Hello everyone! Proud new Prius owner here

This last week I bought a 2008 Touring model, Package 6 (I was told - she seems to have all the available options, but I will miss the heated seats I had in my old Passat!). She is black and has 89,000 miles.

Haven't driven her much but so far have been pretty happy with the MPG (yesterday's average was 51 for a relatively short trip - I figured out the gliding thing pretty quickly just watching how the gauge responds while driving, something I occasionally did in the Passat anyway tho I have no idea how accurate the car's running mpg numbers were). I've been spending way too much time engaging my inner geek and reading about the car,need to spend more time on the road! Really looking forward to not having to visit a gas station on an almost-weekly basis.

Today my project is getting a hold of the correct Q-clips so I can put my Yakima rack on her, and get ready to carry my bike - and more importantly my sea kayak ). It will be interesting to see how much just having the roof rack on affects MPG, although I haven't had her long enough without the rack to really be able to judge the difference I suppose.

I saw a mention on this forum that the Touring model gets worse MPG. Is this true, and if so, about how much worse? I didn't set out specifically looking for a Touring model, but found a great deal on a car with all the options I wanted that happened to be that model - and I liked the better handling (didn't really care about the spoiler or wheel size). Any other differences with the Touring model that I should be aware of?

Thanks to all for any info/help - I'm enjoying reading all sorts of informative posts on this forum, and am sure I'll be back with more queries in the not-too-distant future!

Katrina