Just got my 3rd Prius.. a Plug in.. here is my review

Obviously I'm a Prius fan.. this is my third one. 1st one was a 2004 series 3 (i think) with no Nav. Pretty basic but had its 3 door smart key entry which I found pretty sweet. I sold it to a friend that now has nearly 200k on it.. and it's STILL on it's original brakes!! Other than routine maintenance such as tires and a headlight and tail light or two... still going. And Still has the Prius Chat Hybrid decals along the doors My second one was a 2010 Prius III with the NAV and driver door only smart key. I sure did miss that hatch not opening for me... But the car was as dependable as the first. LOVED the nav system.. Saved me lots of times.

So onto my review of my new Plug-in.. Standard. (not advanced). I've only owned it a few days now but I think I'm ready to start with some reviews. Lets start with the bad: The NAV system!! Smaller screen.. I think I could deal with that.. but first thing I noticed was my missing POI's and the ability to add POI's by voice command. I loved the single button push to "Go Home" on my 2010. Now you have to press a few buttons to push to go home. Not even a voice command to "Go Home"? C'mon!!! On the 2010 I could go directly to the Map Screen with a press of the "Map" button.. Now you either fumble through the menu while your driving.. or have to give a voice command to "Show Map" which is bothersome if you are listening to some cool tunes. The POI's are basically from the phone now and will not work if you are not in cell service area.. ouch. I no longer have the ability to say.. find Steakhouses or BBQ. And I don't see food categories such as BBQ, or Chinese food as in my old NAV. I also do not see the traffic information on my route. Unless I'm just missing how to do it.. does this info no longer use XM satellite and uses Bing? Ugh.. It seems a lot on the NAV requires several button pushes to navigate around now. Not good.. and frankly.. a bit dangerous. Now I do like the fact that I can give a voice command of a full address now in one shot. That is an improvement over the old NAV. The pop up screens with lanes suggestions are nice too. So it's not all bad with the new nav.. but I like my old one better so far. My Radio presets are limited to only numbers. No longer naming of the station? I only see the station name if I tune to the station now. I had several pages of presets before.. now only 1? For all the satellite and AM/FM bands? The weather is cool. Fuel prices are cool.. but again.. totally dependent on my phone.. and it seems like it's kinda slow. I'm still on 3g network tho. I know the larger screen is available on the Advanced version.. and probably does all the stuff I used to like on my 2010.. just not worth the extra $$$. I really don't need leather or radar assist. Ok. worst of all.. The Toyota Entune app for my car doesn't include Charging stations? Wth!!??


So on with the good. My commute is 20 miles one way. My first day to work on a fresh charge my summary of mileage was 101 mpg when I arrived at work. Wooohoo.. My commute has 10 miles city, 10 miles hwy. Mostly flat driving. I work for a college.. but no charging stations installed. It's going to be a chore to convince administration to install charging stations. It's been brought up in the past but has fallen on deaf ears. Especially in this environment of gutting education funding to the core. I'm busy trying to find some way to get them installed with a subsidy of some sort.

I'm still yet to go through my 1st complimentary tank of gas and I have gone nearly 300 miles so far. Still have over a half a tank. I'm a happy camper in that regard. The car handles just like it's predecessors. I'm not finding any differences except I'm finding it easier to win on the gas saving video game on the dash display. I'm sure my mileage performance will improve when I can turn down the A/C. We are currently having a heat wave here in Southern California.

The interior is very similar to my 2010. The front seat center arm rest no longer has the sliding to and fro option. I don't think I'll miss that. I never used it much. But I am going to miss the ability to remove the cup holders to clean. Why did they get rid of that? oh and I got my 3 door smart key entry back.. Hallelujah!

I noticed that they rotated things on the steering wheel thumb buttons. I never really got used to the ones on the 2010. It seemed it was more logical on my 2004 too. But these seem pretty logical to me.. and I think I'll prefer this order better than my 2010 model.

Charging seems simple enough. I did plug into a 15 amp circuit at my brother in laws house outside and for some reason.. it tripped his circuit breaker after a few minutes. It also tripped one at my home later that evening. I'm not sure if something else was on concurrently on that circuit.. but I have now switched to one that I know is all by itself with nothing else running on the circuit.. but it is currently requiring me to use an extension cord.. (I have a nice thick gauge chord and I felt it for heat).. It seems to be just fine. I know the manual says not to use an extension cord. But until I get the electrician out to my house.. I'll have no choice. I should have it's own socket in the driveway in the car port in about a week. I started to also to use the timer now and have it charged up in the very early morning hours so it's done about an hour before I go to work.

I'm not noticing any decrease in performance with this heavier Prius. The suspension does seem a little more stiff. Maybe it's just new, and my fat butt hasn't broken in the springs yet. I haven't tried the speed bump brake skip trick yet. I'm curious to see if they still do that. Both my 2004 and 2010 would skip for a split second at a certain speed going over a speed bump.. even after the firmware upgrade.

Well, that's about all I can say with my few days into it. I'll add as I go on. I'm not crazy about the new NAV.. but I am still pretty happy especially with the incentives, rebates, and interest rate, and most importantly.. my MPG.

 

I'll have to look again. Do you have the 7 inch screen?

 

Yeah.. for instance.. I listen to Deep Tracks on XM alot. It shows up only as 27.. until I tune to it.. then I get the name of the station. I'll have to look again to see where I'm missing the pages. I have about 14 or 15 favorite stations. Now I have to memorize which each number is.

 

Thanks.. good to know on the pages of radio stations. I must have just missed it somehow. I'll look tonight.

 

Thanks. I'll take you up on the offer for the PDF's. Message me and I'll give you an e-mail address to send it to. Or maybe even a FTP site if needed. I've called the Calif Dept of Energy and they gave me a few leads. I also e-mailed and spoke with someone at Chargepointamerica.com. They apparently had some American Reinvestment Act funds for charging stations as an infrastructure stimulus. They were even giving free ones to just consumers at homes. But apparently that money has run out because now everyone is wait listed. They advised to contact one of their vendors to see if they have any funds left. Being a community college, I thought it would be good PR for both the college and Chargepointamerica: Green jobs, environment.. saving fuel... and so on.

 

Thanks, I'll have to do it that way. I did like on the old NAV that pressing "home" was very simple. The voice command "Favorite Home" willl work tho. Appreciate the advice. I'm still learning this thing.

Next I have to figure out why my Android phone won't do the texting and e-mail. Says it's not supported.