Brought it home last Friday and have had it for a week, just some spurious thoughts: Lowest mileage 49.8, highest 62.0. Seats are fine for cloth, the lumbar support in the '11 maybe is different than '10? This lumbar pushes like crazy on my lower back, and even though old car had adjustable lumbar, at max it never was as much a back poker as the Prius. I like it. My choices were a tossup between new '11 Sonata(had a '06 Elantra no troubles), Fusion and Prius. Prius looks have to take getting used to over normal cars, but it does grow on you. Final decision to buy Prius was not for mileage, but for getting the feeling of actually buying something different for the money. Not just a replacement vehicle where after the first trip home from dealer, you parked it in the garage, figured out how the radio worked, set the stations, then got out and locked it and that was that. All the other choices were indeed just a replacement, good ones to be sure, and much nicer than my old reliable Elantra, but still just a variation of every vehicle previous. The Prius definitely is different, still getting used to it, referring back to manual, still oopsing the gearshift/buttons while parking and similar. Cycling through displays while driving. Prius is very fun to drive, feels nimble in normal driving, rides firm but supple(love that term) and is about as quiet as the Sonata, Fusion was quieter though. Had test driven a '10 Prius a few months ago and it seemed to have more wind noise than the new one. Only nitpick, and I knew this going in, is the age-old complaint of steering wheel too far away when seat is set at maximum comfort zone from pedals. Though many a tall person is fine with it, I'd strongly urge anyone over 6' to make sure they are at peace with final adjustment of seat before purchase. Just one more inch of travel out.... Otherwise I am totally happy with the car. Still pondering cancelling the expensive six year Toyota b2b extended warranty I purchased, but I do like to sleep at night, and there are so many computer thingys in it, and my luck isn't that good, so very probably will keep it. Getting fog lights, locking lug nuts, possibly side molding and lower silver strip for doors. (edit 1. Change spurious to 'assorted'..... 2. And seriously, if lumbar were any more aggressive it would be uncomfortable (to me).
You definitely put some thought into this purchase (and your comments). Congrats on the new car. I'm still trying to figure out why your thoughts are spurious. Maybe that word is used differently in Texas?
WElcome! I very nearly got an '11 Sonata but the wife lobbied hard for the Prius and I'm glad she did, we love ours. Only getting a 40mpg per tank average so far though, you warm state guys are lucky.
Interesting, so the lumbar is more pronounced in the 2011's? Lumbar in the 2010 cloths is *awful* . As in, there is none.
I debated about the extended warranty but that can be purchased anytime before the 3 years are up. I didn't want to tag on another expense at this time. Though the dealer seemed annoyed when I didn't buy it. I will probably purchase the maintenance plan sometime later. We debated between the Camry hybrid but Prius won (husband wanted something else..not another camry or accord )
Not sure if you know this or not but the steering wheel is telescoping, as in not only will it go up and down but in and out. At least thats how it is in my Prius III. I would think that would help with it being to far away for the tall people.
Get rid of the warranty. I have close to 50,000 miles on my 2010 Prius with zero repairs. Consumer report just rated the 2010 Prius and it received perfect ratings in everything except the brakes because of a software recall that has been fixed in all new Prius cars. I had a 2000 Toyota 4Runner that I drove for 10 years and 305,000 miles. Nothing broke on the car that would be covered by a warranty until I was over 200,000 miles. Total cost of repairs over that life of the vehicle was less than $1,000. Save yourself $1,000+ and get out of the warranty. Toyota makes the most reliable cars in the world. The technology has not changed that much over the last 3 generations of Prius’s. They all have a great track record.
They tried to sell us the extended warranty as well but even wrapping it into my 0% financing I wasn't willing to drop another 2 grand that day. I figured if the car was problematic (and statistics say they rarely are) then I have 3/36 to shop around and get the best deal on the genuine Toyota extended. We let the finance guy go through all his screens of sales pitches (warranty, service contract, paint/fabric protection, blah, blah, blah) then politely told him we'd pass on all of it. He seemed visibly shocked, but he was polite about it.
