
The car looks nice. Love the wheels and the body design 
I havenāt researched it yet in depth, but the range will be wide. The original cells were MiMH, but I think there are also āupgradesā to L-ion which are more powerful and would do good things for fuel economy (the biggest reason I bought another Prius - 46 mpg is addictive). Then thereās ānewā vs remanned.
Without having really looked around too much, all I can say is that itās somewhere between about $1-3.5K for the battery pack. (Thatās excluding any labor which Iād do myself).
You only get 46mpg with your Prius?
I would have figured you get in the low 50s
I think the part of the country where he lives has a lot of hills and they are quite steep.
Ha, my sons recently departed 1992 Civic manual was getting 40-42mpg after doing a simple D16Y8 (OBD2) engine swap while using a P28 (OBD1) ECU and wiring harness, and had more power than stock, and yes what sensors that didnāt plug up were simply not used, turns out you donāt need all those sensors and it worked greatā¦ The VVT was on a toggle switch, hadnāt gone into the ECU to hook up the wire and run it to the VVT solenoid yet (something like that, it was his thing)ā¦
We have hills here alsoā¦ lol
He is not happy with the 09 Cobaltās 25ish MPG thoughā¦
The first gens, which is the one I had for years, were EPA rated for 41. Fuelly reports put the average at 42. I always averaged 46 overall - but I worked at it. During COVID when I didnāt need to commute on an interstate I experimented. Basically, if I stayed on rural backroads (think 45mph or less roads) I got in the area of 53-54. If I included rural highway (55mph) in the mix, it came out to about 50.
And some of that. Mostly like rolling hills, but my normal interstate commute involves a small mountain. Thatās an east coast āmountainā tho,ā so weāre talking all of ~1400ft
The 2013 is EPA rated at 49mpg, with a reported fuelly average of 44.5. I donāt have enough miles in it yet to say, but right now the computer calculated figure is 46 and thatās mixed interstate/rural roads/city.
I can say that there is nothing at all automatic about getting high mpgs. As with every car, one of the biggest variables is the nut behind the wheel. In the old 2003, I got high 40s. My wife got high 30s-low 40s, for example. Sheās a bit whippy on the throttle and whatnot. I specifically drive it for max mpgs. Still learning on the new one how to coax the most out of the hybrid system. The old one, e.g.,was easier to keep in EV mode than this new one.
When I bought my new 2012Camry, I noticed the same language in my owners manual. Inspect transmission fluid every 30,000 miles.
I emailed Toyota US and asked how I was supposed to do that when there was no transmission dipstick.
They replied that it was a visual inspection for fluid leaks only and the transmission needed no service ever unless it leaked unless the transmission temp got too high which would turn on a light on the dash.
I went and double checked the exact text in the maintenance schedule, and it does say to inspect the fluid. It also says to āinspectā the differential fluid. But I suspect that if I asked, Iād be told exactly the same thing that you were. No matter, Iāll just change them - and Iāll be āinspectingā what 13 yr old / 140-somthing K trans fluid looks like on a Prius. I wonāt be nuts enough to send it out for an oil analysis tho. Iāll post pics whenever I get around to it. Itās not high on my list right now. (Trying to finish a kitchen floor and still have to fix some leaky plumbingā¦and stuff).
On the subject of gas mileage, if anyone is curious, we just did our first road trip in this car (around 1200 miles). I can report that under the right conditions it can get around 50mpg highway, and that even if the terrain includes rolling hills.
But that is easily disrupted by factors that are not at all surprising. Traffic - especially the āslinkyā stuff where you need to keep slowing, often quickly, and then ramping back up to speed knocks it down, of course. And steeper/longer grades such as found in mountainous areas. Part of the trip was Appalachian foothills - rolling foothill-ish. But then some of it was up into the finger lakes region of New York, so more mountain climbing and the like. (Small mountains).
Most of this would affect and ICE car the same way, of course. But in mountainous areas on the downgrades, it can sometimes maintain speed by coasting, so the wheels are sending power to the HV battery charge. So, you do get some energy back that you wouldnāt in an ICE.
This is all going by computer readout. Iām in the process of keeping a log to check it with my own math. But my Gen 1 was pretty accurate, and most reports Iāve seen from other Prius owners say the same thing.
+1
On long downgrades, Iāve been able to add 2 miles of battery range by putting it in Sport Mode. The regenerative braking effect is more pronounced in Sport Mode, and I rarely need to use the brake pedal.
Iām still running a 46.1 mpg average over the first 1600 miles or so in the RAV4. Estimated 60/40 split on expressway/city driving but the expressway is often a parking lot and lots of slinky activity. Iāve adopted the big rig mentality there and roll along at a steady 35 mph versus the guys doing 60, 0, 60, 0ā¦ The really nice thing is, when weāre completely stopped and sitting, my A/C is still pumping out cold air and the engine is not runningā¦
That is nice. Love the electric compressors (the Gen 1s still had a belt). But one of the things that it does is pull charge out of the HV battery. Itās likely much better with newer vehicles/batteries in terms of efficiency and capacity. But mine is an old 2013.
We got stuck in an extended bumper to bumper 0-10mph crawl at one point, and between the EV mode creep-along and the running AC, the engine kept needing to start up.