Dissatisfied owner....

I have been fortunate to own some very nice cars and I consider myself to be an auto enthusiast so people who know me always ask why I bought a Prius. I tell them I bought the Prius as a great form of transportation not because it is a great car. You get great gas mileage but you have to sacrifice A LOT to get that mileage.

In any case, the prius is a unique vehicle in that so many different types of people with their own reasons for buying a prius drive this car and that many different types of people all have as many opinions.

That being said, I have a 2009 touring pkg 6 I picked up 2 months ago with currently 800 miles that I will most likely sell when the Porsche Cayenne hybrid comes to market early 2009. Any offers?

 

Maybe I can agree (with Mr Antlers) without being quite so disagreeable. I have had my Option 6 touring for one year and 10K miles. It's a gas to drive and an interesting piece of technology. But, come on! It's really more of a go kart with really nice seats. Toyota has used minimum standards everywhere in the chassis and finish. In an effort to save weight the material is minimum strength and thickness. I 'm not saying it is bad, it's just built to minimum standards. Look at the interior, not exactly plush or well crafted for a (my) $27,000 car, in my opinion. The paint is THE WORST I've ever seen in 40 years of owning many cars and trucks. Rub it with a clean soft towel and it will scratch. Look at the rear brakes and hubs, many motorcycles have brakes on the rear with more stopping power. Look at the shocks, my gosh, that's like a $20 shock. The hood will dent from a really large bug hit (OK well maybe that's a little over the top) But, seriously folks, you can't really claim that the Prius is anything more than an aerodynamic econo box.
How about that 2010, though? I can hardly wait.

 

with the rapidly changing auto market we are currently in, let us know when the vehicle will be available...taking offers now for a car that cannot be delivered for several months is probably not the best of ideas.

 

I've had many people compliment the interior of my Prius, and I like it as well. The design is light weight and functional.

Toyota elected to introduce a new environmentally friendly paint process with the Prius. Unfortunately the resulting paint is not as hard as those with high VOCs. Hopefully the process will improve, but in the mean time I am happy that Toyota is being environmentally responsible in this area.[/quote]

It's just sound engineering. The friction brakes on a Prius are only used at low speeds or for a panic stop. There is no need for big, low-fade friction brakes. All they would do is add weight and cost.

Low weight and no rust. I like that in a hood. My Jeep C-J5 used to have a steel hood that you could stand on. That Jeep also got 15 mpg and rusted like an old can. Heavy is not necessarily good.

The term econobox suggests cheap, but the design of the Prius is anything but cheap. It's all about weight and efficiency.

Tom

 

Oh, I know WHY it is like it is, and I'm willing to accept it as it is, but many of you don't really realize what it is.

 

Oh, Good Grief! Antlers is back in a new incarnation.

 

Thing is, aluminum hoods aren't used only on "econoboxes."

Check the hood on the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, which is a $50,000 car. YEP, ALUMINUM HOOD. On a $50,000 car. GM wanted to save weight on the hybrid (the normal version has a steel hood).

One can't also say the Prius is an "econobox" based on its mechanical brakes. Remember the Prius uses regenerative braking and does not need big beefy brakes. When's the last time you saw an econobox with a regenerative braking system?

I do agree the Prius paint is not very durable though, but I suspect that would be true of any car with an environmentally-friendly paint job, expensive or not.

 

Wow- anybody who thinks the Prius is an econobox is pretty spoiled!

I drove a '99 Civic hatchback 304,000 km prior to my 2008 Prius. Now THAT car was an econo-box! It was the cheapest car Honda sold, mind you! Noisy as hell! Poor body fit and finish, especially between door window glass and trim. Water leaks on the back hatch. No AC, no automatic transmission. Manual window regulators, locks etc. No power assist to the steering. Etc etc etc. But man, was it RELIABLE! Virtually nothing went wrong- because there was virtually nothing TO go wrong with! It was a GREAT car- just about the lowest cost of ownership I've ever had in a vehicle. And with the 5-speed it was reasonably fun to drive too!

Yeah, there are things that I don't like about the Prius. Chief amongst them is the price premium I had to pay over the US MSRP and freight/PDI- that was a scandalous rip-off, which Toyota went out of its way to perpetuate by telling US dealers they'd lose their dealerships if they sold to Canadians...

The gas tank bladder and resulting "guess gauge" is a real pain in the @ss- one of the benefits I wanted to get out of this car, ie. stopping LESS frequently for gas, has been thwarted a fair bit by that stupid thing. Reading empty when there's still 10 litres in the tank- come on guys! And I'm thinking the traction control is going to become a real pain this winter- never had to buy snows for a car before and hoping I don't have to find a place to store four rims all year round. Don't care much for the climate controls.

But calling this car an "econobox" is totally unfair. It's QUIET, very comfortable, roomy, two more doors for the kids (and their car seats), has TONS of power when you need it, has TOO MANY bells and whistles if anything, is dead easy to drive, and gets better gas mileage WITHOUT TRYING than I ever got from the Honda Civic- a vehicle which was HALF the car this one is.

Will I ultimately be a satisifed owner and say that it was worth the money? I reserve judgment until I've got 300,000 km on this thing. I'll report back on that in another 9 years!

 

Okay fine. It's not an econobox. But all the stuff I said is true.

BTW, Lurkin, Your Prius does not have "mechanical" brakes. It has hydraulic drum brakes on the rear (just like any other post-war american automobile) and hydraulic disk brakes on the front.

Regarding the comments insinuating that the regen reduces the need for bigger brakes, exactly the opposite is true. A non-hybrid decelerates much quicker by acting against the compression and pumping losses against the closed throttle valve in the gas engine. The regen imparts much less retardation with gas engine off. To illustrate this, put your car in the "B" (engine brake) position while coasting. You will note the added deceleraton provided by the gas engine. That's what it's for.

 

Sorry, you are definitely wrong there. Regenerative braking DECREASES the requirement for more powerful hydraulic brakes. When you brake the Prius, you are using BOTH regen and hydraulic braking. If you are using hydraulic braking alone as in a regular car, then you need big rotors and pads because there is no regen to assist with the braking.

And when you use B-Mode, you are combining both mechanical engine resistance braking (through the planetary carrier gear in the PSD to directly spin the engine crankshaft) AND electrical braking: http://www.techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/b-mode.html

It's used to dissipate energy that cannot be stored in a battery that has already been fully-charged. As a matter of fact, when you engage B-Mode, it immediately causes electrical Motor/Generator 2 to regenerate 30-40 amps of current from the car's forward motion (causing drag) without even stepping on the brake pedal, and increases from there the further you press the brake pedal. B-MODE DOES NOT RELY ON DIRECT MECHANICAL ENGINE BRAKING ALONE.

The only electrical difference between B-mode and D-mode braking is that the regenerated electricity is used to turn the engine against internal resistance rather than storing that regenerated electricity in the battery.

And when I refer to "mechanical" brakes in the Prius, I'm differentiating the hydraulic (which is a type of mechanically-actuated friction brake) from the electricity-regenerating braking system.

Like I said, when was the last time you saw an econobox with an electrical regenerative braking system in addition to a hydraulic brake system?

 

Sure,when you engage B you are not decoupling the regen, you are adding to it with compression braking. Never said otherwise. Still, the point is that without the compression braking normally available in a gas only car, total decel is less unless you engage the B. More robust brakes might be desireable in the long run.The point is moot of course because very little braking is done on the rear and the fronts are quite good (I suspect fairly soft pads- we'll see).

 

If you are comparing the Prius to a car with a manual transmission (which can engine-brake a lot harder than a car with an automatic transmission), then you are not making a valid comparison at all. Let's remember the Prius is supposed to be analogous to a car with a P-R-N-D automatic.

When you take your foot off the gas pedal to coast to a stop sign, the preprogrammed regen drag in the Prius is about the same as the pedal-off drag you will feel in an automatic Corolla. Putting the Prius into B-mode would be like putting the Corolla's automatic transmission into low gear, which you typically don't do under normal driving conditions in either car.

The fact is the Prius regen braking system works just as well, if not better, than the normal friction braking systems found in auto-tranny cars. If you insist that it does not, then how do you explain the fact that the Prius front disc brake pads last 100,000 miles, when the pads in most auto-tranny cars last 20,000-40,000 miles?

We got a 100,000-mile club of Prius owners here on Priuschat. You can ask them yourself at what intervals they had to change their front brake pads. Don't take my word for it-- Go to their thread and ask: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/29373-100-000-mile-club.html Most of them will tell you they are still on their original pads.

Regenerative braking in the Prius does a significant amount of the work of slowing down the car. That is why it does NOT need friction brakes anywhere near as beefy as in a normal car, that is why its brake pads last as long as they do, and that is why it is foolish to judge the Prius just by looking at its friction brakes.

 

i think paint durability is affected the the "stiffness" of the surface. the hood being aluminum is softer, so easier to dent so chips will happen much easier... i have a few chips, had them for over a year in a very wet, humid environment, but despite being bare metal there, no rust.

so you see, there is a trade off. steel: harder, paint sticks better, heavy, rust prone

aluminum: softer, easier to chip. rust a non issue, lighter.

so now you have it. what would you rather have?? having lived in areas where salt is used extensively, and knowing that even if the car was washed every week, it would still rust in 3-4 years... i would MUCH rather have the aluminum.

 

I've owned my 2008 Prius for a full year now, and whenever the Cadillac commercial pops on TV - y'know the one that asks "when you turn your car on, does it return the favor?" I just automatically shout YES!!!

Sure would like to hear definitive reasons why this guy is not happy - oops, just realized there were 14 pages of OMG's already posted! Now that I've read the "complaints", I'm really baffled. Upholstery? Yes, well my Mercedes (BP - that's "before Prius") had gorgeous seats with stunning upholstery, and they weighed about 200 pounds! It achieved half the mileage of the Prius and required Premium gasoline. Required, not liked to have. This thread must have been started by someone who just larked into a dealership, saw a Prius and said "I'll have that" without even the most basic inspection or self-education prior to purchase. But he certainly has elicited some interesting responses!

BTW, thanks to "justlurkin". I didn't realize the regen brake system was more sophisticated than the binary technique used by Honda in the Insight whereupon touching the brake pedal, you first get maximum regen braking, then hydraulics are applied with additional pedal pressure.

 

Plenty of vehicles have aluminum hoods.

Hell, several very expensive vehicles are ALL aluminum.

 

Making up false 'facts' and proferring them as 'the truth' that can only be verified by agreeing to personal opinion is what's rude. None of what you said is truthful.

The crashworthiness is false. My own has been hit twice and repaired twice and runs flawlessly at 95000 mi.

 

There are a few cheap things in the Prius - like why the steering wheel just is adjustable up and down and why the driver's seat in north american version has a fixed height. Another thing that says "cheap car" is the built in clock that, at least on my 2007, won't show anything but AM/PM (here we use 24-hours). The heater is too weak and so is the rear demister. The front wheels don't "communicate" as much with the driver as a car should.

Even with it's flaws, I still love my car and I will probably buy another Prius when I'm done with this one (hopefully, there will be an estate version in the future - I need more luggage room).

In a car as high-tech as the HSD is, it would be nice with some high tech options - like Merc's distronic, night vision, whiplash protection in the seats, pre-safe crash protection, some thing like Citroën's lane departure warning system, Volvo's BLISS (blind spot information system).


Volvo's BLISS:
YouTube - Volvo's Blind Spot Information System
Volvo's Lane Departure Warning System:
YouTube - Volvo Lane Departure Warning System

Sorry, couldn't find a clip with Citroën's lane departure warning system (AFIL) in english.

 

The other part of the equation missing from the above is that when you take your foot off the gas pedal to brake then at speeds under 41 mph the ICE is turned off thus there is no forward 'pull', however small, as there would be in say a Corolla. Your braking, whether regen or hydraulic, doesn't have to fight against the forward pull of the ICE since it's shut off.

 

Most of what you wish for is coming in the Gen3 next spring. As you are aware the models that we drive now are essentially the 2004 model which was designed and finalized in the 2000 - 2002 time frame. At that time when the Gen2 Prius was launched this vehicle was WOW !! winning every award available at that time.

It's pretty amazing that 5 yrs down the road it still is one of the most technologically advanced vehicles on the road. Gen3 should add new features that address your concerns and advance the state of the technology for mass market autos.