Toyota model reference
Toyota Prius
What our record holds on the Prius, sold in the UK since 2000: body styles, fuel types and the road tax a used one pays.
No reliability figure is published for the Toyota Prius that this site could cite. What circulates instead is survey data from panels that select themselves, and warranty claim rates published by companies with something to sell.
Any percentage would be our own calculation. Which years count, and whether a facelift and a new generation sharing the Prius name are one model or two, both move the answer, and neither choice is anybody official's.
So the field does not exist. We do not average the other Toyota models into a number and put it here, and we do not push a marque figure down onto the Prius. What is real and specific is the paperwork for one car.
No fault ordering is published for the Prius
A 2013 1.8 Hybrid at around 89 g/km is band A, £20 a year in 2026/27. High mileage private hire examples are the norm rather than the exception, so mileage alone says little about condition.
That figure is a worked example for the year and engine named, not a rate for every Prius. Read the CO2 figure and the first registration date off the V5C before you budget, because both change the answer.
See every band for this tax yearStanding next to one
Buying a used Prius: what the record settles
Our record puts the Prius's UK sales period at since 2000. That range is the useful starting point, because everything about the cost of running one turns on where a particular example sits inside it. It came in 2 body styles here, hatchback and MPV, with 2 fuel types: petrol hybrid and plug-in hybrid.
The Prius was on sale on both sides of the road tax change of 1 April 2017, and that is the single most useful thing to know before you buy one. An example first registered up to 31 March 2017 is taxed on its CO2 figure under the lettered bands, so engine, gearbox and even wheel size can move two cars of the same year into different bands. One registered from 1 April 2017 pays the flat standard rate instead and its CO2 stops mattering. Two otherwise identical cars a year apart can cost noticeably different amounts to keep taxed, and only the V5C tells you which one you are looking at. The earliest ones predate 1 March 2001, and anything registered before that date is taxed on engine size in two bands rather than on CO2 at all. There is also a quirk worth knowing on the oldest examples: a car registered before 23 March 2006 cannot be charged above band K however high its emissions, so a thirsty old one can be cheaper to tax than a newer car a class below it.
For running costs the fuel matters more than the badge. A plug-in hybrid still takes the full emissions test on its engine, so ask when that engine last did a long run rather than a series of short electric trips. The seven seat versions put a second and third row of belts into the test, and every belt, buckle and mounting is an inspected item, so work the seats and the belts before you agree a price.
None of that is a substitute for the record of the actual car. The invoices name what was replaced, when and at what mileage, and the same job appearing twice in three years says more about a Prius than any statistic about the model ever could. A mileage that goes backwards across a paperwork trail is worth walking away from whatever the badge is.
Toyota began importing to Britain in 1965 and has built cars at Burnaston in Derbyshire since 1992, where the Corolla is assembled with engines from Deeside. It sold the first mainstream hybrid here in 2000 and hybrid now accounts for most of what it registers. Used Yaris and Auris hybrids are common in city private hire work, and their battery packs have proved far more durable than early buyers feared. That is context on the marque rather than on this car, and there is more of it, along with every other model line, on the Toyota page.