Need suggestions on which Generation III Prius to buy.

I have this fear of people switching out hv batteries in rentals and returning them

SM-N900P ?

 

I picked the G3 because of the "flying buttress" console..... a unique feature I've not seen in any other car. On the other hand: A G2 prius for only $13,000 is not bad. (Check ebay: You can probably get the same miles for below 10k.)

 

I agree the seats on the Gen3 non-powered are not very comfy, my Gen2 was more comfy (I had leather). I decided to get Clazzios for the Gen3 and it made the seats much better. They add padding on the seat and back of the covers, now my leg doesn't fall asleep or go numb when driving.


iPhone ?

 

In the south it's hard to find one that is loaded for that low of a price. With the low interest rates why not consider a new certified one.


iPhone ?

 

2012 Prius 4 owner....I would skip on the navi. I think it's absolutely worthless. Worst navi I have ever used. Just one look at it tells you how crappy it is. I wish I checked it out during my test drive, otherwise I would have moved on to a Prius without one to save a little money.

 

Good thread.
We just bought our 2014 Prius package 3. I am 6'2" tall, and Hate power seats as my wife likes to sit on top of the steering wheel, seat positioned mostly forward, I have to put it all the way back --> fully rearward. A Power seat = standing outside, waiting forever for the stupid motor to wind the seat back Vs. a manual seat, grab the bar, lift, slide seat back, BAM i can sit down in the seat now fully all the way back! I found the stock seat, and adjustments pretty decent, but due to my wife's curly long blond hair, we put sheepskin seat covers in to protect the seats from all her "tame the wild maine" hair care products. The sheep skin covers, (and head rest covers), make the seats FANTASTIC for long comfortable drives!

I agree with the other poster, the Navigation system on the Prius is pretty bad / not worth it. We wanted the sun roof, and the only way to get it was package 3, which came with the dreaded Nav. I so wish we could have opted out of that Nav.. I will be starting a new thread on this, but we just got back from a trip to Monterey, CA. While there, I tried to enter an address into the Nav, by voice command, and it was totally useless. Kept coming up wrong. So while parked, we tried to enter the hotel's address, by entering the zip code first, yet, pressing the zip code on the destination address screen came up with all of ONLY 3 possible options, "KY 1, KY 2, or KY 3??? We were so confused... Where was 9xxxxx? Where are we? So I entered our "home" for a destination to get us back into reality, then canceled that route, tried to enter the zip again, same 3 options. We sat there and looked in the manual, finally calling our dealer on the phone. They went out to a new 2014 car on the lot, as the Nav was so changed this year, and finally figured out, our car Nav was somehow thinking it was located in the Cayman Islands! It seems my voice command, that never worked, had it go to the Cayman Island "Zone", and we manually had to tell it it was actually in the Continental USA! So bizarre that a Nav, could even take you to a Cayman Isl. "zone"! I swear, using that Nav is more like something out of the "Twilight Zone" than reality!

Fantastic car though! Love our new High MPG! Surly would buy it again, (just wish without the Nav! Why can't they just make the sun roof an option? No solar roof vent, no Nav, just sun roof?)

 

I totally agree on this, worst navi ever, totally worthless, I wish I bought one without navi and installed good quality after market.

 

Best navigation is my iPhone maps..... and it's universal across all cars I own.

Most couples solve this problem by not sharing the car. The guy gets his and the gal gets hers. BTW has anyone ever told your wife sitting close to the airbag is dangerous? It can break a person's nose when it deploys.

 

[/QUOTE] Most couples solve this problem by not sharing the car. The guy gets his and the gal gets hers. BTW has anyone ever told your wife sitting close to the airbag is dangerous? It can break a person's nose when it deploys.[/QUOTE]

What do you suggest his wife do? Grow longer legs?

 

For navi...get a GPS!

Unless your phone has a dedicated GPS transceiver (some do), you still depend on being in range of a tower to know where you are. In some parts of the USA, that's not an option...never mind having a map to look at (not stored locally in most apps...but some do let you download them by state).

Car navis are hampered by the same problem. Most use your phone's data plan and triangulate on towers. No good once you're out of range...never mind how well the work.

The whole Entune package is only free for the first 3 years (which you paid a considerable price just to have a trim level with it). After that, you have to pay for it, and you always have to pay for a data plan on a smart phone...which is an extra cost if you don't already have one. Also, you have to have the phone with you.

If the navi worked independent of needing you to have a smart phone, it'd be more valuable.

Meantime, a top-notch Garmin GPS can be had for a lot less than all of this would cost you...including lifetime map updates.

 

Most couples solve this problem by not sharing the car. The guy gets his and the gal gets hers. BTW has anyone ever told your wife sitting close to the airbag is dangerous? It can break a person's nose when it deploys.[/QUOTE]

What do you suggest his wife do? Grow longer legs?[/QUOTE]

Actually, I think her sitting with the seat forward, ontop of the steering wheel is one of her "Blonde" things as she is 5'8" tall, and not short legged at all! I told her about the air bag threat, and she said "leave me alone, it's how i like to drive".

As far as the Toyota Nav - Cell phone connection, actually i see that as a positive. Even though our Dodge Darts "U-Connect" system was so ever user friendly, and the best-easiest navigation / hands free / voice command system we have seen, (when it was not broken), it relied on the Sirus Satellite paid subscription for most all the things the Toyota relies on through a cell phone connection. So on the Dodge, your traffic updates-and re-routing / restaurant locations / movie times, etc were interconnected with the required paid subscription to Sirus, where as those things I believe will continue to work on our Toyota when we let the Sirus subscription laps. Thats a huge plus, but then, those are "extras" for a Nav system, not its primary function. Oh, another Dodge U-connect feature on the Nav, was lower right hand corner of the huge 8.4" U-connect screen showed a small speed limit sign, with the speed limit for the area you were driving in. Fantastic feature as so often coming into a new town you just glance down, and can know the speed limit, & how fast you can go. It also showed right above the speed limit sign on the screen, your current actual Miles per hour, shown in green if you were within the speed limit, and it would go into red numbers if you were driving over the posted speed limit. That's cool, and useful too! Of coarse, the Nav in our Dart failed, had to have its brains replaced, and the bluetooth never worked right afterwards, but most Dart owners had no problems with theirs. (Our Dart WAS a lemon, and we lemon - law-ed it out).

 

Free as of the 2014 model? It wasn't when I bought the 2013 (according to the literature of the time). Had it been, it would have justified going for a Prius 3 or higher for the convenience of it just being there whenever I might need it.

 

I enjoy my C for the mileage and the plug in for the interior room.


iPhone ?

 

I just bought a prius v and it has more leg room for all passengers .


iPhone ?

 

Entune was going to be free for the first two years, then subscription. But before the two years elapsed for anyone, Toyota made it free for all.

 

Had I known....

 

Toyota labels the power seat as "8-way power adjustable plus power lumbar (10-way total)*

2 sliding fwd/back
2 seatback fwd / back
2 height adjust whole seat up / down
2 tilt seat bottom up / down
2 adjust lumbar in / out

* Same as an current Accord 10-way power except Accord TILT tilts the entire seat, not just the seat bottom.

In everything else except the somewhat rare Four and rare Fives, it's 6-way manual

.... you lose the TILT and LUMBAR adjust.

I'm currently in search for a small pad to strap on the headrest supports because ....

the Prius and many Toyotas have this unusual characteristic where the seat TILT increases* as the seat is lowered. Mine is all the way low because I'm 6'2". Quite a bit of tilt.

* verified with angle meter

I'm canted back a little too much and have to use some neck tension to hold my head level in driving.

I could adjust this up in 2 seconds with a power seat. Not with a 6-way manual seat. Tilt a little off, etc... can be quite subtle to pick up on in test drives.

 

and qdllc, you're dealing with some extremely frugal people around here. Some never had a clue the power seat adjusts in more ways than the manual seat to fit more drivers. Some are not interested in such trivial things, only max MPGs. Their seat fits them and they really don't care that a bunch of people don't fit the Prius. Seems to me it would be better overall if more people did fit the Prius to drive it ... in comfort.

 

Well, that's a point. The merger of tilt with seat height doesn't seem to be a problem unless you sit in the car long enough to see if it works for you. Test drives don't tell you enough because they're too short.

Also, I figured I could upgrade the seat on my own as my dad did with his Camry when he started having problems due to age. I'm sure it can be done, but the cost is something I'm putting off right now.