Toyota Prius, Fact or Fiction

[GaryM]

I'll have to take another look at the manual for that warning. I can see where a strong RF field might overload the Smart Entry/Smart Start receiver and desense it. But if I'm already in the car that might not be an issue. If you have the car in Ready mode and leave with the fob in your pocket it beeps a few times, but continues to run OK. So it might not be an issue other thaty perhaps not being able to use the Smart Entry if the transmitter was keydown.

Sounds like quite a smart nav. system. I probobly would have liked having that feature. But didn't want to upgrade from package 7 to 9. If I could have gotten 7 plus the nav. that wpold have been different.

My overall milage runs 46-49. My wife does a little better getting just about 50. She's better looking too!

How about a photo of you and the new Prius?

[Pat]

Gary, I haven't spent that much time in the manual, just long enough to program the HomeLink and set a destination in the nav system. If you don't find a couple entries related to the potential problem with fields, I think I can find a couple pretty quick and report the page numbers.

Did yo see much change in mileage when averaged over a tank from when the car was new vz broken in for a thousand miles or more? If yes, do you feel confident it was the car breaking in or you learning to drive it economically?

My wife complains that the car is grey not light green pearlescent. It does "change color" in diferent lighting.

[GaryM]

I've not really seen too much of a change in milage. We picked the car up on a Wednesday and left for Florida on Saturday morning, so we started off driving it hard. As I mentioned, my wife gets slightly better milage, by about 2-3 mpg overall. She's not got a light foot either so I don't know how she does it.

[Pat]

OK, Here is the progress. I got over 500 miles on less than 10 gal of gas (52.x MPG) mixed city and highway. I have an air conditioner and roll up windows. I have GPS (voice directions) Automatic routing, points of interest loaded in from places to eat to every Government location of interest, all police stations, fire houses, posts offices and on and on and on. Car has computer enhanced stability, anti lock brakes, several front AND rear air bags. Carries 4 BIG adults in comfort(3 in rear if not tooooo big), has fold down rear seats to accept cargo through lift back, 6 disk CD great sound system and is quiet enough to let me hear it. Has Blue Tooth interface so you can seamlessly integrate cell phone. Miocrophone built into dash and the receive audio cames out the car speakers. Hands off operation with voice controlled dialing etc. Again car is quiet enough to use these features.

This car wil run in excess of 100 MPH with no harm. Plenty of folks cruise them at 85 for great distances. Its lights are probably better than your add-on driving ights if you had any. It polutes a lot less than your car did.

You might not want all (or any) of the advanced features but plenty of folks do. Toyota has added another entire factory to produce these cars and still can't keep up with demand. I am familiar with your MG although I never had that model. I had several Austin Healy Sprites (same car different trim.) Has a '59 MG-A with side curtains and rag top.

I think the Prius would out drag a stock Midget but more importantly it will deliver 4 adults in comfort over greater distances. It is quicker, faster, quieter, safer, and more comfortable while getting better mileage and pluting less.

Now if you want to consider fun/gal figures... the Midget is definitely in the running. By the way My Bug Eyed Sprite could do about 48 MPG at the speed limit in stock configuration... then came headers, cam, carb mods...

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[Pat]

Gary, Here is a picture of the Splash Guards (AKA MudFlaps). I didn't have a yard stick handy so I included one foot for size comparison (13-E)

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[Pat]

Here is one of the two pages of instructions (one for front and one for rear) Made in Canada. A lot to pay for a dollars worth of plastic and a dollars worth of hardware. Were going on Ebay for $70 plus shipping+ handling+ insurance + yada yada yada so I contacted the seller and offered him $50 via pay pall with him covering shipping etc. He's happy, I'm happy. They'll look better than a couple cut out of gallon milk bottles.

PNuclo@aol.com Name is Paul. No reason to think he won't hold up his end.

P.S. The best mileage averaged over a tank of gas was 506 miles on less than 10 gal (52.x MPG) Worst fillup was 48MPG but computer shows wife getting only 43 average on this tank so far (couplel hundred miles) She always gets less mileage than I do but the real culprit is colder weather. I suspect we may dip to about 40MPG in the worst cold weather and short trips. Still, we love the car whether or not gas prices soar. It is a very nice ride.

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[DaRube]

Hi Guys, a brand new member of the Prius club here.

My wife will be the main driver of this one. Her 50 mile commute into the DC suburbs currently takes her 75 minutes, and as a public schools teacher, she has to arrive at 7:30 AM. Therefore, she hits the first bit of rush hour full bore.

The worst of her commute is on the Dulles Toll Road. There is an HOV lane there which is not nearly as crowded, and they allow specially licensed Clean Fuel vehicles (including hybrids) to qualify. We're hoping this will reduce the commute significantly.

Pat, I am particularly interested in the deal you obtained on the Extended Warranty. They are asking $1295 at our dealer to extend to 100,000 mi, 6 yrs (which will only last us 4 years in daily use).

[GaryM]

I got my extended warrentee for about $950. They wanted more than $1200 and I told them I could get it for "around $920". We settled on $950.

You'll love the Prius. I've had mine since February and have 25K on it already.

[Pat]

You don't have to buy the warranty from the same dealer as the car. You have something like 6 mo to do it but I wouldn't wait that long (and didn't.)

Check on the Priusonline.com site for the contact info of a dealer who sells them over the phone. I can't lay my hands on the info right now. I was very pleased with the conduct and service of the dealer where we phone ordered our warranty. As promised Toyota quickly mailed us our warranty papers and we saved serious cash. OUr dealer said their wholesale cost was more than our retail cost from that guy so they declined to bid.


DONG DONG DONG.... Late breaking news... searched a different way...

Toyota of Greenfield [mailto:info@ToyotaofGreenfield.com]

Guy's name is Troy He wasn't out to just sell us as much as he could. He wanted us to only buy the best fitting package. He advised us to not buy too much time or miles depending on our driving history so we wouldn't have the time expire with lots of unused miles left or vice versa.

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[Pat]

Late breaking Prius announcement...

I used to wonder what you would have to do to get less than 40MPG with a Prius. Now I know. Let your wife drive it exclusively for a week in cold weather with no single trip in excess of 3 miles and many less than a mile. As soon as I drove the car on a short trip 25 miles one way, I brought the tank average mileage up to almost 40 (by averaging nearly 50). I was told to expect poorer winter mileage but mid 30's was a shock till I realized what had happened. Still, I suppose a regular car would be doing similar, just worse. Sure illustrated the short trip in cold weatheer performance hit.

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