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200,000-Mile Toyota Prius Keeps on Going


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2000 Toyota Prius

SEE ALSO: Toyota Guide

Washington DC March 4, 2011; The AIADA reported that recent tests and owner surveys by Consumer Reports indicate that Prius owners don't need to worry too much about replacing their vehicle’s battery pack after a few thousand miles.

CNN Money reports that the magazine recently tested a Prius with 207,000 miles on it. The car was still in the hands of its original owner so editors were confident the car had been maintained reasonably well, driven normally and, most importantly, still had its original battery pack. The warranty on a Prius battery pack is good for 8 years or 100,000 miles.

To find out what 207,000 city and highway miles had done to the car's hybrid batteries, Consumer Reports engineers put the aged Prius through the same series of performance and fuel economy tests they administer to new cars. Then they compared the results to those of a virtually identical Prius that had been tested when it was new.

The 200,000-plus-mile Prius performed almost exactly the same as a comparable new Prius. Overall fuel economy, city and highway combined, suffered by just two-tenths of a mile per gallon.