Hello, I have a 2007 Toyota Prius 167,000 I feel its going to be a bad winter and we moved and don't have a garage My first question is can the Toyota Prius have remote start? I am thinking I should wait till they make a AWD Prius or get something else my budget is $20,000 or a little over. It's just time for a newer one. I was looking at the Volt or a different line, I like the remotelink for Onstar. I am just not sure what I should do. My Prius runs good I tried to trade for a Volt and they didn't give me a good deal so I backed out. Insurance was very $$$ also. Any ideas?
oh, i thought you wanted something now. toyota hasn't announced all wheel drive, but some think it's a possibility.
I never had a problem in the snow even with regular tires, but you might want to try some blizzaks this winter if its that bad.
If you sell your Prius privately for $6000, add your $20,000, then you may have the budget for an AWD car at around $26000. I don't think there are many to choose from at that price point.
You supposedly can install remote start on a gen2. Here's an example vid: I think it would work plenty well, as the Pri warms up fairly quickly when running in the cold. If it's really cold and icy and the car's parked outside, I usually just boot it into ready mode and put on a little defrost before I scrape the windows. I don't feel the need for a toasty car when I get in--too wasteful. One thing that's great about the Prius is that it starts effortlessly in the cold, unless the aux battery is on its way out, keeping it from booting-up. The Prius does really nicely on snowy roads with tires that have good snow performance. I find it to be quite velcro-like with the right tires. It does have it's limitations though. There are certainly times/areas where you'll want more ground clearance, 4wd+snow tires, chains, (or tracks/snowmobile, helicopter...). If you are interested in AWD, I believe the Subaru Impreza (non-XV version) is the most affordable entry, with a starting MSRP of just below $18k. The current gen Impreza is also quite a bit more fuel efficient than the previous gen.
Not having a garage IS a downer. Makes for a lot of idling time, clearing the windshield. No way around it?
