2002 Toyota Prius from North America - Comments

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.

Thank you for an informative and well balanced review. I agree with most issues that you are raising here. Personally I have limited experience with the hybrid technology, but some people around me have hybrid cars, both Prius, 400h and the Civic Hybrid.

I don't know about their durability since all cars in question is a few years old, but they all seem very complex, and there's no way that I would buy any of them second hand.

Even as a new car I don't see the attraction, and I fail to see why anybody would buy these cars on the European market. But at least Toyota are selling quite a number of hybrid cars on this market, and I'm totally puzzled about this fact. Just hear me out:

I bought a new Audi A3 2.0 TDI last year, after investigating several other brands and models including the Prius. And frankly I can't understand why anybody would buy a Prius over an Audi A3. Even loaded the A3 is no more money than the Prius, and if I'd chose comparable trim levels it would have been less money, it's much much faster, more comfortable and the build quality is just so much better. And the fuel consumption (if I'm easy on my right foot) is considerably lower than on the Prius, and I've recorded 4L/100KM which is almost 60MPG in US gallons, and past 70MPG in Imp. gallons.

So anybody buying the Prius is buying an expensive, slow, overly complex car with an uncertain future, comparable bad fuel consumption, that has an interior build quality comparable to an Italian car from the eighties.

I just don't get it.

PS: My uncle bought a Lexus 400h last year, trading in his MB S320 since he wanted to be "environmentally friendly". Turns out than the fuel consumption on his new 400h is somewhat higher than on the MB. Well...

RE: Audi A3 "And the fuel consumption (if I'm easy on my right foot) is considerably lower than on the Prius, and I've recorded 4L/100KM which is almost 60MPG in US gallons, and past 70MPG in Imp. gallons." Given other ratings in the 20 mpg range, I find this particular observation hard to believe. As to why someone might buy a Prius: some of the top reasons -- gas mileage (generally in the 40s, depending on how one drives, of course, but usually double what one would get in comparable non-hybrid), lower emissions (SULEV, e.g.,), Toyota reliability (generally better than Audi, etc.), parking (smaller car = easier park). We have had a 2002 Prius since new, and generally like car. We too have had problems with tires, 12 v battery (lasted 5 years/75K miles), miscellaneous squeaks, steering wheel 'tick', and now driver's side window, but it is over 90K and still going strong. Other than tire expense, very low maintenance costs. FWIW - if significantly more folks drove Prius or other hi-gas-mileage vehicles, doubt we'd be in same oil dependence - hey, maybe we wouldn't even be at war!

2002 means that this is a 6 year old car, not very old I would say. Normally on a 6 year old car you would have few worries like you describe here, given that you are not driving longer. Most car I and my family have owned have run the first 10 years without any major problems, some cars have been trouble free for even longer. We are sitting on a 16 year old Volvo that except for some brake jobs has seen few problems. Sounds like this is a story of the past and the Prius is not for the long run.

There is no mystery here regarding the A3 TDI fuel consumption. This is a 60MPG car, just check for yourself. But Audi are (of course) not magicians, so their gasoline fueled cars have higher fuel consumption but are still 40 MPG cars.

At least most of them. But the 260 hp 3.2V6 are not one of them, this car is built for performance and not for low fuel consumption. But it's a little unfair comparing a performance car with a car specifically made for low fuel consumption? If you take the 115 hp 1.6 FSI as an example, this is a 45MPG car and can match the Prius any day. You have to make a fair comparison.

My point is that the Prius fuel consumption is not especially good, and that its MPG figures can be matched by very many cars out there, not only A3 TDI's but by most Turbo Diesels of any brand and even gasoline powered cars. But for some reason the Toyota propaganda machinery (I just saw the "Toyota Green" ad for the 50th time or so just the other day) has convinced a lot of people that this is not the case.

I used to have the Focus 2.0 TDCI with similar consumption figures as my A3. So the A3 fuel consumption is good, but not unique.

Regarding me commenting on Prius being slow (it's almost 3 seconds slower 0-100KPH than my car) and cheaply built, I think I'm right about that too. Just try out any Audi and you'll know what I'm talking about.

And the Prius is pricey too, at least in over here where I'd say it's priced 5000 Euro higher than comparable cars.

Is the Prius a quality car? I don't know, but I think it's complexity will be its Achilles heel in the years to come.

This is an update from me, the original poster for the 2002 Prius. Since my last report, we've racked up 12,000 miles. (We drive A LOT). Anyhow, the tires finally had to be replaced. As expected, they were around $600.

I had the inverter fluid changed, then I changed the plugs, engine coolant, transaxle fluid, and have also changed the engine oil several times. Believe it or not, the car isn't horribly difficult to work on. In fact, it seems like most serviceable components are within easy reach. So in that regard, I'm more pleased than previously.

We have not had any problems save for the engine light that came on early on. But that was right after having it shipped almost 3,000 miles across the country. Additionally, I've found that by slowing down a bit to 60MPH greatly increased fuel economy. We now get 50-53MPG, which in the US is pretty good.

I read lots of comments from Europeans who ask why we don't buy turbo diesels. The reason is that our emission regulations (CAFE) are 5 times stricter than Europe's... thus we can't actually buy them here until clean diesels are introduced, which as I understand will be less efficient due to exhaust treatment systems. So while the choice in Europe might seem obvious, we don't have that choice. Secondly, I'm not sure who builds Audis or VW's for the North American market, but the cars they sell here are AWFUL in terms of reliability.

On Audis... in BC (Canada) they are famous for failing on the steep Cocohaula highway. Apparently, they are great in Europe (short runs) but miserable here in Canada where we drive long distances. Even the German mechanics here loath working on them here due to their complexity.

The Prius has a better reputation here.

The problem with the Prius is that fuel economy is only one part of car ownership costs. I currently own a 1993 Ford Tempo that gives 28-30 mpg, so a Prius would save me 20-40% in gas cots.

But, my Tempo is dirt cheap to fix and amazingly reliable. A Prius costs thousands for any one of many possible electronic repairs (transmission coupler, inverter, battery, throttle assembly, etc, etc.)

I keep my cars, as you can see, for long time, and my philosophy is that this in itself is "greener" car ownership. I cannot see a Prius being cost effective over a decade due to the already established costs of repairs, documented by many owners on the internet, many of whom have walked away from their older cars once they exhibited a major repair.

But kudos to Toyota for making a car of the future, and for the owners who support it...

As the original owner of a 2002 Prius, I agree with most all the comments of the original writer. I bought the car for three reasons - I love "different" cars; I liked the quietness of the Prius vs any other small cars that sounded like a B-52 trying to take off under acceleration; and I'm a bit of a tree-hugger.

The A3 TDI mentioned isn't available here to my knowledge. And every Audi dealer I've ever known (and I've been around the car business since 1974) loved the cars because they were always in the shop, and the profit margins were better than the cars at their Ford, Toyota, or Chrysler stores.

The mileage hasn't been spectacular - probably average about 45mpg - for 147,000 miles. But here in Texas the AC is on nine months of the year. The car has been hit three times and I'm still alive.

But the untold part of the Prius is the cost of repairs.

My car "check engine" light turns on and off with a failure code that says my catalytic converter isn't working. I researched that and found that when that actually happens, the car won't run right and the mileage will suffer dramatically. That hasn't happened. The cat costs between $1600 and $2700 to replace. Then my inverter died. I couldn't afford the $4600 price the dealer put on it so I bought a used one for $500. It lasted a month and has now died, so one more Prius is probably headed for the scrap heap.

By the way, I quit buying those expensive tires at Toyota and started buying the cheapest ones I could find at Discount Tire. They are wearing better than the Bridgestones or Dunlops that I bought from Toyota.

Another update from the original poster. We now have around 90,000 miles. (As mentioned, we drive a lot). Anyhow, so far there have been no further problems to report. I did have to replace the PCV valve. On most regular cars this is a 5 minute job that requires no tools. The PCV valve is what evacuates the crankcase of built-up gasses and it is mounted to one of the valve covers. On our Prius, it's buried way down and tucked under the dash. In order to get at it, I had to remove the entire windshield wiper assembly and the pan underneath it. Then I had to remove a large wiring harness that went over the top as well as all of the spark plug wires. It took 3 hours to do this job. Not fun.

Secondly, there is a sort of loose consensus that since the engine on these cars don't run all the time, you can get away with not changing the oil until 5,000 miles rolls around. It's been my observation that the oil actually gets more dirty than it does in my conventional Toyota Tacoma truck. While the engine doesn't run all the time, it runs for probably 85% of the time (at least for us since we're all on the freeway). The engine only holds 3.5 quarts of oil. My truck holds 5. As a result the oil gets filthy by the time 3,000 miles rolls around, thus I now change it every 3,000 miles.

The replacement tires we got for it have so far held up very well. We've managed to put 40,000 miles on them and they still have another 10,000-15,000 left. Even so I did find a substitute that is half the price, thus when the time comes I will use those.

"Secondly, there is a sort of loose consensus that since the engine on these cars don't run all the time, you can get away with not changing the oil until 5,000 miles rolls around. It's been my observation that the oil actually gets more dirty than it does in my conventional Toyota Tacoma truck. While the engine doesn't run all the time, it runs for probably 85% of the time (at least for us since we're all on the freeway). The engine only holds 3.5 quarts of oil. My truck holds 5. As a result the oil gets filthy by the time 3,000 miles rolls around, thus I now change it every 3,000 miles."

I can't fathom changing oil THAT often. All my domestics recommend 7,000 mile change intervals, and with full synthetic (I wouldn't use anything else) I often go 10,000 miles between changes. I've gone as for as 22,000 miles between changes, and a friend of mine always goes 25,000 miles between changes. He has over 200,000 miles on that car (a Cadillac) and has never had a problem. I'd think changing the oil in the Prius once a year or every 20,000 miles or so would be more than adequate. I realize Japanese vehicles require more maintenance than domestics, but 3,000 mile oil change intervals sounds really extreme (not to mention EXPENSIVE).

"I realize Japanese vehicles require more maintenance than domestics, but 3,000 mile oil change intervals sounds really extreme (not to mention EXPENSIVE)."

Ehh... not sure where you have drawn that conclusion, because I've owned mostly Toyotas and all they've ever needed was oil changes and brake pads for the extent of their lives, and I regularly put 250,000+ miles on them. So unless you just never-ever even open the hood on your "domestics", I really don't agree with your statement.

But I'll let that slide and move on to the oil debate. Different strokes for different folks, but I've always changed my oil in all my vehicles at 3,000 miles. That also includes my 55' Mercury. There's a number of reasons for doing so. For one, oil breaks down with heat. That creates gases in the crank case, which in turn creates carbon deposits. Most recently I replaced the timing belt on my Brother's 98' Avalon. It has around 265,000 miles on it. He has been pretty negligent in regards to changing the oil and so forth. We also replaced the water pump and fixed a leak in one of the valve covers (the seal was bad). When we took the cover off, the amount of carbon built up under the cover was considerable. A clear indicator was the amount of carbon built under the oil filler cap.

But on the other hand, I have a 96' Tacoma with almost as many miles. I've changed the oil every 3,000 miles using just conventional oil. The underside of its cap is clean as new. I've never removed the valve cover, but shining a flashlight down the filler area it is practically new looking. The bottom line is that more frequent oil changes means a cleaner engine which means longer life. I just tested the compression on all 4 cylinders in my truck and they are still at factory spec. It will likely last another 200,000 miles no problem.

Lastly, maintenance is cheap and easy. It costs me maybe $15 at Wal-Mart for a jug of 10w-30 and an oil filter. It takes me under 10 minutes to change the oil. No biggie.

Update on 2002 Prius. Was rear-ended in September 2008. I was especially concerned about potential damage to battery-pack. But when I took to body shop to look at the damage to the bumper, etc., they basically said they wouldn't look at the pack unless there appeared to be significant damage to the bumper. They checked the bumper, and it appeared to have little impact, so they just replaced bumper cover & painted.

A few weeks later, battery pack died. Towed to the Toyota dealer, and because it was just shy of 100,000, they replaced entire pack with new additional 100,000 warranty. They did have to confer with district/regional Toyota rep, and it did take 3 weeks to get pack from Asia (they don't store up - they make to order). Has run fine since.

Lesson -- insist that battery pack be inspected by someone knowledgable about Prius pack, not just body shop.

Other little issues -- rattles/squeaks, driver's window squeaks, and of course, waiting for tires to wear out again (approximately 25-30,000 per). Compared to other cars (Honda Civic, Mazda GLC, Mazda RX, Ford Econoline van, Chevy Malibu, Saab, Mercury Sable wagon, etc.) has had better than average repair/maintenance -- aside from battery pack. Still like size, quiet, gas mileage; but with all said & done, it is closer question on whether this, on balance, saves petroleum -- tire tradeoff v. gas mileage makes it much closer question. Decent effort at new technology, now advanced with 3d generation Prius.

"Lastly, maintenance is cheap and easy. It costs me maybe $15 at Wal-Mart for a jug of 10w-30 and an oil filter. It takes me under 10 minutes to change the oil. No biggie."

Therein lies the reason for carbon build-up. Full synthetic oil does NOT degrade or break down to form carbon deposits. I pulled the valve cover off a Ford that had been driven on full synthetic for 156,000 miles, with changes every 10,000-15,000 miles. Everything inside looked like finely polished metal, with a very thin film of clean oil on it. Not a hint of sludge or carbon. On the other hand, I pulled a valve cover off a Chevy with only 40,000 miles that had been run using cheap oil changed every 5,000 miles. I've never seen such an ungodly MESS. It took hours to scrape all the sludge and build up off everything. Synthetic oil costs more, but is well worth it.

As for maintenance, I've found that other than oil changes nothing on any of my domestics (fluids, radiator, etc.) really require even checking more often than about every 50,000-60,000 miles. I generally do all my own servicing (I'm a mechanic) and I usually wait until my cars have over 50,000 miles, then I check all the fluids, brake pads, etc. I very seldom have to do brake jobs before 80,000-100,000 miles. That's why I said domestics require less maintenance. Neither of my two Japanese imports even lasted 100,000 miles and required brakes, tune-ups, engine and suspension repairs and Heaven knows what else very often. Since my time is valuable I prefer driving stuff I can pretty much just ignore for 50,000-60,000 miles at a stretch.

Carbon buildup comes from a variety of factors such as a properly functioning Evap system (charcoal canister), PCV valve, and acid/gasses buildup in the oil. Yes, I agree that synthetic oil does not suffer as much from carbon buildup, but then again it costs sometimes double to even triple the cost of conventional. I know because I one time switched to AMSOIL, which cost me close to $60 for the oil and filter. Though it was rated to last 15-20,000 miles, was still more expensive than paying the less than $20 I pay for the regular stuff every 3,000 miles. If you have less time to work on your cars and time equals money, then I suppose I can see a warrant for using synthetics.

In regards to maintenance - brakes, etc etc, my Toyotas sound about the same as your various domestics. I get anywhere from 55-65,000 miles on a set of pads. The rear drums have 220,000 miles and still very little wear. I've worked on cars for most of my life and what I like most about typical Hondas and Toyotas versus GM and especially Ford products is that the drivetrains on the aforementioned Japanese products are a lot easier to work on.

For example, when I replaced the timing belt on my Brother's Avalon, there were only 3 sizes of bolts used: 10,12,and 14. His previous Ford Ranger had a zillion different kinds of hardware. On the Toyotas there's a lot of heavy anodized coating on the bolts thus they usually come right out. The Ford uses zinc coated steel which always rusted and froze. On my Tacoma I can have the pads changed both sides in 30 minutes or less. There's only one bolt to loosen and the entire caliper swings upward. On my housemate's Taurus you actually have to have a special $30 tool to unscrew the caliper pistons just to get the caliper loose. We wound up breaking the tool itself because they were frozen.

On my Tacoma the alternator, water pump, AC pump, and most other things are placed where you can get to them without killing yourself. The starter went out on mine last year. It took 15 minutes to replace it. The water pump I replaced just because it was getting old. Again - a 30 minute job.

Now I'll admit that the Prius is something else. I'm still getting used to it. But that's mainly because it's pretty different from a regular car thus I have to learn how to work on it as time goes on. But even so, it's still for the most part a reliable and easy to service car.

I don't deny that there are some Fords and Chevys with tons of miles on them (I own a 54 year old example myself) but as a mechanic, I prefer Japanese cars because they are much easier to service and less costly to own.