Hi again,
Ok, going to drop this here and run since I won't be able to check in again until late tonight.
Short story: a 2010 Prius with 192,000 kms for $8,500, or a 2013 with 161,000 kms for $12,800?? Figures are in Canadian dollars, pre tax, pre negotiation.
Background: We live in Nova Scotia. We have a 2010 Matrix XR with 170,000 kms on it. It's zippy and reliable, and we get about 8.5L/100kms. We bought it used for $10K in 2015. We have two kids: one is nearly 5 and is forward facing in a five point harness, and one is nearly 2 and rear facing, so back seat room matters because we need to fit a passenger in the front seat with a rear-facer behind them. FWIW, she's in a Diono Radian XR with angle adjuster. We live in a small town and we're walking distance to work, so many days the car doesn't leave the driveway. HOWEVER, 5yo is now in school one town over and there's no bus option, so we are now driving him to/from school most days. When we do use the car, the vast majority of our driving is in the 10-20k distance range (groceries, school & daycare, etc). We try to avoid driving we can, but it's just not practical to bike on a highway with a 5 year old in the winter, so we drive. A handful of times a year we do trips in the 400km range, and as the kids get older we'll likely do an annual road trip between NS and ON. We are starting to get twitchy about our carbon footprint, and in addition to reducing driving in general, we're looking at a more fuel efficient vehicle.
Current situation: As much as we'd *love* an EV, there are two issues. 1. The price tag, as there is no used market, and 2. the 'long tail pipe' problem. NS is still very much on coal (and that's another story for another day), so plugging in an EV effectively cuts our emissions in half but not down to zero (see
https://www.plugndrive.ca/pnd_evcar_cat/chevrolet-bolt/). Unless we also get solar, but then the car price tag gets into another league. Enter, a used Prius! They get closer to 4-5L/100kms, effectively cutting our carbon in half at a fraction of the cost compared to an EV. If the market is right in 5 years, we'd consider a used EV, but those don't really even exist right now. So we're looking for a 'bridging' vehicle to tide us over until there are used EVs on the market at a price that doesn't make me queasy, as well as enough infrastructure to prevent range anxiety on longer trips.
Decisions: There are two used Priuses on our radar. Car #1 is a 2010 Prius with 192,000kms for $8,500. Car #2 is a 2013 Prius with 161,000kms for $12,800. Figures are in Canadian dollars, pre tax, pre negotiation. We'd sell the Matrix to make this happen, and initial research suggests we could probably get about $6,500 for it. So, car 1 would be a $2,000 cost and car 2 would be closer to $6,000
Questions: 1. The price gap is 4K. Is it worth it to get a newer, lower mileage vehicle? If we are planning to sell in ~5 years, the older car will be 14 years old, which is getting up there and perhaps harder to sell. 2. What kind of maintenance might we expect on a 6-10 year old Prius? Is buying either of these cars setting us up for pricey repairs? Or are Priuses as reliable (or more?) as the Matrix?
In short, what would you do???