2001 Toyota Prius

Sedan

4 Cylinder

Automatic

jt2bk12u510033367

Gasoline

Air Conditioning

This car was purchased new in June of 2001 by us from Toyota of Naperville, Illinois. We have owned and maintained this vehicle ever since. In recent years our son has been driving this car. He is going away to college this fall where he is unable to have a vehicle this year. To avoid insurance and storage costs etc we have decided to sell it. There has never been any major body damage or work done to the car. There have only been a couple of occasions where minor body work has been done due to scrapes, a keying etc. The car doesn't leak oil and doesn't use much oil between changings. Currently, the check engine light comes on periodically and the dealer has told us it needs a valve job. We have decided for the above reasons that it doesn't make sense for us to worry about getting it fixed. It is not a fatal problem with the car and continues work fine for reliable transportation for my son, my wife, and on occasion me. The car has a single CD player. The air conditioner works fine. Approximately 4 years ago I had the catalytic converter and oxygen sensors replaced at Merlin's. Approximately 3 years ago I started getting major error messages about the main battery. It said there were differing voltages between the cells.I ended up purchasing a used hybrid battery and installing it myself. It's not that hard to do and if you are interested in a factory repair manual that I used to learn to do the repair, I am selling it in a separate listing. The hybrid battery is currently in good shape and was replaced when the vehicle had about 110,000 miles on it. It came from a 2003 prius with about 35,000 miles. I have had to replace two of the aluminum wheels. One had a crack in one of the spokes and the other became bent. I am including them both in the sale of this car. The one with the cracked spoke still works fine and has an inflated tire on it which will serve as a very good spare. The right front tire has a slight nick in it but it does not seem to be at risk for becoming flat. I somehow lost one of the lug bolts, so I replaced two of them with locking lug bolts. The key is included as are two additional bolts I have not installed. There is only one spot of substantive rust on the car. The left rear wheel well has a few bubbles. It feels pretty solid still. The hood has a number of paint chips due to small rocks where it is rusting. I do have some touch up paint I can provide the successful bidder. The driver side of the front bumper has a scrape on it that I elected to not have professionally repaired. I have included pictures of those areas. I actually wore out one of the original keys for the car. I had a replacement cut and reprogrammed the key myself. The two main keys and one valet key work fine. The two remotes work fine also except one has a crack in the key ring circlet so it can't go on a key chain. The left door lock does not work with the remote very well because we took the doors apart to replace the door speakers and the unlocking linkage is not smooth enough to work with the remote. There is no problem with locking it with the key. On the right front door, the plastic door insert where the door power buttons are mounted will not mount to the door frame because the insert is cracked where the screw into the door frame goes. I have been procrastinating going to a junk yard to get a replacement. It still sits down when driving but can wiggle when the door is being closed. I am listing this car for ten days to give people who wish to view the car and test drive it a chance to do so. I am located in the Southwest side of Joliet near Route 59 and I 55. With a very minor exception I will be able to make myself available to anyone who wishes to personally inspect the car. There are two ways a purchaser of this car can go. I believe the car to be stable enough to provide reliable all weather service for some time. If some of the repairs as noted above are made to the car it has a potentially unlimited useful life. It's nice to have some options! Email me with any questions or if you want to arrange to come see the car! Good luck!On Aug-24-10 at 12:41:00 PDT, seller added the following information: 8/24/2010 - I have been asked what actual mpg the car currently gets. It has mostly been used around town lately but on Sunday and Monday I drove it around Joliet and then to and from Kankakee. I have added a picture which shows the computer display of having driven 125 miles at an average of 48.2 mpg. It was 48.3 before I turned the engine on to warm it up. In the top right corner of the picture is the blue "cold engine" icon. The odometer reading is at 175574 now. You can't see that clearly because I wanted to focus on the computer screen. The transmission fluid has been flushed at least twice and will probably be due to be done again soon. On Aug-26-10 at 17:51:12 PDT, seller added the following information: I have to be out of town all day Friday and won't be back til mid to late afternoon on Saturday, so I won't be able to show the car til then. I will try to check my messages at least a couple of times on Friday then again Saturday morning. I will be available pretty much any time on Sunday and then again on Monday the last couple of hours of the auction. If there are questions I will respond to them in time to allow an interested person to be able to inspect/drive the car if desired. Thanks and good luck!