Buying a car, Too good to be true

thinkfuture

thinkfuture

Member
We are looking to purchase a Toyota Prius 2012. We found a pretty amazing deal, which is almost too Good to be true. Seller says he is a dealer & got the car from an auction in Indiana. The car drives & looks great. Has only 21K miles. I do have the VIN# & have the rest of the weekend to do my homework, which is pretty much trying to see if there is any scam.
Can you suggest what I need to look for.
 
Words of advise, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Especially if it is from an unauthorized dealer.

I would give more advise on not buying a prius, but i'm very biased against that car. There are a lot better hybrids out there for much less money.
 
Get a vehicle history report (Carfax or similar). Research the dealer, try and find reviews. See if they might have an Ebay account, or i think Autotrader might have dealer reviews, not sure.

As far as the Prius as a car/hybrid, i don't think you can go wrong. I've owned a Honda hybrid, and grew to hate it. The Fords are not getting the mileage they claim and aren't as big as they claim either. I have no experience with any others. Love our Prius v!
 
I have a Prius V and if you can adjust your driving style, they are good and economic. For highway and long drives, a diesel is much better. I have a Jetta TDI and I drive 60 miles round trip, full tank lasts 2 weeks.

Like you heard before, get a carfax. Also, call Toyota with that VIN number to see if there were any warranty voiding issues. That is a $8000 battery and should have about 8 years of warranty.

Another word of caution, very expensive cars to repair, too many electronic systems and no plain mechanics would want to work on them. Pretty much stuck with the dealer for service. I would not recommend it out of warranty.

My 2 cents.
 
look for water damage. After hurricane sandy there is a nearly unlimited supply of refurbed cars that were once flooded. A hybrid would be particularly rough in that situation.
 
Herbie said:
look for water damage. After hurricane sandy there is a nearly unlimited supply of refurbed cars that were once flooded. A hybrid would be particularly rough in that situation.
Click to expand...

Yup, same thing happened with Katrina in 2006.

Also check and make sure the title doesn't say salvage anywhere on it. There's a big market of cars where people are buying wrecked cars with damaged frames, fixing them, then selling them as if they were like new. It's not to say anything is wrong with them, but it would be nice to know something like that.
 
Out of all the hybrids I drove I would list them as Chevy Volt > Ford Focus > Toyota Prius > Kia Optima. Haven't driven any others. But with that said its a totally different driving style to get used to maximize the efficiency. More like driving a manual and engine braking everywhere.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 4
 
Does the factory warranty transfer over . If so you get free oil change to 25000 miles and I think it has longer warranty on batteries .
thinkfuture said:
We are looking to purchase a Toyota Prius 2012. We found a pretty amazing deal, which is almost too Good to be true. Seller says he is a dealer & got the car from an auction in Indiana. The car drives & looks great. Has only 21K miles. I do have the VIN# & have the rest of the weekend to do my homework, which is pretty much trying to see if there is any scam.
Can you suggest what I need to look for.
Click to expand...
 
Herbie said:
look for water damage. After hurricane sandy there is a nearly unlimited supply of refurbed cars that were once flooded. A hybrid would be particularly rough in that situation.
Click to expand...

DD said:
Yup, same thing happened with Katrina in 2006.

Also check and make sure the title doesn't say salvage anywhere on it. There's a big market of cars where people are buying wrecked cars with damaged frames, fixing them, then selling them as if they were like new. It's not to say anything is wrong with them, but it would be nice to know something like that.
Click to expand...

caragol said:
Make sure to update this thread with what you find out or decide.
Click to expand...

+1
 
My wife and I own one. Fortunately we had the warranty because of the following. Right around 28k miles, there was an issue with the braking system. When stepping on the brakes, there was a slight vibration in the pedal. This turned out to be a major issue with the car. Luckily we found it early before the brakes went out. But to replace this part alone was 6,200 dollars and then of course the labor was around 1,000 dollars. Also, check the battery system. To replace a battery in a Prius is super expensive. I've heard they can go anywhere between 6 and 8k depending on the model. Just do your research. Might even want to take it to a Toyota dealership to get the multi point inspection before you buy. Due to most of them not needing major maintenance, some of the highly trained mechanics might not have a lot of experience working on them and could miss a major defect with the vehicle.

My 2 cents. Good luck with your decision.
 
Great inputs. I did run a NMVTIS report on the vehicle. It is a Gov reporting agency on the history of vehicle & everything seemed fine. Next I will do an autocheck.com & carfax. I do have a carfax report, but confused if I should run my own so as to verify the paper handed to me is legit.
carfax has a tonn of fine prints, I'm hating the aspect of having to order a report.
 
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