As someone who loves cars I never thought I would be interested in a Prius

My mileage has increased dramatically over the last 6 months and I seem to be spending an absolute fortune on petrol! At the moment I have a choice of my toy car or a 19 year old Transit or a 4 litre Lexus to drive into work. I have stopped using the Lexus and have started driving the Transit for my daily commute but it is still costing me far more than I want.

I have a budget of £3000, and my mission is to find the most economical and reliable motor I can for that money. I'm thinking Prius

There is this for sale 2 miles away from me...

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201401311454670/sort/default/usedcars/radius/35/make/toyota/postcode/rg20dh/model/prius/page/1/price-to/ 3000/onesearchad/used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew?logcode=p

Has anyone got experience of these things? What should I be looking for in the way of problems? Can someone suggest an alternative?

Thanks in advance.

Have you driven one yet? Snoooooooze!

I would also be worried about the batteries - how many years are they supposed to last? What is the cost of replacement? I suspect the cars are cheap as the battery change is not!

am pretty sure the vw lupo diesel is supposed to be very economical and within budget! should be reliable enough and sell easily when the time comes! the only downside is you'll be driving a vw lupo

quote:

---

Originally posted by daniel mason
am pretty sure the vw lupo diesel is supposed to be very economical and within budget! should be reliable enough and sell easily when the time comes! the only downside is you'll be driving a vw lupo

---

driving a merc c220 with 170k on the clock and it is still turning in 55mpg,.. amazing,. and more comfy than a transit

I drove it to Inverness the other week, so comfy in fact, I decided to drive some more

quote:

---

Originally posted by HowardB
driving a merc c220 with 170k on the clock and it is still turning in 55mpg,.. amazing,. and more comfy than a transit

I drove it to Inverness the other week, so comfy in fact, I decided to drive some more

---

A Prius won't be efficient on long journeys. You need to look at blue motion polo/golf/passat or similar super diesels, mk 2 Clio 1.5dci is another good option. Avoid vauxhall/fiat 1.3diesel though as they are terrible.

I had a Prius as a works car for 3 years 96k miles and I averaged 46mpg over the life of it, although lots of motorway cruising, I found the car was not the best mpg car I've had and was bland and average at everything else.

hope it helps

Shaun

LPG the Lexus?

I converted my vectra 1.8 to lpg, kit cost £280 and paid for itself in 3 months. 65p a litre thanks very much

No to the Prius!

A local taxi driver has a Prius and told me the other day he was happy with the 45mpg he gets.

My Audi is far better.

My last 3 company cars have been Golf 2.0TDi, Seat Leon FR 2.0TDi and now an A3 2.0 TDi

All 3 did an average of between 48 and 53 mpg over 3 years and each did 85000 miles with a mix of 50% motorway 50% urban.

If economy is what you are after then a Bluemotion Golf or Polo would be my pick.

You would be better off with a small diesel such as a Fiesta or Polo, you get get one within your budget and will get cheap tax and insurance to boot with over 60mpg easily achievable.

I wouldnt go with a cheap old prius as like others have said the batteries dont last forever and are expensive to replace and your still going to get better economy from a small engined hatch back.

you are better off spending £1000 on a car, 1.9tdi Passat or something?

then you have instantly saved £2000, work out how long it will take you to spend £2000 on fuel!!!

12k miles per year
average 35mpg
£6.44 per gallon of diesel

12000/35=342.86
342.86 x 6.44 = £2208

so basically you get 12k miles worth of 'free' driving

I bought an e46 330 coupe (petrol) two years ago, it was half the price of the equivalent 3litre diesel and I have done over 25k miles and I have just gone over what it would have cost to buy the 330d!!!

406 HDi, I bought one for £725 and used to get 57mpg doing mostly motorway driving. It also had a tow bar, loads of toys, was massive inside, comfy and completely anonymous unlike a Prius which just shouts "I,m a bell end"

Although I'm picking up my new Fiesta ecoonetic tomorrow, 78.5 mpg!

I had a Prius for four years. For me it was fantastic - I had an 04 Passat tdi before and the Prius did double the MPG for most of my driving which was in central London stop start traffic.

The Prius would do 50 where the Passat did 25, but on the motorway both were about the same.

In traffic the Prius was quicker off the line up to about 50 but anywhere else was much slower. It was also quite noisy at motorway speeds.

Sounded like a bag of nails by the time it went at 50k miles though, but nothing ever actually went wrong.

Stu

I have two W reg polo saloons both in perfect condition, an 1.9 SDI which does 65mpg and a 1.9TDI which does 60mpg but goes pretty well. Huge boot and very comfortable. Very different to the hatch polos. Both sit at 85+ on the motorway, the SDI just takes till next friday to get up to that speed. Spend so far £1,700. Diesel Cordobas are the same.

Something with a1.6 HDI PSA engine will get you further for less than a Pious and in better style too.

Volvo, Ford, Citroen and of course Peugeot use the engine.

The V50 eDrive, whilst a truly disappointing vehicle in so many ways can be made to return 70+mpg on the motorway and with start/stop it doesn't drop that much on urban routes either.

My thought.

Get a 5 series bimmer pre 2008 n run it on bio diesel.... I did this for 230k miles.... No dpf filter change no issues apart from in winter I used 50% or it can clog up when under 5 degree. Costs 99p a litre n the car did 45mpg average so about 9p a mile compared to 14p normal fuel...

Second option any old car with Bosch fuel pump will work with above....

Get a fiesta diesel they can do over 60mpg

Get a LPG conversion for ye Lexus

If you get a Prius the battery replacement used to be 5k after. 5 years :-( ouch...

Bio diesel is the future...

A diesel car running at 45 mpg on diesel does the equivalent of 62mpg when run on bio... Based on pence per mile....

If you can get an old diesel to run on bio like a passat which could do 55mpg then that's more like 72mpg equivalent......

Plus you can make your own bio for a few p a mile. Cost of muslin cloth n drums n adaptive snow heater about 17p a mile that's equivalent of 437 mpg.......

But I did it for 3 month my garden stunk of chip fat my house did too my garage was awful and oil spills everywhere my drive was trashed with chip fat spills.... And I was hungry lol


MY MRS HAS THE 2009 econetic fiesta. Great car only a 1.0 but I have used it for work a few times and it's great. Only get about 63mpg average over a long journey but that's ok for me. Cost £170 to lease a month for 3 year no deposit..
My BMW 116d does about 65mpg average so not much in it really.... Would not recommend this car though.

[Edited on 11/2/14 by jossey]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doctor Derek Doctors
406 HDi, I bought one for £725 and used to get 57mpg doing mostly motorway driving. It also had a tow bar, loads of toys, was massive inside, comfy and completely anonymous unlike a Prius which just shouts "I,m a bell end"

Although I'm picking up my new Fiesta ecoonetic tomorrow, 78.5 mpg!

---

Whenever I hear someone looking at a Prius, I send them the youtube video of Top Gear doing Prius vs M3. With the Prius running flat out and the M3 just keeping up, the M3 returned better MPG.

In my humble opinion, the car has very little to do with MPG, it's mostly the driving style. A bog standard diesel saloon or hatchback will give similar MPG for a lot less hassle. Bluemotion would be my preference, but I'm not sure you'd get one for 3k yet. But even a Mondeo/Focus TDCi gives decent MPG.

I have had this argument with a couple of people over the last few days. My family are all diesel lovers and won't drive anything else despite the evidence. My nephew insisted on buying a small diesel vauxhall for £1300 with 110K on the clock insisting its the best option. I said just compare small petrol engines first. To his annoyance my SEAT ibiza 1.4mpi is better on fuel!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Irony
I have had this argument with a couple of people over the last few days. My family are all diesel lovers and won't drive anything else despite the evidence. My nephew insisted on buying a small diesel vauxhall for £1300 with 110K on the clock insisting its the best option. I said just compare small petrol engines first. To his annoyance my SEAT ibiza 1.4mpi is better on fuel!

He does drive like a chav though.

---

A guy I work with does 130 miles a day commuting and he's a archetypal Scotsman with a padlock on his wallet, he runs a Megane 1.5 dci. He regularly gets 65 to the gallon. Apart from front wishbones and an oil change every 6 months it's not caused any bother at all. Only 30 a year tax too.

Depends on the type of car your after, small and frugal I would go for a lupo tdi (if you can find one they're rare) quite good fun to drive.

If you want bigger and comfier I would look at the passat or my personal choice an s60 D5, was surprised at how economical these are and what an engine!!

Somewhere in the middle look at a Megane.

Anything but a Prius!!!!!!!

Prius is designed *specifically* for start-stop efficiency gains, on smooth long runs it's going to be pretty much the same as a normal car of the same sort of engine size. Anyone who buys one for motorway use was mis-sold their car. It gets the bulk of it's gains through regenerative braking and taking the acceleration phase away from the petrol engine, which is a great idea if you start-stop all day, but if you run motorway miles, or do long distances without changing speed much, it's limited.

I get a consistent 45 no matter how I batter the hell out of my 306HDi and it owes me nothing at all. I've had 65 out of it once on the motorway but got a bit bored and never normally get over 55 any more.

[Edited on 11/2/14 by coyoteboy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy
I get a consistent 45 no matter how I batter the hell out of my 306HDi and it owes me nothing at all. I've had 65 out of it once on the motorway but got a bit bored and never normally get over 55 any more.

---

I get 35-40MPG out of the Jag .....

Another one for the Jag. I get 50mpg out of my 3.0 XF and arrive refreshed and relaxed rather than frazzled and uptight.