Road noise 2011 Prius vs. 2012 Prius

My dad complains constantly about road noise in his 2010,which of course I have driven thousands of miles. Last night I drove my brand new '12 home from the dealer, very quiet,nice!! Of course I have brand new tires, (Yoko Avids), his have 38K on them.I'll pay extra attention to the noise when I go out tonight, it hasn't moved since I brought it home. I was looking at left over 11's, i'm really glad I went with the 12.The new audio screen in my 2 car is way cool, not to mention the DRL's,no gray plugs where the fog lights should be,etc.and maybe the best part is,I paid less for my car than my dad payed for his 3 car back in July of 09,hee hee!!

 

My wife and I were out looking for a new 3rd gen to replace our '05 the last few weeks. We drove a bunch of leftover '11s and more recently, three '12s in different package configurations. Road noise differences were negligible. We ended up picking up an '11... much better deal.

So far it's very quiet and great to drive. New Yokohama Avids seem pretty quiet on most surfaces when new. Overall a huge improvement over our old 2nd gen '05.

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whicks3's dad needs to put new tires on his '10. 38K on the Yoks is pretty darned good. That should bring the noise levels down some for him.

 

I would say the same. There is no insulation improvement. I got my '11 ,produced in Oct, in December 2011. My friend just got his '12 four. They are the same. The only thing is the leather seat becomes to leatherette. Some panel arrangement changed also the front bumper and power seat.

 

Didn't notice much difference. All Prius were new cars, with windows closed because it's still Winter. I can't say there was a difference. Might want to go find an '11 and '12 and test that out.

What part of Deutschland do you live in. I spent nearly 5 years in Bavaria a long while back. Still miss it to this day. Great place and people.

 

Just grabbed an 11', have an 06', the 11' sounds, in the right rear seat, like there's an open window, really.
Got it in the garage the other day to have a look, took out the plastic "rubber" mat and the carpet covered folding floor, then the plastic tray, then the plastic gizmo with tools then the spare, big difference between the gen 2 and 3, the 12v battery in the 3 is very accessible, and the air vent in the right rear passenger seat now feeds into cubic yards of space vs a small plastic tube both of which(gen 2 and 3) dump into the battery area then the air is evacuated from the auto. Anyway, the gen 3 is so loud because the whole area under the removable rear floor is open, it's a large ported vent as in speaker, the spare sits on a Styrofoam gizmo which keeps it from being on the steel body, almost no sound proofing, it's an echo chamber, placed a few pieces of duramat and a sheepskin rug under the spare and reassembled(warm weather and more duramat will be in order) took it for a drive and the open window sound was completely eliminated, to recap, the area under the spare is a large drum that's connected to the cabin via the fan in the rear right passenger area, minimal sound proofing eliminates the echo's which are to my ears like an open window.
Haven't had my paws on a 12' yet.
Spare wheel and tools must weigh 75+pounds, a can of sealer-re-filler weighs 1 pound, hmmm...

 

Air Force... attached to the guys in Bad Toelz. Traveled most of the country south of Frankfurt... and spent most of my free time in the mountains. Beautiful country. Spectacular.

Now I'm going to have to check out the spare wheel compartment to see if it's really that noisy back there. At least that's easy to fix. I like the idea of a can of tire sealant/refill. Much lighter.

 

You shouldn't be comparing U.S. based Prius and Euro Prius as there might be differences. For example, even the older 2010/11 Prius had HDD NAV (along with a much nicer screen) when we were stuck with DVD-based NAV.

 

I took a look at Toyota.de and found several differences. A big one is the German market gets 3 packages. Only one shows up with the 15 inch wheels... the other two packages come with 17s. Would be cool to find out if there are differences in running gear and car is set up. Fogs are standard on all levels, of course. Interesting.

 

toyota can say anything to sell 2012 model.......one word.....marketing is only i see if you compare.



thanks
hp

 

The OP is getting his information from journalists, not Toyota, but seems to be running into the risk of reading too much into it.

 

I have a 2010 prius and test drove a 2012 prius today and the 2012 is definitely quieter...but my 2010 actually seemed faster, maybe the 2012 needs to be "broken in"?

 

Could just be the tires. They can get significantly noisier with age depending on the brand.

 

I agree with this post - I did my own test by placing my old yoga mat in the spare tire area between the spare and the plastic tray that sits on top of it. I covered the entire spare space with the yoga mat, and immediately notice a reduction in both exhaust noise and the typical prius "drone" many talk about. I believe if I install a piece of dynapad instead of yoga mat I will notice even bigger improvement. Will report once I get a chance to get dynapad in there...