pre-purchase recommendation request

The audio unit in Prius 3, with the nav and backup camera, is very nice. The Entune features are lame, but I'm very happy with its music handling. And the 3-door SKS is awesome. So the Prius 3 over the Prius 2 is definitely worth it, in my opinion. I don't know what the Prius 2 offers in audio, but my PiP has the system used in the Prius 3 and (besides Entune) it's excellent.

My car has the remote AC, powered by the big battery. I've had mixed results with it, mostly, I haven't been able to get inside a cool car on a hot day, which is the point. Hopefully an experienced solar roof owner will chime in.

 

Instead of a solar roof, think about window tint and a Heatshield reflective windshield screen. Total cost should be aeound $200 for very effective heat rejection.

We have back up cameras in our Prii and rarely use them, but they do work very well and might avoid an accident or two.

 

I have the solar roof and I think it does help. It doesn't cool the cabin, but it keeps the cabin at around the outside temperature, vs having it turn into a blast furnace. Of course, here in Portland the outside temperature rarely gets above 80 or 85.

I also like being able to open the moonroof.

I haven't tried the remote AC yet, so I have no opinion there. It only last for about 3 minutes, I think, and that doesn't seem long enough to do any real cooling. But maybe in conjunction with the solar roof ventilation it would work OK.

The back-up camera comes in handy for parking in tight spaces. I often have to park in a lot with a narrow driveway and motorcycles in the row behind, and it can be hard to see those bikes out the back window.

 

If you haven't bought one yet, I would recomend the III with Solar/Moonroof. The cooling that you get with the Solar fan isn't alot. If it is 90 out, it will probably be about 90 inside, not 120+. My wife didn't think that it would be useful, but after using it for a couple of months, she was surprised that it really works. The 3 minute AC function isn't very useful either. I open my sunroof to the vent position and open the sliding cover about 2 inches, and there isn't much of a difference between inside and outside temps.

As far as the Costco auto buying program, I used that for buying my F250 SD in 1999 (it was $1000 over invoice), and the dealer that I finally bought it from quoted me $26,700 price under the Costco program. I talked to 3 other dealers and got there quotes and went back to the first dealer with these quotes, and finally got it for $26,152. This was for a 2012 GenIII in Blizzard Pearl with Solar/Moonroof and the 5 mats. I also got the dealer to disable the "back up beeper" (read about this in other posts) and to silence the seat belt beeper.

Blizzard Brigade #110

I know that the first paragraph does not sound very positive, but I am VERY happy with these two options. I live in the Sacramento/San Rrancisco area and it DOES get hot here. On a 90 degree day, the Prius is my car of choice, for sure.

 

I don't have the solar roof, since its only 90ish a couple of months tops here, but cracking the widows an inch or two when it is that hot seems to keep the interior reasonable, and it's free! Backup camera would be nice, but carefully backing up while checking all mirrors and looking all around has served drivers well for over a century! Of course, I nearly got run over the other day by an idiot in a parking lot backing out of a space without looking, and he yelled at me!

 

I love having the sunroof and have started using solar fan option just this week since the temperatures have moved up. I also used the Costco program to buy and found it was a good deal. My niece bought a comparably equipped 2011 in November and paid just about 30,000$, while I bought my 2012 for 26,700 in March via Costco. I think I have seen a few better prices in other posts but none from the Chicago area, so I think it was worth it for me. Couldn't be happier with my car and love the options with the III.