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gorgan88

Hi all,

I am looking at buying a used car for me to travel to work. I have an imported used Toyota Prius 2009 (price around 12k NZD and mileage below 100k km) in mind but I am not sure if it is a good idea to get an imported Hybrid because of the posts about imported Hybrid car in this forum were against buying it. I want to ask if it is still the case - that Toyota NZ still find problem repairing imported car?

My criteria of buying a car is to have less fuel consumption, have a reasonable size car boot and my budget is around 10k NZD.

Please advice if there is any other better option out there.

ABayliss

It's not so much that Toyota have trouble repairing imported cars, as I'm sure they can repair them in the same manner as NZ new vehicles. The real issue for me is that you are in a price range where I'm not sure that a hybrid is the best option.
Many modern smaller cars are close to, if not equal to hybrid fuel economy, but without the complex technology and potential for expensive repairs, especially in the event of a battery failure.
The Prius is fine for taxi drivers who can drive at inner city (ie; slow) speeds without the petrol engine firing up, but if you are doing any motorway or open road running, there's not such an advantage, if at all.
For cost of servicing, reasonable fuel economy and reasonable space, if you are keen on the Toyota brand, a Corolla is hard to beat.

gorgan88

Hi, thank you for your suggestion. It does sounds like the Prius is not the best choice for me. Could you suggest any other car (any make/ any model) that is similar to Toyota corolla?

ABayliss

Others you could consider would be Mazda3 (imports are called Mazda Axela), Hyundai i30, Honda Civic. These are all a similar size to the Corolla.