2016 Prius - let's hear from buyers

Can anyone tell me if the armrests on the door are now at a proper height? Gen 3 were so low.

 

Both door and center armrests are higher, well placed.
3 gen's seemed extra low because the driver seat doesn't lower down very much.

 

I'm picking up mine tonight - can hardly contain the excitement. It's a Three, with the only options being the center overlay and 4 season floor mats (both installed from factory, on the original window sticker).

 

Good luck

 

Wow really nice. Somehow it just seems less polarizing in the grey.
good luck

 

Finally arrived at our local central VA dealership last Friday evening. Big event at the dealer with free food, etc. to celebrate. We didn't go, but stopped by on Sunday to look at what they had. One black 3 and a blue 3. Sticker - $27310. The seats are nice, but we are keeping the Gen 2 and Gen 3 for now. Waiting for that china white to go away on the console. They did have a very nice Avalon Hybrid Limited in the showroom!

 

If anyone is local to the Philly Tri state area I saw that Toyota is offering test drives of the Gen4 at the Philly International Auto show which is ongoing all this week... FYI.

 

I have a gen 4 Prius and an Avalon Limited Hybrid. Both are dynamite vehicles!

 

I'm sure it won't be long before some aftermarket company comes out with an exposed carbon fiber version of the white center console thing.

 

At the 2016 Portland Oregon Auto Show last weekend the 2016 Prius ECO 2 had a black colored cup holder center console, the 2016 Touring model was bathroom white, ugly, in color...

 

The fit and finish on the appliqué are really top notch-- it looks like it was designed to be there. The way it showed up on the window sticker makes me think it was factory applied.

The two-tone look works especially when with a white car, though. If my car was back on black I would not want to see any white, however.

Anyone else notice that the divider between the two cup holders pushes down yet?

I had been driving a 2006 Saab 93 during the week, and my wife's 2010 Prius 2 on the weekend, and I could not be happier with this car. The only other option I was considering was a slightly used BMW 3 Series for about the same price-- glad I saw the light. Part of the reason I didn't go over to the dark side was the excitement the Prius Chat Team created when they came out to Massachusetts, and all the updates you guys had regarding the (eventual) sales date.

So thanks!

 

Does the white/grey dashboard annoyingly reflect in the windshield during nighttime driving ?

 

No. The dash and center console do not reflect in the windshield.

 

This probably already has been addressed in the thread, but what the salesman told you is incorrect. What packages come with a car is partially dependent on the region of the country you are in. Toyota, or the distributors in some areas, forecast what packages, trim levels, colors, etc, will be popular in an area and request those combinations from the factory. For instance, in Northern California, I can't find a Four with ATP and PCP. But down in Southern California there are 29 of them waiting on dealership lots. I doubt they they got 29 special orders for that combination even before the car went on sale. Obviously in Southern California they feel that more people want the combination of ATP & PCP than just ATP, or just PCP (neither is available separately). In Northern California we only get ATP on a Four.

Obviously Gulf States Toyota felt that no one wanted ATP and PCP on a Prius Four in the Houston area. You could search neighboring states for the car you want. Toyota has a pretty decent way to search inventory in a specific area to see what is generally available. Enter the zip code you want to look in and see what pops up. As I said, there's 29 of them in Southern California. I'm sure Dianne would make you a deal...

 

I really love that interior... I think that pushed me over the edge. When my lease is up, I think i may pick up one of these. What exterior colors does that white interior come with? I guess i'll go check out the toyota website

 

Anyone have pics of the 4th Gen with the 6.1 inch screen?

 

Hello, I'm new, this is my first Toyota and my first hybrid. I love it so far. It is a Four Touring. I'm sorry for the dark pic, it was taken in the late afternoon. I don't know why, but I actually like the console. I can see why it is a turn off to some people but I like the contrast of black and white. My previous car had a black and silver console which I got tired of after 10+ years.




Edited to add:
I also forgot about this picture I took at the dealer which is a much more true color

 

Congrats -- think you will agree that the HR looks gorgeous in real life and that the image doesn't do it justice .

 

Thanks! and yes, the dealer only had one in HR and it was in the show room, as soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to buy it (as long as it drove smoothly, I had never driven a Prius before).

 

I'll start at the end - we just bought a 2016 Prius (dealer swapped it at portside because of specific colors/features we wanted), awaiting shipment in a couple of weeks. So obviously, we liked the car. I thought I'd write up a full set of impressions here for those that haven't been able to test drive one yet, so this is quite long.

We never saw a reason to trade our '05 Gen2 for a Gen3. Yes, we are major flying buttress haters, but honestly when we went to look at it, there was absolutely nothing we preferred over the Gen2. But as our Gen2 hit the decade mark we got very interested in what was happening with the Gen4, hoping for real improvements.

At launch, I didn't really think the styling was that weird, truth to tell; the overall profile is if anything more conventional than the Gen2/3, and character lines like those in the rear quarter are common. The radical headlight/taillight treatments are more amusing than off-putting, and looking at the car at night I have to say I think it all works superbly as functional lighting.

My main reaction was "You made us wait a whole extra year for THIS?"; not because I hated it, but rather it didn't seem worth delaying the launch just for the sake of re-torturing the sheetmetal a bit (does anyone know if images of the rejected "original" design ever leaked?). I still think that delay was a mistake, leaving the Gen3 to twist slowly in the indifferent wind of a Prius market waiting a whole extra year for the Gen4. Judging from what I saw on dealer lots this month, this is going to cost Toyota dearly in incentives on 2015s this spring/summer if fuel prices stay low as expected.

The interior was another story. Many reviewers made comments noting a lower seating position and tighter rear quarters, and we feared the car had been tweaked into some sort of four-door coupe with reduced utility. Both points were exaggerated. It sits noticeably lower than the Gen2, but it's no Miata, and the doorsills/roof do nothing to complicate ingress/egress; it should be fine for the over 60 crowd (e.g., me, soon enough). The rear seat doesn't match the taxicab-grade accommodations of the Gen2 (which continues to surprise our passengers to this day), but remains spacious and comfortable.

What DID hold up in person was my reaction to photographs of the "fine bone china" plastic used for the upper and lower center console on Threes and Fours. Well, yeah, they still look like bathroom fixtures in person, and what nitwit thought this was a good idea? I also saw a few examples of the console with the $200 ($300 post-delivery) piano-black upper/lower appliques, and to my eye it's a 100% improvement, integrating cleanly with the piano-black surfaces of the dashboard (more on that in a bit) and creating a nifty "tuxedo" look with the white cup-holders and Qi charging area. My wife (who'll be the primary driver) was leery of how dusty all that glossy black was going to look, so we decided to skip the expense of the applique and see if we can learn to appreciate the designer's original intent, reassured by the availability of the applique set if we change our minds later.

The dashboard is far from terrible, but it does compromise functionality for style. It looks kind of awesome wrapping around the front of the cabin into the doors, and the way the corner vents fit into the curve both emphasizes the wraparound effect and adds to their utility. The center stack provides good access to key controls; I especially like all the physical knobs and toggles for climate and sound system control (navigating touch screen menus while driving has always struck me as a bad idea). The thing is, the bottom side of the dash is covered in a glossy black plastic that rises up in the center to form the surround for the control stack and the "Darth Vader cowl" over the vents. It looks nice enough, but as you can see if you look very closely here (be sure to zoom it so you can see the detail):

http://www.hybridcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2016_Toyota_Prius_Four-Touring_251.jpg

. . . there's actually a "lip" behind the top edge of that plastic that appears to be good for nothing but catching dust (maybe you could keep a pen or two there if you don't take your corners too fast ;-) ). The fact that this useless dust catcher sits right where our Gen2's upper glove-box used to be just adds insult to injury, especially since the remaining glove-box is noticeably smaller than the one in the Gen2. One of the things we used to keep in that upper glove-box was a small dust brush to tidy up the Gen2's touch screen and swaths of shiny black plastic, and we're surely going to need that in this car as well.

I can't really add much to the volumes already written about the improved driving experience. Yes, taking it out on the freeway, it was noticeably smoother and quieter than our aging Gen2, and driving around town it felt decidedly more "planted" in the turns, but let's not get carried away. Nobody's going to mistake it for either an Avalon or an FR-S (or a Camry for that matter). You can still hear the engine/PSD/CVT (whatever) thrashing away on the on-ramps, it's just a more muted affair. It handles more or less like a decent compact car now, nothing like the numb, under-steering sled that is the Gen2. It's quicker off a standing start than our Gen2, but the Prius has never been exactly sluggish off the line anyway; it keeps out if its own way most satisfactorily. Bottom line: I've always loved our old Prius, but could understand why enthusiasts considered it a penalty box; this new one offers much less to offend those fond of going out for a little drive for the sheer pleasure of being on the road.

I will comment on one aspect of the driving experience - rear visibility. I never took a close look at a Four, but the fabric cargo cover in the Two/Three is a decidedly mixed bag. Deployed as intended (suspended by cords from the hatch), it partly blocks the view out of the lower rear window - not good. I'm not sure if this is adjustable; if not, it will likely remain detached in ours, lifted up and dropped on top of whatever's in the trunk as needed [UPDATE: After reviewing the manual downloaded from the Toyota support site, it seems likely the dealership did not install the cargo cover correctly (surprise, surprise). The manual specifically warns that the cargo cover may partially block rear visibility if not properly installed; amusingly, it also warns that you should only unfurl the spring-framed cover after confirming nobody is standing nearby, lest the flimsy plastic-framed fabric panel decapitate your toddler ]. Also affecting the view out back are the rear headrests. These can fold down 90deg when fully extended, so you can drop them out of the way when there aren't rear passengers - nice touch.

Trunk space is quite good even in models with spare tires (i.e., the non-Eco Two and the Threes) with a level load floor extended nicely by folding the rears seats (I've always valued the hatchback form factor of the Prius, still a rarity in a U.S. market that prefers underutilized hauling machines to flexible passenger cars). Those seats have one of the easiest to operate release/folding mechanisms I've seen, a nice improvement from the stiff pushbuttons on the Gen2. The standard cargo cover (as opposed to the horizontal blind on the Four) is cheap but effective (especially if I can fix the visibility problem noted above).

I'm also not going to say a lot about the tech - you can read about that a lot of places, and we didn't bother to play with much of it firsthand (I did stick in a CD w/MP3s just to check out folder navigation, and liked it better than many I've seen). Toyota's nav system and Entune are clearly respectable, and that's more than good enough for our purposes. I will say that the multiple displays are just gorgeous, but we do expect to spend a lot of time learning to navigate the menu system and making sure we know how to get to our favorite displays from the long list of choices.

In reviewing the trim levels, the Two was off our list at once, lacking either XM or HD radios (we like both). We understood why the Two Eco lacked a spare tire (extreme weight efficiency), but that was a real shocker for the Four. Toyota left a lot of money on the table there, because we liked a lot of the Four's upgrades (especially the climate controlled seats) and considered it worth the money, but not the hassle of figuring out how to mount a spare in the trunk in an acceptable manner ("going without" not being an option). I understand Toyota has argued that the tire had to go to avoid reporting reduced MPG for the more heavily equipped Four, but that's a poor reason to drive many buyers to cheaper models when there's nobody else in the same fuel economy league as ANY Prius. If you go to Hyundai some time and look at their Sonata Hybrid, you'll note that Hyundai reports 1 MPG lower for the high-trim "Limited" version, and that's that (to be fair, NO Sonata Hybrid includes a spare, since they need the room for batteries).

I was eventually able to convince my wife we should get TSS-P, as I think it likely these safety features will become standard or nearly so during our life with this car. That brought the choice down to the Three w/ATP or the Three Touring. Looking at cars with both packages, we:

- were indifferent to the sunroof, Touring suspension tuning, and merely decorative fog/clearance lights

- liked the Heads Up Display and Harvest Beige fabric interior

- disliked the 17" wheels and Softex upholstery

. . . so settled on a Hypersonic Red Three with Harvest Beige interior and Advanced Tech Package. Fortunately, there was just such a car sitting at the port in California ready to ship to a dealer in Arizona, who swapped it with our dealer for a car that was formerly headed our way. We expect to drive it home this month!