Folks,

This is going to be a great car, like all cars it has a few personality
quirks but overall it's the right car for me.

The Quirky stuff.

o No seat height adjustment. A car in this class should have it, most cars I know, at this class level, offer such a feature. Thankfully it's not a big deal for be.

o Cruise control behavior: Other cars I've owned had two annunciator lights, one to signal that the system is powered-up/armed the other to indicate the system is actively controlling the car's speed. THe Prius has only one annunciator, the system powered-up/armed light. It does not have the second light, I miss that.

Second. the cruise control "resume" feature is a little funky. When a set speed is canceled (by tapping brake pedal, or pulling on the control lever) It can be "resumed" by a flick of the steering column lever, if the car's speed is greater than 25-30mph. But if the speed decreases below that threshold, the set speed is canceled. You must press the accelerator pedal to get up to speed and then reset cruise control.

o No temp gauge, no tachometer. I like a lot of feedback from my dashboard to get a quick status on a car's operating condition. Yeah I know it's fly by wire, and you just have to trust how things are working. But I'd still like more info. A third screen on multifunctional display's energy read-out would be nice: Engine Temp, RPM, Oil Pressure, Batt charge state (Hybrid and 12V), maybe a 24 world clock such as the new Palm hand-helds have, or maybe even an average fuel consumption graph (like the RMDB).... How cool would that be? :-)

o Single FCD (fuel consumption display): My 05 HCH had two, I used one to monitor tank-to-tank MPH, I used the other to measure overall MPG.

That's about all I've come up with so far, but they are all quite minor compared to:

o The quite ride. I've always owned mid-priced or eco-cars. On the odd occasion that I'd drive or ride in a luxury car, I couldn't help noticing how quiet those up-scale autos are. I put the Prius' quiet ride on par with some of those up-scale units.

o Traction control/VSC: I test drove the Prius on a cold snowy day in an uncleared parking lot. WOW! Can't wait until it snows again. (Maybe this weekend :-)

o Ability to travel 30-35mph on batts. alone: Numerous times driving around town I've seen this happen. It's especially great under "stoplight creep" conditions. Saving gas, protecting the environment, gotta love that.

o The Hatchback: I sometimes need this extra hauling capacity, the Prius is one of very few automobiles offering such a body style.

o The MP3 audio system. I love ripping/burning my own CDs with mixes of my favorite music. I can get 100-150 songs on a single CD. And when I need it, I have the AUX-in to accommodate my iPod, or an old cassette player for listening to books-on-tape.

o Passenger compartment storage spaces: Door pockets, dual glove boxes, even the center console has two spaces, a drawer and the conventional space under the arm rest. Heck, I don't have enough stuff to put in all these places! :-)

o THE BEST HAS GOT TO BE MPG! Just did my first fill-up, 43.5 mpg average (see "gort" in RMDB). This first week saw temps range as low as 0 to -10 Deg F, to as much as 50 Deg. F., pretty typical of CO front range winter weather. Let the critics say what they will about the economics of Hybrids, it seems they only consider the pay-back of MPG. Surely a cleaner environment is worth something at an economic level. FWIW: I lived the the 70's Arab oil embargo, I like the idea of putting fewer dollars into the pockets of the "oil producers".

o So that's my story, the Prius is definitely a keeper. I hope this info will be useful to those needing more info to make their purchase decision.

 

Woah. MP3 audio system with line-in? Is that something new in the 06?

 

Some comments on your list of quirks:

Cruise control: I have never driven a car that preserves the "resume" speed after slowing below 25 mph. I assumed this was a required safety feature.

Temperature gauge: No exact gauge, but it does have the blue thermometer (too cold) or red thermometer (too hot).

Tachometer: This would be totally meaningless in a Prius. The ICE engine speed rarely has anything to do with the acceleration of the vehicle. In fact, most of the time it is sitting at near idle speeds unless you go uphill or accelerate quickly. What use would tach display do for you? You have no control over the ICE throttle or gear selections (there are no gears).

 

Yep.

From:

http://www.toyota.com/prius/models.html (then click the "interior" tab)

"AM/FM CD with six speakers, auxiliary audio jack and MP3/WMA playback capability"

 

Odd I never had a car that didn't do as I describe. I doubt there is a safety issue/concern, my 05 HCH behaved that way.

Don't see this mentioned in my owners manual. If it's there great, still I would prefer a guage.

Respectively disagree, I don't want the tach as a feedback source for small incremental control input. I want it as a status check. What if I'm cruising at highway speeds and the ICE suddenly stops? Or what if it didn't stop at traffic controls. Over time I would learn what is normal or not. Abnormal behavior would be noticed and cause for investigation.

 

response primero:

If you are cruising at highway speeds and the ICE suddenly stops, you will know it, because at highway speeds, it's only the ICE which will be propelling the car. Your car will slowly slow down and stop.

response segundario:

There is an indicator light which indicates AutoStop. You will know when the car is AutoStopped.

Hope this helps......

 

With a good set of instrumentation you may be alerted to a problem early on before it gets to the point you suggest.


No such indicator on my 06, maybe earlier models have it. Or, are you thinking of the HCH?

 

Maybe the Prius does not have an AutoStop indicator - seems like it HAS to have one, maybe on one of the touchscreen displays?

Any help here, Prius owners? Anyone know how the Prius tells the driver it is in AutoStop mode?

 

OK, I spoke with my cubicle neighbor, who has leased an EV1, owned an Insight, an HCH, and is on his second Prius.

He says on the Fuel Consumption screen, on the display that shows the arrows and the tires and the electric engine and the gasoline engine, When the gas engine and the HSD system are both shown without animated arrows, that means the vehicle is in AutoStop mode.

 

Not necessarily. I've seen the engine run without any acknowledged charging. Other than the sound of the engine running, the only other 'sure' way to see if it's off is with the instant bar graph since it should indicate zero consumption, but even that can sometimes fail to indicate exactly what's going on. Basically if something goes wrong with the ICE (or any other major component) the dash will light up like a christmas tree and you'll know all about it.

If you want more feedback it's possible to hook a computer up to the Prius' system and have it share 'live' system data. I helped my friend put a computer and touchscreen in his Prius, but we haven't attempted the interface yet, but it's on the wishlist.