Excited to drive home (all of 5kms!) our new family member today! After 10 1/2 years with an ever-reliable Gen 2, it was time to move on....and wow, what an improvement in 10 years! Found some pleasant surprises like electric folding mirrors and rain-sensing wipers - not mentioned anywhere. And it's so much smoother - no more clunk when the engine stops - with interior switches that are now well lit. Going to take it out on a country drive tomorrow!
very cool--I am in central Fl--have a Gen 2--2008 - how is the road noise level? What kind of pricing did you get for your specific model, in Fla? thanks!
Congrats! I am a bit envious about the wipers, in Germany rain sensor is not available not even as an option unless you buy the highest trim with a base price of 32k€.....
Unfortunately I'm in the other Melbourne in Australia! But road noise is virtually nil - these are Bridgestone tyres on 15 inch wheels. In fact, I took my brother and wife for a quick drive, and they commented on how quiet it is. Much quieter than the old one, and I didn't find that too noisy. Yes, I saw your post - seems very silly! We have only two trim levels in Australia, this is the lower one at about 26,000 euros, but I prefer the normal tyres rather than the low profile ones anyway. Also have the HUD which is great! What we don't have in this model is Sat Nav!
Then it seems your model is quite similar to the one in Italy (only 2 levels there as well). Sat nav in Germany is available standard on the too trim, optional on the other lower two. I don't really care about sat nav because I rely and like very much Tomtom HD traffic devices and I can replace them with the latest technology when I want at a fraction of the price. It is not precise in tunnels and doesn't look "elegant" but does it's job really really well. I think HD traffic is available also in Austrralia.
Thanks for the comments So far, it's been great! Done about 200km testing the various modes...well, actually my wife has been doing most of the driving! Surprised how well it picks up in the sporty mode, and Eco mode feels like the Gen 2, so it's quite ok for normal city driving. Depending how accurate the range is, it says we still have 1100km which is phenomenal! Even without trying we're averaging around 3.6L/100km which we rarely had with the Gen 2. Getting a bit of wind noise above 60kmh, but that's with the radio off and the rest being so quiet. Also the two orange JBL logos reflect in the windscreen - perhaps there'll be official black clip on bits to cover them in the future! Highway driving is much smoother and the engine doesn't struggle at all like the Gen 2 did at times. Seats are so much more comfortable, and I love how all the switches are lit in blue rather than being unlit as in the old one. It's also cool how through the Toyota Link app you can display the weather (including radar) and petrol station locations with prices. Now, if they could also link in Google Maps or the TomTom app... The voice control seems to work well too, and the fact that it can read out your emails is a pretty cool feature (depending on the type of spam you get I suppose!) So all in all, really happy! Will see how many km we get out of this first tank!
Congratulations - sounds like Gen 4 is the way to go. Wind noise with radio off - I don't recall ever having mine off (or it's a CD playing), though I believe there is an off switch. Funny about "read out your emails is a pretty cool" - my FOCUS had that with TEXT messages - but I ended up turning that off, after I had my elderly parents in the car and one of my siblings sent a TEXT commenting about something Mum had done - and they were in the car when it read out!!!
Ha, yes, I can see that would have caused a rather delicate situation! It's something I'd turn off as well, but it's fun for the moment. Used the voice control to make a call tonight (with a Sony Xperia) and it understood me without any issues. Audio from a USB stick unfortunately only supports compressed formats (Wma, MP3 and AAC), but playing back via Bluetooth you can play any format your player supports, including DSD on my phone. I can also live with the reduced storage space. It forces you to simplify what you carry around (which was too many CDs in our case in the Gen 2) - perhaps it's the Japanese art of de-cluttering!
It's hard to believe those striking tail lights aren't an expensive after market add on! Great colour - if I could have waited till August, I would have picked blue.
Nice blue color! Good choice. I would have gotten that color if it were available here. I tend to think the darker colors make the new Prius look better.
It's interesting how different light reflects off the angles - perhaps the darker colour accentuates this. Still very happy overall after a week and a half. Quirks found out so far: - if someone (a child for example) is sitting in the back, you stop without turning off the car to let a front-seat passenger out and the child climbs over the middle into the front, when you take off again the car thinks there's still someone in the back and beeps loudly! Guess it was waiting for a back door to open. - the ceiling fabric is super delicate. Even with a micro-fibre cloth I managed to damage the pattern (luckily not too visible directly over the passenger's head)...and here I was thinking I'd scrape the bottom first! - if no one is in the passenger seat, going over cobble stones or corrugated bumps causes it to shudder a little. Not sure if this is a feature of Prii as previous gens apparently also had issues (though our 2005 didn't)....will ask the dealer. - cargo space with seats down seems much better, as is pretty much everything else! PS the car may have been delivered quickly, but it's anyone's guess as to how long it'll take for floor mats to arrive as there are none in Australia!
