About to Buy my First Prius. Looking for Advice!

LaGirl,

Be patient, expect to get lots of talk and little action from your dealers, and expect to pay list plus whatever overpriced fuzzy dice they are pushing in your area.

The Cash4Clunkers program decimated inventories of virtually every brand, and the 2010 Prius is probably one of the hardest cars to find in the country.

Try everywhere; cars.com, ebay, autotrader.com, and check them virtually every day.

Good luck!

Joe

 

I guess that really depends on what options you are looking for. As for me, my previous car was an '06 Lexus IS loaded to the gills, so I wanted my Prius to have similar conveniences. I was debating between Package III and IV, but I decided I to buy the IV for the leather, navigation, backup camera (which the Lexus had). The sunroof and solar panels were pleasant additions though.
The IV also has water-repellent front windows and heated seats, if that makes any difference.

 

If I lived in LA with the traffic I would have bought one five years ago instead of this month. Your right on running the numbers and seeing the benefits of owning a hybrid.

12K miles a year in LA expect to save $1200 a year in fuel cost.

Murano averages 20 mpg maybe.
Prius averages 50 mpg.

Murano takes premium at $3.20 a gallon.
Prius takes regular at $3.00 a gallon.
Found gas costs here.
Gas Prices - MSN Autos

12K miles a year
Murano costs $1,920
Prius costs $720
Difference is $1,200 a year in fuel costs.

 

I love the backup camera. My 2006 Prius has one.

Tom

 

Unfortunately, the Prius does not have the option of a back-up camera without getting the NAV system. If you like the Prius NAV, that's good!; but if you are like me and many others who consider the Prius NAV not a good value, then you would have to waste too much money for just a back-up camera. In that case, it is better to have a cheaper (but better) after-market installed. Honestly, for me, back-up cameras is the most useless piece of technology in a car (that is just me!). I have it in my Odyssey but always have to turn back and look thru the back window anyway. It's is good for small objects/toys/pets! right behind the trunk but I never have that problem in my house.

 

Hi Louisiana Girl,
I have a Prius with Nav and a backup camera. If you really want that feature, that's fine, but I wouldn't say its a must-have considering the additional expense. Its too bad they don't offer the rear view mirror backup camera in the US that is available here in Canada. Its much cheaper and just as effective. Nevertheless, you will be happy with your new Prius. For the month that I have had mine, there have been no regrets. Good Luck!

 

All good advise so far. I also have the Nav system and like it, but as others have pointed out, it's not cheap.

Tom

 

Hi Lagirl and :welcome:

You ask for opinions here and you'll get a bucketful!! If you have the Prius literature, go through all the options to see what you'd like/what's really important to you and then you can balance that against cost.

I have never had a backup camera and still, I only find it handy to see how close I am to the car behind when I'm parallel parking. (Can't get used to facing forward to go backward) Unlike a lot of folks here who are used to a portable Nav system, this one is my first - and I've had no problems with it - it's got me where I needed to go everytime.

I really wanted leather, a bum warmer and sunroof. So I was a captive of the IV. But not everyone wants or needs those goodies. Pick what you need/want and find the package that comes as close as possible. Most likely you'll have to sacrifice something.

Good luck, be patient, call a lot of dealers and let us know what you get!!

 

Welcome!

I shopped around and then found a dealer with one coming in fairly close to me. He happened to be the one through the costco program too so I'm getting a tiny price break. (not much, but in this frenzy it adds to my 101 reasons to love costco)

Many dealers told me 2-4 months out. Some would not tell me how long it would take.

I found that dealers willing to look at their allocations were more serious and tended to be able to find me specific cars they could "put my name on".

I ended up putting between 1 and 5 hundred dollars at three dealers.

I've been working on this for about three weeks now and have a car that just hit port last night! I've heard horror stories of people having their cars sold out from under them though, so I'm still on the "wait-list" at my local dealer.

Happy hybrid hunting!

 

I doubt anybody relies on a backup camera to parallel parking, but if anybody does, STOP before you wreck your car! Again, the main purpose of backup cameras is to look for hidden small objects being your car not visible thru the window. The recommendation is that you still need to look back when backing up.

 

The backup camera is excellent for checking clearance behind when parallel parking. Obviously you don't use it as a substitute for looking out the windows and using the mirrors. It's another data point. With the backup camera you can see the top of the rear bumper, so you know exactly how much room you have. It's a great help.

Tom

 

Maggie is right about the bucketful of opinions, lol. Your choice of a pkg III is a good one. Some people really appreciate having the front passenger door handle touch lock/unlock sensor (as opposed to just the driver's door). If this is something you want , then you may want to review options in pkg IV. The packages are arranged so that sometimes relatively minor options are only available with a pile of other pricey features, but this practice is not unique to Toyota. Overall, the Prius is really well-equiped for the price.

 

We originally wanted a Camry hybrid but the 1st dealer we went to had none. I called another local dealer who told me there were none anywhere on the ground on the east coast that were not already spoken for. He said he thought he had one Prius left if it had not been sold the night before (the C4C program had cleaned them out). He said it was a model IV with leather and Nav. As luck would have it, it was in our desired colors of red/tan (really just dumb luck). I told him I'd call him right back. I called a golfing buddy of mine who has had a Prius for a few years to ask how he liked it, he told me they really liked it (his daughter drives it), that was enough for me. I called back and it was still available. I asked how much he could discount it, he just laughed. I put a deposit on my credit card to hold it until my wife could get there to test drive it.

We met there and she drove it and liked it. Our salesman was a big guy (about 6'4"), he fit in the back seat easily, I was impressed with the interior volume, this really is a mid-size car. I told him let's go write it up.

Ours was also a C4C deal, we traded a '94 Jeep worth about $1700 and got the $4500 rebate. We "effectively" got nearly 10% off sticker, schweeeeet!

We prefer leather so the IV was right for us. The Nav is very handy and I think it works fine. It's probably not a great value compared to all the portable ones available but it won't be stolen, portable GPS's are the thieves primary targets these days. The back-up camera is nice but not a necessity for us (it comes with the Nav). The solar roof might have been nice here in VA but it's expensive. The Tech package (laser cruise and lane-keep-assist) might have been cool but I think that's also very expensive (might only be available on the V).

If you want leather, you must get the IV. We like the Nav, on a recent trip in our Lexus RX400h (same Nav as Prius), we used it a lot to find stuff. The Solar or Tech packages might be cool but I think they're very expensive.

In conclusion, get the IV with leather and Nav.

 

Oh, I'm so tired of the "easy target for thieves" argument regarding portables, which is used over and over again by those who think they can justify spending thousands (cost of navigator plus criminal charges for updates) in a built-in NAV system by that. If you like the convenience and integration of the built-in NAV system, that’s perfectly understandable, but the target-for-thieves thing has a very poor rationale to justify the extra cash.

Portable NAV systems are called portable because they are PORTABLE! Helloooo! So, the nice thing about them is that they are small enough to be carried around, so you don't have to leave it inside the car for thieves. That’s actually my favorite feature in my Garmin, because I can actually program my next route while seated in a cozy restaurant or coffee house, or listen to music (it is a mp3 player too), or do some math (it does have a calculator), or check the traffic in advance, or ask it to find my car in the huge parking lot because I can’t remember where I parked. All of these things are really nice to have while away from the car! Come on, I have had portables for my whole life and have lived in pretty nasty places, but they were never stolen because I just don’t leave it inside the car. I don’t want to!!! It’s my favorite thing!

 

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."



Tom

 

Actually, I do have a built-in NAV in my Odyssey but I use my Garmin on it all the time and just have the Odyssey NAV screen to show me anything but navigation because the navigation piece sucks... and the one in the Prius is even worst (from my test driving experience).

So your argument is FALSE! Since I have both (the built-in and the portable) I’m not biased towards any, therefore, I can tell for sure what really is the best, in that case, the Garmin by far, by VERY far!!!

Good try.

 

Lagirl -- I told you you'd get a lot of opinions! For some reason, the Nav topic gets very passionate. Hey, I use it when I don't know how to get where I'm going. If it gets me there, I figure it works. Clearly there's more to it that goes right over my head or I have very low expectations.

 

It is a hot topic, I agree. It has always been, it will always be, not only for the Prius NAV, but for everything. The truth is, with a simple $100 Garmin, you can get to where you want with the same precision of the 2,8K Prius NAV, but there are other things about built-in NAVs that are nice: the screen size, the integration with the stereo system, the back-up camera, the great location, no extra wires running over the console, etc..

But all of that has a very high price tag, so when you take into consideration all things you can do outside the car with the portables (I pointed out some in my post above), plus the much reduced price for the unit and updates compared to built-ins, the price tag of bult-ins seems really difficult to justify... that's just a fact...

 

I'm with ya there Indyking - I was interested in the solar sunroof and wound up with a Nav system. A very expensive add-on indeed. If I'd been shopping specifically for a Nav, I might have made a different choice for all the reasons you point out.