Rear view mirror

The spilt rear window has been a design since the Gen 2 Prius. I doubt mirror angle can help.
I cannot comment about your anti glare feature because my Trim two is manual, not electronic.

 

I find the split to which which you are referring (in my 2009 Gen II) is perfectly positioned to prevent any tail-gaters¹ dazzling me with their lights. I thought it was a great piece of design (…devilish craftly these Japanese, (…and all little short-arses, just like wot I am!)

¹ - my usual remedy for tail-gaters is to do a full front & rear screen wash, particularly when on the highway - not so effective when in slow city traffic!

 

... short-arses, you say. You a Brit then?

Back on topic, OP will have to adjust his seat height (preferably not while driving) to get the reflected lights more obvious, but I'd risk suggesting a glance at the side mirrors would be a better solution for him. Also, I don't detect much difference between the auto-dimming mirror and when it's off. Perhaps they don't perform very well at all. Now wait for comments to pour in!

 

My auto dimming mirror takes a few seconds to work sometimes. A car will approach from behind with unusually bright lights and at times, the mirror doesn't dim as fast as it would in my 2003 car, which is a surprise.

A Gen 4 was behind me today for the first time, and even with the auto dim, his lights appeared quite bright, in rear and side mirrors. Now I know how other drivers feel when I'm behind them.

 

i've had a few auto dimming mirrors, i prefer manual, i feel like they cut the light more. the only thing that bothers me about the hatch view is not being able to read the license plate to report tail gaters.

 

Most mirror adjustments include more than just tilt and swivel angles. An articulated joint to the mount also allows some vertical adjustment range. Have you pushed the mirror to the very top of its range?

The higher the mirror, the closer the tailgater must be to hide its headlights on that hatch divider.

I can't speak for the Gen 4, but the Gen 3 hatch divider isn't really any higher than the trunk and butt of many modern sedans. I can see through the glass below, but they can't see through their opaque trunks.

 

Maybe you can move your seat up or down until you can see the lights of the cars behind. Or just turn off auto dimming so the light reflects to other parts of the mirror? The design has been the same since gen 2. Yes, the rear visibility has always been sort of bad, but I've never heard of a problem like this before. Good luck

 

This is super frustrating - my conclusion on this is that that bar in between the hatch glass is a perfectly aligned shadow on the sensor location of the mirror - which makes the mirror sensor useless. Try this when its safe... shine your phone light into the sensor on the mirror and you will see it works immediately and very well, but not for the cars behind us unfortunately. I find this design flaw to quite annoying as its sold as a a premium feature, that simply does not work 95% of the time.

 

I think you hit the nail right on the head zerostudio. An excellent diagnosis!

 

I suspect that, if there was no glass below that divider (as with other cars), this wouldn't be an issue. That said, it still bugs me sometimes.

And as for that automatic mirror dimming, it was JUNK on my '05. My biggest gripe about the car (maybe my only gripe about the car) was how it would not dim when it should and there was nothing I could do about it. I covered the light sensor on the front of the mirror and that helped a little, but it was still only about 50% effective. I'm glad to have the old fashioned manual one on my PiP and the wife's '07 so I get some say in whether I get blinded by the cars behind me without having to aim the mirror at the roof.

 

I have my mirror adjusted to see through the top rear window only, I don't use the bottom one. Due to the turbulence around the rear end it always gets dirty in bad weather so you can't see through it anyway. Like Jerry says most other cars don't have it, just a high rear end.

 

I find that the rear upper glass is still a bit shallow and shows me less my wife's 04 civic. And with the US version, the rear head rests blocked off the sides of the lower glass. This leads to a blind spot I have to compensate with by flipping the headrests down and adjusting the side mirrors all the way outward. Because I don't have BSM on my eco trim, I'm cautiously changing lanes to check if a car in lane 1 is possibly changing to lane 2 while I'm changing from lane 3 to lane 2. However, the B pillar is so large that I can't be sure. I feel like a worse driver in this than my old 98 Camry.

 

I paid more attention on today's drive and will admit that the cross bar is a little higher than the rear deck on most cars. But it doesn't obstruct the view of following traffic. As for blind spots, I'm an incorrigible over the shoulder checker from my motorcycling days. Even with that, someone can sneak up on you, though. A blind spot monitor is a nice addition to but not a substitute for checking over your shoulder.

 

I definately agree with you about checking over the shoulder. I do the same for every lane change. Maybe my seat position is too far back, but when I check my left shoulder, most of my vision is blocked by the b pillar.

 

I didn't know there is a button to turn the auto-dimming on/off. I thought the green light is for the garage door opener. (Why are there 4 buttons?). But I agree the amount of dimming is practically useless. I've found two things to help - 1. I turn my parking permit dongle up to cover the light sensor. 2 - if headlights behind me are really strong I take out a penlight and point it into the mirror. It darkens the mirror, and let's the tailgater behind me know I'm aware of them.

 

When I was a new college graduate, just moved to a new state and job, I discovered that a bit over half my coworkers who had also changed states, had flunked their first attempt for a new local driver's license. Lack of a shoulder check was sufficient to fail the test, but many had moved from regions where it was not required.

Fortunately, I passed on my first try.

 

Yes, the mirror's a failure, but you simply have to turn it to one side. No need to shine a torch on it.

 

That is UK speak for flashlight, not blow torch