2002 Toyota Prius review from North America

The tires have been replaced. The old ones only had 35,000 miles on them and they were completely worn out. Engine and or warning light has come on. Went off the same day. The 12 volt starter battery went dead. Had to be replaced.

We inherited this car from my Wife's Father. So far, the car delivers respectable fuel economy. Realistically, it gets around 45-48MPG during our commute. The interior is surprisingly spacious. It also has a very quiet ride, which can be attributed to the electric motors and good sound insulation.

But... I have some reservations about. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining one bit since we essentially didn't have to pay for it. However, I have some honest observations that I feel many who might own such a model might leave out since the cult around this car places it at an almost mythical status.

First of all, the interior is pretty cheap. It looks and feels more like a early 90's Toyota Tercel or an older Honda Civic. The seats aren't exactly comfortable either. The carpet and seats also stain easily. It has one of those integrated stereo systems that are a permanent part of the dash. Ours happens to have an old-fashioned tape deck (Amazing that a car this new should have one) thus the cost of replacement with a CD player is prohibitive versus simply going to the store and buying any old unit.

If you aren't used to driving a hybrid, the handling is weird. If you drive it like you would any normal car, the fuel economy drops drastically. So you have to gently feather and coax the engine out of stop lights, freeway ramps, and so on. On the freeway, you have to keep the speed steady and even. Any abnormal driving will reduce the fuel consumption considerably. It will get good fuel economy, but there's a hitch, and that would be that you have to drive like a granny. This sort of takes the fun out of driving it. The only really cool thing about driving it is the little computer screen that shows you bar charts and averages of what kind of fuel economy you're getting and where the energy is being generated/sent. It provides a sense of fuel efficiency accomplishment. Toyota was smart for including this as part of the driving experience. Otherwise the experience is pedestrian and dull. My little four cylinder truck is a lot more fun to drive than this is. That said, if you gun the engine, it'll actually accelerate very quickly, which I have done on occasion. It has the capability of accelerating very fast, but then again- there goes the gas mileage.

Secondly is the tedious, cumbersome technological aspects of the Prius itself. I'm a fairly mechanical person and have maintained all of our cars and trucks over the years. I've replaced head gaskets, rebuilt engines, and everything else in between. But the Prius is entirely different and requires an entirely different maintenance procedure list. You must change the engine oil, the transaxle oil (it has no transmission), inverter coolant (the thing that converts battery power into power for the drive motors) and the engine coolant on a regular basis, which is a given, but recent data seems to show that at least on the old Prius, these procedures for the transaxle and inverter should be more frequent than not.Otherwise, the cost of replacing any of these components is amazingly expensive. The transaxle is around $5,000, the inverter is $3,500, and the biggest component- the main battery is around $3,500 as well. The worst part is that very few shops work on these components individually and the typical 'remedy' from Toyota seems to be to replace the entire component versus repairing it. So if ANYTHING major goes wrong with the car, the cost of the repair or replacement is almost fatal in terms of cost versus the car's actual value. There are some drivers with these older Prius models that are now starting to have such problems. It will be interesting to see how the new one holds up.Supposedly, the main battery is supposed to last "the lifetime of the car". But since I keep cars for 15 years or more, I'd be curious to see exactly what the "lifetime of the car" means for people like me who don't trade in every 3-5 years like most Americans tend to do.

Another issue is the tires. The old Prius takes tiny little tires that are an odd size, made in Japan, and thus incredibly expensive. Worst of all, they don't last very long. You're lucky if you can get 35,000 miles out of a set, after which you must shell out another $500-$600 for another set. We drive around 30,000 per year, so figure $600 bucks every year and as you can guess, this eats into some of that money you saved on gas.

Also, the car has has a history of having the engine and warning light come on at random. My Wife's Father has this happen all the time. It has happened to us recently. On a normal car, I wouldn't be as concerned because I can easily diagnose the issue. But with this car, there's a bazillion electrical components - many that are vital for cooling- that could go out. So even though the light always goes out, it is concerning especially since we take long trips, and I'd hate to have this thing suddenly have a 'real' problem and leave us stranded.

Lastly, the starter battery died. Perhaps it was because it was old, but I found out that the battery Toyota put in it were not powerful enough to hold up for very long. The replacement is over $300. But apparently you can adapt it for other similarly rated batteries.

In conclusion, I sort of like the car. I appreciate it for what it is, which was a first attempt at making a vehicle using a form of consumer-ready drive train that broke from the conventional internal combustion engine. But I'm a little hesitant to say that its what I would trust as a car that will be holding up as well as my 13 year old Toyota truck. There's a lot of variables for deterioration of key components - particularly the battery and inverter - for me to trust the long-term survivability of the car over the long haul. And again as mentioned- it is only one failure away from becoming a giant paper weight. In the meantime, I have to say that it is a real advantage these days with $4 a gallon gas. Just don't brag too much about it.