The Reliability and Performance of a 21,000-Mile Toyota Prius Hybrid Car

As we take a closer look at this 21,000-mile Toyota Prius hybrid car, it's clear that with proper maintenance, this vehicle has proven to be reliable and efficient. The owner reports that the left rear door motor was initially problematic, but after erasing its data, everything seems to be working fine. However, when we take a closer look at the live data, we notice some unusual issues with the passenger door motor. Despite this, it's reassuring to see that the battery voltage is within the acceptable range for a 2011.5-volt battery, indicating that the vehicle has plenty of power and energy reserves.

The Hybrid Control System

Given its hybrid nature, we're interested in examining the live data from the hybrid control system. As we review the data, it's clear that the temperature of the inverter is within the recommended range, with a voltage of 20.7 volts – well above the factory-specified value of 14 volts. This suggests that the battery health is excellent, with all 14 individual blocks showing minimal signs of degradation. The auxiliary battery voltage is also impressive at 14.45 volts, indicating that the system is functioning correctly.

Ride and Handling

As we take this Prius for a spin, we notice that it rides surprisingly well, especially considering its age and reputation for having some of the worst roads in the country. Our test route includes a series of bumpy roads and hills, but the vehicle handles them with ease. The lack of traction control on the rear wheels adds to the excitement, allowing us to experience the car's performance capabilities.

Eco Mode

When we switch the Prius into eco mode, we're immediately struck by its ability to navigate even the toughest terrain without issue. While it did spin the tires at one point, this is largely due to the absence of traction control rather than any inherent flaw with the vehicle itself. In normal driving conditions, however, the Prius performs admirably in eco mode, providing a unique blend of efficiency and responsiveness.

Racing Prius

As we continue to explore the car's capabilities, it becomes clear that removing the traction control sensor has transformed this Prius into a sort-of racing machine. Without the safety net of traction control, the vehicle is able to respond more quickly to changes in traction, making it feel much snappier and more responsive.

The Market Shift towards Hybrids

As we reflect on our experience with this 21,000-mile Toyota Prius hybrid car, it's clear that Toyota has once again demonstrated its expertise in producing reliable and efficient vehicles. In a market where hybrid sales are rapidly increasing, Toyota is poised to take the lead – or at least hold onto its current position. The Ford Maverick pickup, for example, was initially marketed as a hybrid but has since had its standard model revised to exclude the hybrid option due to supply chain issues.

Conclusion

If you're considering purchasing a reliable and fuel-efficient vehicle, the Toyota Prius is certainly worth exploring further. With proper maintenance, this car can provide years of trouble-free service, making it an attractive option for those who want to minimize their environmental impact without sacrificing performance or reliability.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engines all right today we're talking Priuses Toyota Priuses this is a 2011 they used to be Niche cars but they aren't anymore the new 2024 Toyota Prius was voted by Motor trend's Car of the Year 2024 they've been making them over two decades let me tell you I think Toyota hit the nail on the head not battery electric cars hybrid gasoline battery electric cars now the guy bought this thing with 100,000 Mi or so now he's got 211 and what has he done to the car oh a whole bunch he's changed the oil and filter the air filter and change the brake pads once that is it as we look under the hood still got the original hybrid system still has the original Hybrid battery okay Toyota knows how to make hybrids there's no doubting that and since they sold so many of them the expense of the hybrid batteries in these things aren't that bad anymore used to be the only Char shows going to Toyota who only sold new ones the new hybrid batteries would be anywhere from $4 to $7,000 but I looked it up you can get them for $600 refurbished ones or you can spend $1,200 and get a refurbished one with a 2-year guarantee on it it's not the money that it used to be if they go bad but this is 21,000 Mi it's still got the original Hybrid battery in it they're pretty well made now he ad he drives like a maniac so he only gets 42 m a gallon only right and it's an old car with 21,000 Mi the new ones can get even better but you kind of get my drift they get great gas mileage and unlike the stupid battery only electric cars Toyota Prius hybrids do not have range anxiety they have the exact opposite you wonder when you have to buy gasoline cuz it can go so far cuz they get such good gas mileage it's the exact opposite opposite of battery electric car originally they were seeing Oh that's a fringe car oh the hippie dippy people are going to buy them la la la right well they've gone mainstream my son's got a Sienna Hybrid Toyota and it gets phenomenal gas Ms for a minivan right they're throwing them and everything next year Toyota Camry are only going to come in Hybrid Toyota obviously hit the nail on the head where all the other manufacturers said oh we're all in on battery electric cars and now the dealers are telling them please don't send us any more electric cars until we sell the ones we have well Toyota is in the exact opposite position they can't make the hybrids fast enough for a while if you wanted a Toyota Rav 4 plugin hybrid you had to wait a year to get one cuz they can't make them fast enough people like them it makes sense you got no range anxiety and something like a Toyota Rav 4 plugin that's even different because you you can drive up to like 55 mil on electricity alone a guy brought me one a couple weeks ago and he said he'll often drive at 55 mil on electricity alone you go to highway speed 60 MPH so you get to try out an electric car and then when the electricity's gone instead of saying oh man range anxi what am I going to do well guess what the gasoline engine turns on and then you can drive another 400 something miles so you don't have range anxiety if anything plug in hybrids will be a transitional phase not fully electric cars but you do have to realize one thing with a plug-in hybrid they have a much larger battery which costs a lot more money and it weighs more they don't give as good gas modage and unlike this Prius where the battery is sealed under the back seat where it's safe from the elements all the plugin hybrids I've ever seen and electric cars have the battery on the bottom of the car where the salt gets to them in the winter and can short them out look at that big hassle they had in Quebec where Toyota had to fix a bunch of those hybrids cuz it shorted them out even though they said well that's not part of the drive train it's not under warranty blah the Canadian government made them fix them for the owners or pay them for repairs they had done so you think about that if you're thinking plugin versus regular hybrid a lot of people will just go regular hybrid you're going to pay a lot more money it's going to get a little bit worse gas modage when the battery does go out hey it's four or five times what this battery cost cuz it's a gigantic battery and it maintenance is much higher than these because think of the maintenance of this thing the guy bought it used now he's got 21,000 miles and his maintenance was one break jot and some oil changes that's not much maintenance right you're better off which is the plain old hybrid if you want lower maintenance if you get a quality one you know I mean there's no way in Hades that I'd go out buy like a French hybrid or something like that but Toyota pretty much wrote the book on building hybrid vehicles correctly and yeah he took a gamble buying one with 100,000 miles on it but now he's got 21,000 miles on it and it's still running perfectly fine and like I said you could replace the battery with $800 reconditioned battery or for 1,300 you can get a reconditioned battery with a 2-year warranty they just go in and out anybody that understands electricity can change them out it is high voltage stuff if you don't know electricity pay a guy to do it but if you got gloves like I have and you read the manuals where the high electricity is people can change them if they want but a lot of these battery companies they will deliver a Prius battery to your house and they will install it free because there's so much competition that guys are like hey we got to sell these batteries if we install them free guess what we'll sell a lot more batteries so you can always look into that if you need one but I mean hey 21,000 Mi it still has needed one going to get my big old scan tool check everything everything out for him yeah it's got mileage the seat got tored it's time for some seat covers you know and it still has the original little plastic Hub covers on it and he gotten a little Dinger here so he put some plastic tape on it I mean hey it's still aerodynamic realize this runs a 200 something volt air conditioning compressor it's not like a normal one in a gasoline car which has a seal where the shaft spins off the belt using 220 volts so they basically kind of last almost forever they don't have the leakage points that one that runs off a fan belt does so on top of they can last a long time you generally don't have to add refrigerant to it right this thing still run out its original refrigerant they don't leak much because it's a different type of compressor before for Warrant he's a plumber and he keeps his plumber tools in the trunks that's probably why he only gets 41 m a gallon only now he said he's had some problem once people change the tires with probably his abs system and stuff so we'll check all that out okay it's already detected the vehicle Toyota Prius you can see it's a Prius North America 2011 to zfxc Aton cycle engine and we're going to do a full scan topology scan so here we go now as we look through you can see it can run in EV mode not very far or you go Eco or power mode and it's got the little Fake Gear ship knob for going forwards backwards going for battery or going for regular drive and other than the seats being worm from people sitting on him cuz he's a plumber it's in pretty good shape now it's got 16 codes but a lot of the stuff isn't going to mean hardly anything I see it all the time we knew there was an ABS code so we'll see what that is right rear speed sensor yeah they worked on a car they probably broke the right rear if he wanted to fix it eh he doesn't particularly care We'll erase the code but it will come back cuz they probably broke the sensor came right back because the sensor's broken so we'll look at the smart key they often have problems with the smart key communication with yeah they do that all the time he never had a problem with it starting so we'll just erase those things too and I can just about guarantee you they're not going to come back we'll go back see if it came back and no it didn't come back now it says it's a problem with the hybrid system the hybrid control let's see what nonsense that is brake system why we already know that because the sensored and the back's broken so we'll erase that to and that one will probably come back well stay it off for the time being uh cruise control that's got a code and that probably has to do with a stupid sensor too we'll soon find out yeah it was the sensor so we'll go on to the next one got a bunch of codes for the tire pressure monitoring system he wanted to know what was going on that cuz they changed his tires and it came on let's see that probably says a bunch of them aren't working data from transmitter 2 three and four are not see one is not received so they probably broke them or they might have even taken the tire stems out and put in non Tire valve stem so we'll erase it but I guarantee you they're going to come back because they broke it when they changed this Tire Main body has a code these are very complex electronic cars and a lot of stuff you don't really care about we'll just see what it is for Giggles driver door motor communication stop then there's this code driver door motor or window and it works so do we really care we'll look at it but we probably not gonna care master switch fault oh the switch didn't work right at one point in time but he says it works fine so who cares says the same thing about the left rear door motor so we'll erase that too last but not least the PDM the passenger door motor it's saying there's weird problems with the windows so yeah you know we're going to erase that too it'll be another stupid door control there it is switch passenger fault now we'll look at some data we got a live data and we'll start her up we start looking at the data here battery voltage for the small battery is good feel ter 1.5625 mil there's no misfires let's look at the Hybrid control we'll look at the live data for that cuz being a hybrid we can check the electrical system the temperature of your inverter that shows the voltage of the battery pretty good 20 7 it's supposed to be a 201 one.5 volt battery so it's still got plenty of voltage even more than the factory you can't complain about that now this has 14 battery blocks as you can see each battery block is pretty much the same very close if one was real low you know that one needs replacing but even with 21,000 Mi this thing's in amazing shape all the blocks are fine and the auxiliary battery voltage it's running it's charging is 14.45 that's good too even shows the temperature of the batteries the different blocks the internal resistance if there's a problem with them short enough of all the different 14 blocks y here we go backwards no backup camera cuz it's too old we got this giant water bump here to keep the ocean from flood in my neighbor so we'll go over it nice and slow all right here we go now there's small cars with small wheelbases and the roads in Rhode Island pretty much have been voted the worst roads in the nation so we'll see how it goes over some of these bumps well actually it's not that bad it rides better than my wife's Matrix The Matrix has got more of a sport suspension it's actually still quite well considering it still got the original struts on it boy they really know how to make these things in Japan now those lights are on because that sensor's been broken on the back when the guys change the tires and stuff so I mean that kind of stuff you just ignore all right here we go and we're in eco mode now remember this he wants to get good gas mileage so we'll see how it goes in eco mode and here we go see look at that it spun the tires and you know why it spun the tires because with that sensor gone it has no traction control so guess what we got a racing Prius here we can burn Rubber so it doesn't have traction control anymore you'd have to fix that sensor if you wanted that but he kind of likes it but you can see you they're relatively quick especially when you disconnect the traction control they're pretty Snappy so here we go again we're spinning out in the racing Prius look at that so here we have 21,000 miles and if the guy hadn't broken the sensor on the right rear all that other stuff would still be working but actually he's telling me now he probably thinks he's not going to fix it because when the track controlled worked he went up a hill in the snow and I had a hard time between hybrid regular sliding not letting them go fast up the hill and with a disconnect now you can go up faster and it's much nicer having a Prius that you can peel out in so did Toyota hit the nail on the head obviously they did with hybrids if you just follow the market you watch I forecast everybody's going to start selling hybrids like Matt look at the Ford Maverick pickup they're selling tons of them and their standard model was a hybrid but Ford of course screwed the whole thing up now their standard model is not going to be the hybrid because the idiots don't have a supply chain and they can't get enough materials to build the hybrids so their standard is going to be the Maverick with just a gasoline engine and not hybrid cuz as usual Ford screws up about everything they get involved in but Toyota no they're smart people they make good hybrid cars and you watch they will take that market over even more than they have already because they're reliable machines people like me n to work on them a lot of mechanics know how to work on them now but they don't break much he bought it at 100,000 now it's got 211 and he's done nothing but break pads in an oil change right and buying tires of course when they were out so you thinking about buying one of these hey maybe not a bad idea if you want to go into the hybrid world and say goodbye to battery electric cars so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that Bell\n"