Could really use some input for my parents from owners

Oh please, don't blow a hemorrhoid! Stop being so sensitive. There are exception to everything. My parents are very active in their early 70s...so, no, no one here is discriminatory. And yes, age does factor into driving and operating complex stuff...whether you like it or not. Sure, YOU are the exception (as are my parents, etc.)...and the original poster did not mention how active nor how mentally sharp his parents were in the original post. In fact, the general feeling from the Original Poster's post was rather vague and gave a rather low impression of his parents' capabiliity in operating a Prius:

 

For what it's worth, my Dad is 88. He still plants and maintains a 1/2 acre garden and walks 4 miles per day. For some reason FAX machines throw him. He's never used a PC but doesn't want to because he has more important stuff to do. He still drives a lot and has no problems doing so.

Keeping all that in mind, he's completely fascinated with my Prius. He'd love to take it apart to see what makes it tick but I won't let him. He loves driving it.

 

Well, you need to read my post better...what i meant was that some of the earlier posts (that apparently offended your mother) was due to your initial post that i quoted above. So, it is you that made the general impression about your parents' capability, not us...thus, some of us responded appropriately to the impression that you gave. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

I'd start first by considering their needs.
- How many miles do they travel each year? What kind of miles do they do?
- Do they need to carry passengers?
- Do they need to carry passengers and cargo?

Then there's another couple of key questions:
- Is money an issue for them?
- Will you get to borrow the car? (OK, joking on that one).

If they don't do many miles and don't need the size I'd suggest an efficient conventional like a Fit or Yaris would save them money.

If they do more miles they could spend a bit more and get an Insight-II LX, which has an MSRP $3,000 less than a Prius. A base Insight, which doesn't have cruise control would be $4,800 less than a Prius.

The Prius really suits people who both do a good number of miles and need something bigger than a subcompact. It also suits people who'd be spending a lot of time sitting in traffic jams using heat or A/C where the ability to sit with the engine off would save a lot of fuel.

The one difficulty of driving a Prius, as considered by my wife is poor side visibility (common with many new cars). It's also possible that a very short driver could have poor rear visibility because of the rear spoiler, but the seat height is adjustable. Neither I nor my wife has a problem with it. I'm 5' 11" with even build and she's 5' 8" with a short torso.

Other than that I'd say that it's very easy to drive. I prefer it to a conventional automatic, since there isn't the gear progression that you normally have. Just press the pedal and go and it accelerates evenly up to speed. In fact, when I drove one for the first time it was anti-climactic.

I drive in ECO, which gives precise gas pedal control so I have to press the gas pedal harder to get heavier acceleration. If I drive our other car, a Civic, I tend to be a bit heavy on the gas pedal when I first get into it. My wife drives in PWR mode which is closest in gas pedal response to a conventional car. Even in PWR there's a very slight delay in response to the gas pedal, but within a week of driving the car I stopped noticing the difference.

I find the braking normal and can go between our cars without any issue, but my wife finds the regenerative brakes a little grabby.

The push-button start and stop is very simple to operate and together with smart key is a convenience that you quickly learn to miss when you don't have it.

The self-centering gear shift is a bit unusual, but I don't have a problem with it. It's different from the typical automatics selector but its advantage is that there's a consistent shift to any mode. Park is a separate button instead of being on the shift. I usually skip the park button and turn the car off directly. I didn't find the separate button to be an issue. Rather, on the rare occasions I now drive our Civic I quite often forget to put the Civic in park before turning it off.

As an added bonus the Prius has a tight turning circle so is very easy to maneuver and park. The counterbalance to that is that you have to turn the wheel quite a long way to get full lock.

While it can display lots of different fuel economy information on the display, there's nothing to stop you from just driving it. Take one for a test drive yourself and you'll understand what I mean.

On the braking issue, that was the traction control behavior. As traction was lost and the traction control kicked in there was a perceived loss of braking and then a slight drop (according to Bob Wilson's simple tests) in braking force after the hydraulics kicked in. Simply pushing the brake harder (not pumping) overcame the effect. The software update made the changeover from regenerative braking to hydraulic braking faster and the braking force consistent.

 

The problem with the Prius that I see (aka MY OPINION) is that there is a lot of information being thrown at you, even while driving. Granted, some people ignore them and just drive. My fear is that some will start paying attention to the HSD monitor while driving...and with well-documented less-than-optimal reaction time for MOST elderly folks (general term here), i am not sure if it is the perfect vehicle for them from a safety point of view (for the driver and the general public).

Beyond the starting up procedure and backing out stuff, you have to worry about turning the Prius OFF because the engine does shut off at slow speeds in a parking lot...so, when it is parked, lots of folks (young and old) have just walked away from their Prius while it is still running...despite the beeping! Recent thread just about this: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...iii-does-not-switch-off-when-key-removed.html So, if you add in their hearing deficit (if there is one), then yeah, the Prius is NOT a good car for elderly folks with hearing deficit. Just one example.

Last post i promise...sorry again for offending anyone...just my personal view. There are way too many other good cars out there that would be a better fit for the general elderly population. (If i was elderly, then i would NOT buy one for myself...for all the reasons noted.)

 

If they want leather & nav they are looking at 4 cars:

Five-AT
Five-Nav
Four-Solar
Four-Nav

and are going to pay for a lot of stuff they may not want, need, or use.

Take a look at the option list. They may be better off adding aftermarket leather & nav to a Two or Three.

 

I have to agree about the things some have said in this thread being pretty bigoted against the abilities of senior citizens. I mean...bisco even said people over 55-60 having "horror stories" about operating a Prius...55-60? We're talking about people who by most metrics aren't even considered senior citizens. Thats just preposterous. I can't think of ANYBODY aged 55-70 that I know that I would consider having an "issue" driving a high tech car like a Prius. I know a lot of people in that age range also. Certainly people who are less tech savvy than I am, but people for whom a high technology vehicle such as a Prius would be dangerous to operate? Absolutely not.

This is 2011. 70 years old is not "old".

 

First: The Prius uses regenerative brakes. The car doesn't get back all the energy it put into speeding up, but enough energy to make a major difference on gas mileage.

Above 13 mph or so, unless the brakes are pressed hard, the regenerative brakes rule. Me and a fair number of other people, when given the car for the first time, perceive the different regen braking to be "grabby" compared to normal cars. That gets fixed pretty quickly by people changing their braking habits. My wife and I switch back and forth between a Sienna (normal brakes) and the Prius and don't have problems either way.. Now, after we've gotten used to it.

The second thing is that the Prius has very good ABS/stability control. But, if the car is being braked (regen mode) on smooth pavement and one then runs into washboard, the car is going to detect the wheels slipping and swap into ABS with all four wheels. Before the brake firmware change/recall the swap time was around 1/4 second or less. If you really were on washboard, you'd probably not notice, since your brain would say, "Washboard! Less brakes! The car's vibrating!" and you'd likely press down harder on the brakes/handle the problem, or whatever. However, suppose you hit a short slippery bit; the car would switch and, at the same time, you'd be back onto smooth pavement. Under those precise circumstances there would be a bit less braking force during a portion of the swap; people who have felt this would perceive acceleration. Not that the car would be accelerating; it would just be decelerating less than expected, and for a short time (the rest of the swap) at that.

Toyota's solution: A new firmware load that swaps faster. There are those who claim they can still feel the swap, but the impression I get is that they have to work at it.

So, there was a recall on the brakes. CU has to recognize the problem - so it put a black mark on the brakes. The 2011 and any 2010 cars still around have the fix, such as it is.

Mind you, because it's the regen that slows the car most of the time, the real brakes don't get much exercise. There's people around here who claim that they've gone 100K miles between brake jobs because of the lack of wear. That might be worth a minor bobble or two (and I emphasize, "bobble") on uneven pavement from time to time.

As far as the driving experience: This is not the world's best handling car, so you're not going to be running around corners at 50 mph, screeching as you go. On the other hand, it handles fairly well. I go through the Wachung Reservation fairly often on the way to and from work. There's twistier, steeper roads than that one, I guess, but the Prius chugs right through what the Wachungs have to offer pretty much as well as the old Civic I used to drive, and a heck of a lot better than the Sienna. A Prius with its low road clearance isn't going to churn through vacant lots like my old '71 VW Beetle, but the Beetle was very nearly an off-road car. (Modify the body and you where there!).

If you're worried about the computer display, one of the options is to turn it off, and that takes care of that.

Main points: The car is cheap on gas, cheap on maintenance, decent to drive, and has a couple of minor quirks, nothing serious. I'm nearly on the verge of old fart-dom myself, and I like all that in a car. It should be fine for your parents.

KBeck.

 

"After reviewing Consumer Reports, I was hoping to see a very good reliability for the last model of 2010, but that was not the case."

Consumer Reports got a lot of bogus reports of brake problems all the result of a recall to fix a minor computer problem. People reported the recall as a "problem". The brakes did not fail, at low speed with light brake application when you hit rough road conditions the system would be slow to switch from regen braking to friction braking. Once you get used to the "seat of the pants" feeling (your brain tells you the car is accelerating when the truth is the car just stopped decelerating) that the car was speeding up, you only had to push harder on the brake pedal.

 

I haven't read this whole thread but the only "brake issue" w/the 2010 Prius was FAQs on the 2010 Prius Recall | PriusChat. As mention at Updated: Toyota Recalling 270,000 2010 Prius Hybrids in Japan & US for Brake Issue | PriusChat (and many other places), a production change was made in January 2010 and all Priuses produced after that already have the updated firmware.

I already posted about why the brake score in CR was so bad. See http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...ility-rating-drops-average-3.html#post1279236. Basically, I suspect enough people didn't follow CR's directions (amidst all the media attention on Toyota) when answering the survey, making the score bad. I suspect the brake score will be MUCH better the next time CR does a reliability survey.

 

just make sure they press the "park" button when they want to leave the car running and get out and back in quickly.


never leave it in "ready" mode, especially in a garage.


other than that....happy motoring

 

If your parents are going to be driving A LOT, and think that a Nav would be a good idea, talk to them about the possibility of getting a separate Nav unit, like a Tom-Tom or Magellan unit.

They are fairly straightforward to use, and more frequently updated, which seems to be the major complaint that I've seen/heard about the Prius - the Nav sort of sucks.

I would think that the biggest issue they should really look at is driving comfort, after MPGs. They are active, go-getter people. Are the seats and wheel adjustment/reach going to work for them?

 

It is hard to know at this point what the availability of Prii will be, because of recent events. What do your local dealers say? That would say more about what you will pay.

I personally know 3 'over-70' couples with Prii. No problems.

 

I think the biggest items I would be most concerned with would be the differences between the Prius and a conventional vehicle. What a lot of people don't think of is that the body and mind naturally deteriorates as it gets older. It's not so much that they don't know how to operate a vehicle, but rather their ability to conduct an avoidance maneuver or emergency maneuver in a vehicle that is a little different than what they've known their entire lives. It's not a simple, quick, flip the shift lever forward to put the car into neutral. Nor a quick turn of the key to shut the engine off. It sounds like you're pretty aware of your parents ability, both mentally and physically. Just be prepared to know when it's time to take the keys away when their ability to safely operate the vehicle comes. It's very difficult in a panic situation to make the necessary movements when for 50+ years it's been ingrained in your mind and reflexes to do something a little different.

With that said, take a good long mental look at all aspects of driving and help them do what will be best for them over the long run (this will ultimately cover them in the short run, too).

It sounds to me like your parents do a lot of driving, and if this is a lot of highway driving, there are several other options that aren't quite as good in fuel usage, but pretty darn close based upon the EPA ratings. They could look at the new, upcoming focus, sonata, elantra, etc. As others have said, and you agreed with, renting vehicles for 2 weeks or so is the best way to get a feel for them. Rent several of them and then do a comparison of the pros and cons of each one.

 

I am just a baby in my 50's, LOL, but my biggest adjustment is keeping track of the keys. I was used to always taking keys out of the ignition of my car and then keeping them in my hand as I got out. With the Prius I don't have to remove keys from the ignition and I have gone crazy looking for my keys in the house only to realize I have left them in the console in the car (parked in the garage). I need to establish a new routine...maybe locking it in the garage, so I know I am taking the keys.

 

The Prius is one of the easiest cars to get into either front or back seats.

 

I am the proud owner of 08 and 10 prii. They are no harder to get used to than any other car. In fact before we got the second prius I had to adjust to driving a conventional car on occasion. We are not spring chickens but every car is different and I have been able to adjust over the years. They sound like they really want a prius and they should be able to have one. They will love it

 

Surprising no one has brought up the highway handling/instability issues in the Prius.
I would check this out.

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...0-prius-handling-problems-highway-speeds.html

There have been reports of braking problems backing out so these are relevant. Have a look.

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-2010-prius-main-forum/65875-braking-in-reverse.html#post914919