UK Features & Options round up

I second Tone's appreciation for Toyota UK, this is an awesome thing to do. The car itself exceeded expectations!

I was worried about the touch tracer but it looks great, bright and big, and doesn't require that much pressure, it works just like you'd expect. It has an overlay effect which is great in real life, none of the pictures I've seen do it justice.

Similarly, the HUD is crystal clear and directly in the line of sight for anyone worried about the speedometer being off centre. It's handy having the navigation directions right there too. The touch screen seemed fast and accurate, but I didn't get to play with the HDD features.

The drive is just like everyone's said, much smoother and tighter than the 2nd gen. You really feel an oomph when Power mode is switched on.

Also there's so much storage space in the front seats: two front lockers, bottle holders in the doors, a deep sliding centre drawer and the space below the centre console.

Those are just some of the little things which haven't had much attention drawn to them, but they all added up to make a great first impression. It was also cool to meet Tone_UK!

 

Hey no problem, you would've found out about it anyway!

Thanks for introducing me to your agent at the dealership, I'll definitely call him tomorrow to discuss the deets.

Lets hope such scenes of comraderie and fellowship follow the Prius across its travels!

 

I'm so jealous of you two :clap2:

How was the ride on the 17" wheels. I have 17's on my current car, but I am hoping the Prius will be a tad softer... Audi's tend to be quite firm

 

That's great to hear, thank you

 

Hi all. Toyota GB turned up ay my house this morning and I took the new Prius for a run in the Yorkshire Dales. I probably took the car further than expected but I was enjoying the ride too much. What can I say...wow! I'm on my second Gen 2 and have racked up about 75,000 miles between them so I'm probably in a good position to make a quick comparison. In summary (for UK owners at least) the car is roomier, much smoother, quieter, Power Mode does work (a lot) and the 17's were very quiet and not at all choppy. In fact, the ride is much better than the Gen 2. I find with the Gen 2's, that even in EV mode, there's a lot of noise coming off the tyres but with the Gen 3, even with the 17's, the tyres made no noise creeping along through Masham. The HUD was truly awesome. In Nav mode it was weird seeing the arrows and distance to turn showing up really clearly and brightly. The keyless feature is very good too; merely needing the slightest touch on any part of the door handle to unlock the car. I like the 'flying bridge' too and the alcantara type seats felt (no pun) good with better support than the Gen 2s.

Suffice to say I was very impressed. It's a big step from the 2.

Massive thanks to Toyota GB and especially Simon and Alex. Follow their road trip on: Marathon Prius UK test drive - day two | Toyota UK news, reviews, video and pictures | Today Tomorrow

 

Awesome! *so jealous*

I really can't wait to get mine hehe. Good to know that the seats are quite comfortable, and just as a comparison, would you think they're more comfortable or less than the current generation Fords? (which IMO have the best car seats in Europe)

 

I got to test it too yesterday in Glasgow, but the guys turned up during the worst rainfall this year which made the test drive shorter. Here is what I thought:

Simon and Alex drove up in the new Prius this morning just as the
skies opened and we had the most torrential rainfall I'd seen in
years. Our road had turned into a river, and without jackets or an
umbrella they didn't really want to get out of the car. My first
impressions as they reversed up were that 1) I don't really like white
cars and 2) I wasn't fussed for the new toyota logo badge which has
blue shaded edges. I suspect it would look better on a darker car
though.

After a coffee and a short break in the heavy rain we took a trip to
the M74 where I was able to see how well it was able to accelerate
onto and off the motorway and up slip roads. It did far better than
my older Prius, even with the three of us and some luggage. Due to
the surface water I wasn't able to really accelerate hard (which I'm
sure Simon was happy about as it wouldn't have given great fuel
performance), but I felt the car would have given me more had I pushed
it. I especially liked the Eco mode button on the motorway which made
the car a little less powerful but would teach me to drive better:
Tracy always gets about 5mpg better than me.

The car interior felt a little more refined than my older model,
they've moved the gearstick to the centre console for example. But it
also felt a little less techie; perhaps trying to appeal the car to
the folks who are not hardened star-trek fans. Climate control is now
on a separate panel for example and looks just like you'd find in any
other modern car, a bit of shame not to use the touchscreen for it.
The car modes, graphs, and counters are moved from the touch screen
and are all above the dash now too, but they did feel better there.

After the brief motorway drive we headed through the water (and past a
motorist that had just lost his entire exhaust assembly in a puddle)
and to Bothwell Castle, as much in EV mode as we could. I'd brought
along my PDA loaded with TomTom to compare the sat navigation. Both,
although having recent maps, were out of date, not knowing my house
(although it's been built for more than 10 years), some altered
junctions, and missing a couple of new mini-roundabouts. The prius
had a nice female english accent which didn't scold me for ignoring
her directions and it was quick to re-route. Compared to the speed
calculated from my GPS the car was reading over by about 5% (my
current Prius is over by 10%, so a motorway drive at 77mph is only
really 70mph). It was great to see the next turn shown on the
heads-up display too. I was worried that display would be a bit of a
distraction, but it was actually pretty amazing once they adjusted for
me (I'm quite tall and had to set the seat to the minimum position).
I didn't get chance to use the reversing assist due to the poor
conditions -- in the heavy rain the rear camera had become quite wet
and the rear view was obscured.

Other little things I liked were not needed to insert the key
(although this meant the team were always wondering and double
checking they'd locked the car after leaving it), and having two front
power sockets (the first being underneath the centre console, and the
other inside the armrest. The car also noticed whenever we stopped in
standing water, with a nice dashboard warning symbol. The boot space
and rear legroom seemed bigger too.

Some things I wasn't so sure about; I suspect it's easy to leave
something in the gap under the centre console when you get out of the
car -- you won't see it, but a thief looking in through the side
window will. It was also disappointing that the HDD jukebox system
wasn't able to be loaded from USB (although perhaps you can upload
songs to it via bluetooth? that would be just as useful, but I didn't
ask).

All in all the negative niggles were really just that, and the
positives of the car far outweigh them. The test drive has convinced
me to upgrade to the new model, but it didn't help me decide which of
the range to get. While the t-spirit has all the extra gadgets, I'm
just not sure in practice that we'd use the navigation system or
reversing assist, and so it might be better getting the entry level
model this time and waiting until a future edition that has some of
the things this one is missing.

 

You lucky, jammy sod!

Should have picked me up! Glad to hear that the car is as expected, wonderful! I truly cannot wait to get mine. Definitely going to get the T-Spirit model.

Oh and the english woman voice... does it sound hot or does it sound boring like the BT woman?

 

Can I ask if the guys actually told you that, or was it more that it just lacked USB? I'm still holding out hope that the mini FireWire connector I saw behind the display might allow uploading of music somehow, or at least that the USB/iPod accessory that appears to exist for it will be sold here.

 

There was no USB socket anywhere in their demo car. I don't believe anyone on the drive had tried the firewire port. I didn't even turn on the audio system, would have liked to have tried the bluetooth integration.

 

Pretty boring really. Probably just as well or it would have put me off the driving! It might have come with different voices (like TomTom does), I didn't get to try that though. It certainly sounded better than all the TomTom english voices, that's for sure.

 

wow, it's expensive to buy a prius in the uk! the base price is like $30k... does this include like tax and all?

 

Yup, 15% (normally 17.5%) VAT (sales tax).

 

Prices quoted in the UK are usually described as OTR (on the road). So yes all taxes, delivery charge, first registration, Road Fund License. The Road Fund Licence is annual tax of 15 pounds for the GenII and I think it's 0 pounds the Gen III.

The dealers can still try to add extras, such as paint protection, fabric protection, Gap Insurance Policy, mats, etc.

The price of gas here is roughly 80% taxes, hence the reason that we are paying nearly 1.00 pound a litre.

We pay lots in taxes (over and over), taxes on taxes...

 

Better transit, what do you mean?