Right hand drive conversion on a Prius v (lowercase v)

I'm amazed it's even legal - do cars have to pass safety inspection where you are?

 

I have started looking to import a Factory RHD. Glad I was linked to this thread, it will save me some time. A girl in our office has a C and is getting 45-50 mpg. When you purchased your V, was it new with warranty? I am being told with the lifetime warranty, if anything is altered (conversion kit) it will void the warranty. Toyota should definitely give Jeep some competition on RHD. There are so many of us carriers going to the Prius for the mpg, I think it would definitely benefit them and us.

 

How many RHD's are actually sold in the US in a year?

If it's in the thousands, then it would probably make sense for Toyota to put a RHD through compliance. Effectively the Euro car complies other than on paper. Same car, same crash worthiness, same emissions.

 

Subaru has sold RHD Legacies (assembled in Lafayette, IN) for years, primarily for letter carriers.
Perhaps they don't anymore.

[Edit: They stopped this in 1999--my mistake]

 

Just came upon this post tonight. I have been delivering mail in a Prius since 2007 (from the right hand side). I was eager to 'upgrade' when the Prius v came out in 2012. Right after I test drove the vehicle, I was told that I would be assigned an LLV. Never made the purchase. Looking to transfer to an office closer to home and would go back to a POV. How did you modify the console? I was told back in 2012 that the unit could not be partially disassembled due to the EV buttons mounted on the console near the cupholder. Has the design changed since then? Please give details! You'd help a lot of your fellow rural carriers!

 

Really nice. I bought a prius 3rd gen and I am a mail carrier down in FLorida. I came close of converting my prius to right hand drive just couldn't do it. I instead converted my 92 Honda accord into a right hand drive and I am getting about 18 to 19 mpg. I did have a right hand drive Jeep wrangler 2006 which I sold nothing but maintenance on the garbage of a car. The Honda just general maintenance every once in a while low cost best decision I have made. The jeep got only 14 miles to the gallon and was expensive to fill it up. Way to go on the right hand prius. Once I get tired of the Honda I will buy a good V prius and do the same as you did. I really thought you would a least get close to 50 mpg on her.

 

That conversion is quite amazing. I'm sure it is very functional.. No offense but yeegodz that is damned ugly with all those cables and pulleys sticking out. Probably prettier than a herniated disc though

 

Where did you get the pedal extenders?

 

Hey I joined this site just so I could ask you how's it going with the Prius on the route now? Did it work ok in the winter? How's the conversion going for you? Can you drive it from either side (in other words did they leave a steering wheel and accessible pedals on both sides?) My route car is gone after over 20 years and now I'm driving the back-up and looking for a replacement. I've looked at Subaru but the Prius is calling my name. Hope I'm not asking too many questions but it's hard to find somebody with actual route experience with the Prius. Thanks for answering.

edit to add oops I see your pics now (I guess NoScript suppressed them before) so I know you can't drive it from either side.

 

Hey thanks for answering. Glad to hear it did well in the snow and the winter conditions.
I was wondering....it seems like I read somewhere that when you are stopped like at a stop sign (or a mailbox) that the engine shuts off? Is that correct? That would be a big deal for me since I'm used to driving the manual transmission and can put it in neutral at the mailbox so I don't wear out the brakes nearly as quickly as my coworkers with the automatic transmissions on non-hybrid cars. If that's true on the Prius, then you aren't going through brakes very quickly either, are you?
Are you still able to get all the big packages in at this time of the year? I've never seen so many big packages in all my life!
Thanks for answering.

 

I sub Scotts route with my 05 and haven't run out of room.... yet but I know the clock is ticking. No parcel assistance for a sub. The other route I run has loops that come back within a couple miles of the PO. A few days a year I come back and load "the rest of the parcels".

 

Sure did scott, even picked up his outgoing...
Kris called tonight asking about an express on W??? gulp!
I did 3 expresses this afternoon in the van then swapped back to the Prius before going to help Sandy.....
I love my days off!

 

As the RHD and LHD cars are identical (other than steering wheels ), is there any reason why Toyota or someone else doesn't get type approval on a RHD car and then happily sell them to the tens of thousands of postal workers?

 

All the lights meet European standards rather than SAE standards. It would need to be a US exterior with an English interior. Then I am unsure about the gauges.