I have two questions for anyone who can help. The Prius I have is a package 7 and I have side airbas on the seats. I am wondering what kind of seat covers, if any, that I can put on my seats. They are cloth and I want to protect them. Also, I have read in the manual that you have to be careful what kind of regular unleaded gas you put in your Prius. I read that some staions put cleaners etc in the fuel and you need to avoid that. Which gas stations are safe to go to then? I live in Ft Lauderdale Florida area. In advance I thank anyone able to help
Seat covers: GT (there's a thread here) Tear-away opening for side bags. Well-made, good fit, but limited colors. Gas stations do not add anything to gas that I know of. Most or all companies' refineries DO, including chicals to promote "cleaner burning" and keep fuel injectors as clean as possible. (Chevron, for example, widely advertises its inclusion of "Techron".) I don't know of any regular unleaded gasoline that can't be used in a Prius, unless you count ethanol blends (high ethanol content only in MN, I think).
I seem to remember reading in the manual that it'd handle a fairly high concentration of ethanol. Of course the mileage will suffer as there's less energy in ethanol than in benzine. Less chance of a gas line freezing though.
I got cheap car seats with the lighter fabric sides and back. Then I ripped out the seam where the side airbags are. There is still enough side seam to hold the seats nicely. The result - Loud Hawaiian print (red of course) seats. They'll give some protection to the seats, yet should open up enough to let the side airbags out if I ever need them. A friend of mine used Dr. Who t-shirts and ripped out part of the side seam. It protects the back of the seat, but not the bottom. I needed full protection on the front seats. I got Kids and Grandkids. For the back seat, I put a blanket down on the seat, which needed protection from my son's wheeled backpack. My mother found a special doggy blanket that had plastic underneath when her dog went riding with her. But a regular lap type blanket works fine for me. See Kids and Grandkids. Wish I could afford more, but the back of the seat has remained fairly clean so far. I definitely do NOT want neoprene for my seats. May be fake sheepskin later on. I have that for my old car and it feels nice and repels dirt pretty well. The trick is to make sure that there is an opening for the side airbag. Or a deliberate weakness for same. More seat covers should be coming out with that now that side airbags are becoming standard. Lisa
I would urge caution when putting seat covers on the driver and passenger seats, unless you don't want the benefit of this safety feature. There should be a way to disarm it, but I am not aware of one. I opted for the package # 8 so I could easily clean the seats in the event of a spill. It's my personal decision but I like knowing I will be encompassed by airbags in the event I am in a head on collision.
GT covers- i got them from toyotapartsstore.com for cheaper than direct from GTcovers' site. little velcro tear-aways for airbag inflation, made just for our car seats. i'd look for a top tier gas station- they have the highest standard of gas: toptiergas.com for more info.
check out http://wetokole.com I have them in two of my vehicles with side air bags. They make them for that type of air bag. My prius has leather seats so I don't need them there....... aloha B)
I ordered my GT covers from a Toyota dealer. They had samples of the materials so I could see which one looked best. The price was good too.
