My Prius Review: I HATE THIS THING!

To that list, I'd add reliability, low maintenance costs, and generous interior room.

 

that would be LOSING money NOT LOOSING money!

if you don't wear a belt you can LOSE your pants if they are LOOSE

 

1) Loved the exterior and interior redesign. Not a fan of the 04-09 styling.
2) My daily commuter got 39mpg so the Prius beating it is nice.
3) Relative to other cars we could afford, the Prius came with a good mix of space, goodies, safety and comfort.
4) Interest in new technology.
5) Offset my weekend toy with a car that polutes less and consumes less gas.
6) Wife and I are going to expand our family soon.
7) My employer offered $3,000 back on a purchase of a Hybrid.
8) Proven reliability and low cost to maintain.

 

1) My wife wanted a hybrid. When mama's happy, everyone is happy. I was waiting on the Saturn Vue 2 mode Hybrid which will never be sold, as I doubted a Prius could hold my networking gear.

2) It holds all my stuff. I was very skeptical that it would but the dealer offered to let me take a test drive over night so I could load all my gear in it and test the mileage. Wise choice on his part.

3) It pollutes less than any other car that meets 1) or 2). While owners may buy a Prius for mileage, I suspect the Toyota engineers designed the Prius for reduced emissions. (One of the solutions to less emissions happened to be: use less gas in the first place)

4) I like good gas mileage, some day we will be out of petroleum, and wonder how we could have thought it was a good idea to burn it up.

5) It is quiet. I like not being the 'loud exhaust' in my neighborhood. The less my neighbors think about me, the better!

6) My wife complained about my owning a manual transmission, I set out to get a CVT so my car would be 'more automatic' than hers. Teaching her cost two clutches in the Subaru.

7) Both my wife and I's most reliable car ever was a 1989 Toyota Corolla, buying another Toyota appealed to us. (My Alltrac wagon is still in the family, 20 years and 230,000 miles later. Her sedan fell victim to nephews)

8) I bought a Subaru Forester when I lived at 5000 feet and worked at 6500 feet. It snowed ten months a year and all wheel drive was a great idea. Now that I live in Mississippi, it is hard to explain why I needed an all wheel drive SUV. 42 MPG is better than 24 MPG when you have a 110 mile daily commute. My daughter loves the Forester at the 49th parallel.

 

I think that once again you have no idea what you are talking about. First, who says that we were "altruistic" by choosing the Prius over a dinosaur? Second, who said that the Prius owners were replacing SUV's? It's a very diverse group and it is unlikely that you will find former SUV owners over-represented here in comparison to the general population. I've never owned an SUV for example.

I'll differ with Evan in that I do believe the Prius fuel vs. price economics make sense compared to a comparably equipped Accord or Camry. At $2.50/gallon it is much tighter than at $4/gallon or higher. Cheap gasoline is unlikely to last much past the end of this massive recession.

Outside the norm for what? Prius owners? Not likely. And again, folks reasons for selecting a vehicle usually have several components. For many Prius owners this is likely to be one of them.

Once again refuted your own argument.

I've got news for you, it isn't the 70's...the point at which U.S. Peak Oil production occurred. There is a lot more to the energy supply and demand situation now. Whereas price was once driven by artificial supply restriction, that is no longer the case. But all of that is without even considering CO2.

It really is humorous having a Sebring and Corvette owner try to lecture us about both quality (Sebring) and economy/value (Corvette.) You wouldn't happen to be wearing one orange sock and one green one would you?

I'm still laughing about your "analysis" of the car market:

Your wife came from a Camry and we went from an Accord to a Prius. I've seen a lot of similar comments here by others. I'll bet there were a lot of buggy salesmen with comments similar to yours...ca. 1905.

 

This is an interesting thread, lol.

I must have very low standards, having started my driving career 36 years ago in a VW Beatle (1967 with a "whopping" 53 HP). Since then I've driven BMWs, Pontiacs (1967 Executive model hehe), Hondas, a ton of Camrys (the original boring car, lol), a few Corollas and a Highlander.

I bought my wife a 2004 from a neighbor, garage kept, 83K, with every service record since it was new (sweet). We put new Michelin Hydroedge with GreenX on it (rated 90K warranty - we'll see) and pumped them up to the sidewall max of 44psi. I also put the BT Tech stiffing plate on it. The net: It's no so bad. Of course, it's not a vet, but for a little "jitter bug" it's reasonably comfortable, quiet, great gas mileage and most importantly: The wife loves it. Now that can get you a lot of "mileage" :rockon:

 

YAAAY! We have the Dust to Dust report quoted!

TROLLING COMPLETE.

 

it's funny - when i try to reply to your silliness i see the following as your content:

And don't even go with environmentally friendly. If I told you how environmentally dangerous the Prius's batteries are due to the nickle, you would throw a sh*t fit. Even if they are recycled 100%, they have to be made in the first place. And making them is extremely toxic to the environment. If you don't want to belive me, please by all means look up Nickle Ore toxcity on google. Look at how much earth has to be refined for 1 kG of nickle. Look up Nickle Sulfides which are ALWAYS released to the atmosphere when smelting ore. Smelting the ore requires 809C temperature or higher in six hour shifts. Do you know how much gas/coal that is burnt to refine that when it's not a mineral dense material like iron ore? BTW: Nickle makes up .008% of the earths crust. Do you know how much earth you have to scoop up for that? (Most of which is strip mined) ~1%->3% of Nickle is radioactive isotopes of Ni56 and Ni59.

 

Nickel's primary use is in the manufacture of stainless steel for construction and industrial use. The amount used in making hybrid car batteries is insignificant in comparison.

If you really hate the pollution from the use of nickel so much, why are you not railing against the building of skyscrapers or manufacturing of jet engines?

A typical 747 jet engine uses 10 tons of high-temperature nickel alloys in its turbine assembly. That's enough for a few dozen Prius batteries. Why are you not having your sh*t fit against Boeing, Airbus or Pratt & Whitney?

Or how about the change in your pocket? The U.S. Mint uses more nickel per year to make your nickels and dimes than Toyota uses to make batteries. Where's your sh*t fit against the U.S. Department of Treasury?

The nickel rant against the Prius is old tired crap with little basis in fact.

 

Ooo, look, dg has a degree from google university! LOL

How much nickel is in the stainless steel in your exhaust system on your vette? Will it be recycled? Nickel isn't strip mined, it comes from deposits from old meteor hits. I've had enough of this fool.

 

In addition, most of the nickel in a Prius battery will be recycled. When you buy a Prius you essentially pay a deposit on the battery, and Toyota refunds the deposit when you return the battery for recycling.

Tom

 

Recyled -- just like all of the NiMH batteries in cell phones, cordless phones, cameras, mp3 players . . . Right?

 

Actually, none of them really do beat it as a package. But I've seen enough trolls like you to realize that going through them one by one is a waste of time. Doing a comparison with Matrix and Corolla's getting half the mileage (and with manual transmission and not as nice inside--I've driven the Corolla and it isn't even close) is typical for jokers like you. Fact is that the Prius is not up against econoboxes and none of them even factored into my comparison shopping list. It is up against standard family sedans--never mind that you are too clueless to realize/admit it. Gee, how many times will we have to review your wife's buying history, mine, and others before this penetrates your skull? :brick:

No, I would laugh at what a silly troll you are for even trying this angle. What a simpleton. :rofl:

I actually gave you the benefit of a doubt at first, but now I admit I was wrong: you really are just another troll. Go find a bridge.

 

Chances are that there are more Nickel in your Corvette than in the Prius battery pack. Remember that steel consists of 6% Nickel.

3,000 lbs steel would have 180 lbs Nickel. Prius HV battery pack weights 99 lbs with only ~30 lbs Nickel. So the Corvette would have 6x more Nickel than the Prius battery pack.

Tires are pretty bad for the environment too. They need to be recycled. Why do people turn the blind eye on them? Burning rubber at the race track for fun is OK but 99 lbs HV battery pack that conserves 3,000 gallon of gasoline (18,900 lbs) and produces 57,000 lbs less CO2 is under microscope? Wow!

* 25 MPG car compared with 50 MPG Prius over 150k miles life time.
* One gallon of gasoline weights 6.3 lbs
* One gallon of gasoline produces 19 lbs of CO2.

 

I never liked Toyota's because of the handling and response issues, much preferring Honda, for example. However, I now have a 2006 Prius, and I love the car. It handles well enough, and I got all the thrills I needed when I had my SHO. I've moved past that, and can appreciate the overall package, which is done quite well. Of course, there is always room and ways to improve things, so stop complaining, and get to work!

 

Okey Dokey, I'll do just that.

Search on Prius Nickle

First Hit

Second hit

And we find this, too

Next!

 

OP, many of your criticisms could be levied at Toyota cars in general. Heck, a Toyota exec the other week said their cars are 'boring' and promised to fix it. So as I wrote earlier, you are far from alone. Many people heap Honda into this pile as well.

OTOH, a car company called GM, that you may have heard of, promotes driving excitement. It is a ward of the US government these days. I'd hate to see Toyota learn from GM.

To wit: Cars *are* meant to get from A to B. Selling them as virtual penises is a puerile hiccough in history only possible when fuel was cheap. Time to smell the roses. Now, for some *real* excitement and adrenaline, buy a bicycle. Stepping on hte go pedal and feeling a little nudge from the car's seat as excitement would put my grandma to sleep.