Would you, could you with a 2005 Prius?

March 12, 2025 6:10 PM

I’m thinking of spending $4,000 to $5,000 to put a new battery in a 2005 Prius that hasn’t been driven since 2020. Good people of Metafilter, should I even consider doing this and, if so, what else do I need to know before making a decision? Additional pertinent details inside…

I live in New England, drive a 2013 Volt, and have two teens, one is 14 and the other will be taking their driver’s license test in a couple weeks. Very soon it would be nice to have another vehicle, but used cars are expensive. Enter my brother’s 2005 Prius. He purchased it new, it has about 140,000 miles, has spent its life in southern California, mostly parked in a climate controlled garage and he will give it to me for free BUT I’d need to spend between $4,000 and $5,000 to replace the batteries because he hasn’t driven it since the beginning of the pandemic. It seemed like a good idea when I first proposed it to him back in 2023, but now that he’s finally ready to give me the car, I’m not so sure…

posted by ElizaMain to Travel & Transportation (12 answers total)

I mean, that actually seems like a pretty good deal on a car that you know the total provenance of and that has only had one owner. If the battery is the only issue, yeah, I would do it.
posted by limeonaire at 6:16 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]

There's still a lot that can go bad in a car that has sat for five years — especially one that has 140k miles on it. Assuming that the gas engine still starts up, I'd have it taken to a mechanic and checked out thoroughly.
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:22 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]

How are you planning to get it to New England? Shipping west coast to east coast is $1-2k depending on how you do it, cheaper in money if not your time if you drive it over yourself.

If it were anything but a Prius I'd say tell him to sell it and put that towards a car closer to where you are. But the early Priuses were wildly overbuilt and stay good longer than most other cars.

That said...has really nothing at all been done to it? Nobody addressed any recalls or fluid changes, etc.? Oil and coolant and so forth can go bad if it just sits. Sometimes mice get in there and do a bunch of damage you can't see... I would want a mechanic's inspection-- tow it over if you have to-- to know exactly what you're getting before you commit.
posted by blnkfrnk at 6:25 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]

I would do it. Four years garaged in SoCal is nothing. Since it needs a new battery it's going to a garage anyway (I would go with a local independent Prius specialist vs a dealer). Have them inspect it before you opt for the battery job.

But if it were me I'd honestly just change the oil, jump start it, and see if it reports any engine, emission, or cooling issues.
posted by zippy at 7:35 PM on March 12

One more thing to budget for is replacing the tires.
posted by soelo at 8:18 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]

This will be a bit obscure but: I had a Prius of that vintage (a 2006) and encountered a problem when an over-the-air software update bricked my car. (The update turned the car transponder on and left it on, pinging away, until the battery ran down.) I know it seems strange, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the car might need a software update to function properly.
posted by SPrintF at 9:04 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]

One data point to help you decide: it is absolutely possible to get a battery replacement for much less than $4000.

Electron Automotive in Orange County will sell you a brand-new battery replacement kit for the Prius that you install yourself for $2200. They can install it at their shop if your brother can get it there; they can also send him the battery and then send folks out to your brother’s place if he’s within 100 miles of their shop (it’s in Orange, CA) and they can install it there. They provide all the instructions and guidance.

Of course, the installation process isn’t a half-hour job, but it is doable with hand tools alone in a single day by an owner (and maybe one other pair of hands to move the battery into place). To see what this involves, here is an excellent video from a mechanic on YouTube called ChrisFix showing the process on your exact model from a few years ago; here he is doing the same thing with a newer Prius model. The videos are, happily, well-made and easy to follow, and ChrisFix seems eager to make sure he’s accessible to folks less familiar with auto repair, which makes me think these would be a good watch with your teens. In both cases he uses Electron’s batteries.

To get the car home, could you use the money you save to fly out to California and drive the car back? Maybe you and the car’s future teen owner could make it into a little road trip?

Good luck!
posted by mdonley at 9:59 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]

I let a Toyota Corolla sit for a shorter period of time than that and (to the best of a few mechanics understanding) some seal dried up in the engine which meant it lost oil very quickly - no visible leaks and it passed CA smog inspections until I junked it seven years later, but it took a quart of oil every 200 miles for the rest of its life. So be aware of that as a possibility.
posted by needs more cowbell at 3:24 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

But also, heck, garaged in SoCal? Only 140K miles on a Prius? When you live in New England and all the other cheap used cars you might find nearby have been driven on salted roads? Pending a mechanic's assessment of it, I'd take it (and yeah, probably look for less expensive battery replacement options.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 3:29 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Two things to check out before you spend the money on this:

1. Batteries might be hard to get right now. Check with a dealer or the 3rd party above and see if they have them available.

2. It's also a gas engine that has been sitting for years and I would expect it to have some problems due to this. At the very least it needs a tune-up and a full checkup.

3. Has the battery been tested? There's a chance it works. If the car won't start it could just be the 12V "traction battery" which is about $100.
posted by mmoncur at 3:41 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

I'm with mdonley on the DIY replace; the replacement really is just a dozen bolts and shoving around the battery.

Also if you're not certain what's wrong there's a pretty great app to diagnose your Pius issues, do note that you need a little bluetooth obdii reader to talk to your car.

In addition to the NiMh replacement batteries there's a company doing a sodium ion aftermarket battery replacement for $1900 which is pretty exciting.
posted by gregr at 6:40 AM on March 13

No, I would not. That car is 20 years old, didn't move for 5 years (!!), and is thousands of miles away. I would get my new driver as new a car as I could afford in order to get as modern a safety suite as possible. For example, a 2005 Prius might have electronic stability control, side-impact and head-curtain airbags or it might not (you might be able to figure out what equipment it has by putting it VIN into some website VIN decoder or asking a Prius owners group on Reddit). A 2015 Prius will almost certainly have stability control and back-up camera as standard equipment, and likely more airbags (I think). A 2025 Prius will have all those things, plus a back-up camera, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitors, and automatic emergency braking.

I'd try to put my own kid - as a new driver especially - in as new a car as I could get her into. Not to make you feel bad here, just that you might not realize how much safety has advanced over the last 20 years. I also wouldn't want her breaking down on the side of the road - also a dangerous situation.
posted by everythings_interrelated at 7:19 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]