Disappointing G3 exterior

I brought my 2009 G2 in for scheduled maintenance today. While I was waiting for service, I found that my dealer had just got in a shipment of new G3s. Most were model IIIs.

I was really anticipating finally getting to see one in person! They had black, red, the gray, and the blizzard pearl, still with their shipping wraps partly in place.

But I have to say that I was really severely disappointed by some of the lack of attention to exterior detail. Granted the cars had not been cleaned yet. But even looking past that, here's some of the things that immediately stood out to me as real "negatives".

• What were they thinking with the gray "fog light opening blanks"?? There is nothing on the exterior of the car that color! Couldn't they have made them to match the body color, or even made them in black! (I know that this has also been mentioned by others).
• The wheel well openings appear larger than those on the G3. As others have noted, they really, really need much more extensive wheel well liners. the suspension components and other items just kind of hang out in the open. They look for all the world like someone forgot to finish building out the wheel wells. The G2 had smaller wheel wells and seemingly more substantial liners, so this was not anywhere near as noticeable on the G2s.
• On the front lower edge of the rear wheel well openings, a rather large piece of body sheet metal wraps into the wheel wheel. On the red and white cars this looked really bad. I can't exactly remember now as I'm typing this, but I think that the rear lower edge of the rear wheel wells were treated the same way. On the G2 these same areas were covered by black plastic flaps, which blended in with the black of the wheel well liners and coatings.
• Up about a third of the way on the rear wheel well openings there is a black plastic tab that helps secure the wheel well liner. It sits right on the body sheet metal lip that forms the wheel well opening. This just looks bad! At first you think, "Gee, someone didn't tuck that under the lip", until you realize, "oh no, they actually made it that way".

I really just couldn't get past how bad these details looked. They "cheapened" the look of the entire car, especially the blizzard pearl and red units. On the black and gray, they are not as noticeable (well, except for the need for better wheel well liners, which looked bad on all colors). I was disappointed, as after seeing the photos here on the forums, I really wanted to say that I liked the new exterior looks of the G3s. I walked up to them expecting to be wowed; instead I was underwhelmed.

Hopefully when the G4s comes out they'll get it right.

 

Before seeing the exteriors of those G3s today, I already knew that there were design features of the interior that I definitely did not like (the cluttered "floating bridge" center console, low color MID, etc). But I could eventually "look past" those kind of items, and maybe even make peace with them, as they are mostly just preference, and I can change my opinion (even though I am a man ), when necessary.

On the other hand, the exterior deficiencies that I mention in this thread seem to me to fall out of the range of "design preferences" into instead that of "cheap" or "poor" design.

I'm already a Prius fan, and so I want to like the G3. But for someone else who has never owned one, and who has an eye towards detail, they may be really off-put by such things.

I was indeed glad to see my beautiful Seaside Pearl G2 when the service was finished.

 

Hello TP:

Maybe there are pieces that the dealer is supposed to put on the wheel wells when they prep the cars? Kind of doubt it. But I'm going to stop in when they have some cars prepped and take another look. However, I seriously doubt that they will look any different.

 

I guess you mean "hottest selling".

Look, I'm not knocking the Blizzard Pearl. It is a beautiful color!! It would be my top choice if I were to buy a G3.

It's just that the problems with the bad design around the wheel wells look worse on the bright colors like the Blizzard Pearl, the Red, etc., since the colors contrast with the wheel wells, and make the deficiencies with the wheel well trim standout more.

 

Maybe you would. But I'm not trying to justify my purchase. I could have waited a few months longer to get the G3. I chose not to, for various reasons.

I've actually been trying to find things that I like about the G3. And there are many, especially in the improved mileage, horsepower, etc. I don't like some of the interior aesthetic design changes. But as I already said, that was not the point of this thread.

The point was not to criticize their design choices. It was to criticize poor execution of some details that cheapen the overall appearance of the exterior of the vehicle.

 

Thank you, F8L. That was precisely my main point.

I thought that I made it clear in my subsequent posts that even though there may be design elements that I don't like about the G3, I wasn't criticizing those (actually, there are many other posts on the forums that have already done that). Rather, I was pointing out some poor details on the G3 exterior execution that really have nothing to do with the "style" of the car. Rather, it has to do with sloppy execution of those details by Toyota.

Others here have already been pointing out the problems with their new G3s (NAV resolution, NAV obsolete maps, MID resolution, intermittent electronic weirdness, can't run on traction battery when you run out of gas, etc). Just as their comments are intended as constructive criticism, so were my comments.

We know that Team Prius reads these forums, and some of our intent is to funnel observations back to them via these forums, so that future generations of the Priuses benefit.

Most people on these forums love the Prius. I'm one of them, and want to see it and other Toyota hybrids succeed. I hope to maybe buy a "G4" or "G5" in the future!

Thanks to those of you who understood my intent.

 

Thanks, DMVP. That may be the case here also, as I pointed out in one of my replies (but I doubt it). To that end, I intend to go back and look at some G3 Priuses that have been fully prepped to do a comparison.

I may even take a camera with me to shoot some photos to illustrate my points the next time.