Gen 4 in-cabin storage options

I agree with John F about the storage space, while it could be better, some are being unfair, e.g. only a thin pair of gloves in the glove compartment. And at the risk of being slammed, I personally really like the moonstone interior and white treatments. To me it does make the car look more futuristic, which I believe was Toyota's intent. I'm in my 60's so perhaps its just the kid coming out in me at this stage. Of course to each his own. J

 

Not overstated at all. I have zero idea how you'd ever fit a D cell flashlight PLUS the manuals PLUS a pair of gloves in the glovebox! No idea at all. My manuals won't all fit! And forget the vinyl 'case' they gave me with the manuals. As far as jamming stuff in the back seat pockets or the center console, I'm sure that stuff would fit, but NOT without making it a chore to retrieve anything out of the console and not without severely bulging out the backs of the seats. I'm sure that won't hurt the cheap vinyl seat material though. And as for jumper cables, I needed those twice in my 2006 Prius so I'll be ripping out the foam in the back to make a REAL compartment where I can put a spare tire, warning triangles, a rainsuit for tire changing or walking in a breakdown, a fire extinguisher that is actually sized to fight a fire in someone's vehicle and a real, appropriately equipped first aid kit. As I said, my 2006 Prius had far more storage and storage that was functional and useful UNLIKE this 2016. I didn't even mention the lack of that little compartment in the dash underneath the radio--that was very useful in the 2006. Toyota has without a doubt, missed the mark completely wrt storage in the 2016 Four Touring! The items I took out of my 2006 will not come even close to fitting in my 2016! Not even close!

Great point! The white does look exactly like a toilet! The design engineer must have been smoking some funny herb-type thingy when he specified that hideous white. Grey spray paint will be applied to the steering wheel urinal parts shortly!

 

I finished with looking stuff up in the Owner's Manual and Quick Reference guide and added them to the glove box as well. Perfect!

Thanks, you got me to think things over and now I have the stuff in my car more organized.

Maybe you should get a hitch and a trailer for all the emergency stuff?

 

Funny how Prius owners forget that the big cavity behind the back seat is a storage area.

 

Yes, it's for wet dogs!

 

Anybody wanna buy a Four Touring? At this point, I'm glad I kept my 2006. The voice command actually works to control the climate control system unlike the Four Touring in which all it does is pick radio options.

 

Another list member traded in his 2016 Eco already. Seemed like a radical idea at the time, but after listening to his reasons, his "take charge" plan really made a great deal of sense to me. A car is just a thing, but happiness is important and even things that don't love you back can impact it. Both the Camry and Rav 4 are excellent autos, I think.

As for the voice command, I certainly understand why so many are not happy with it. My approach has been the same as I take traveling. Rather than just hope in vain my way of speaking is understood, I try to speak the language of where I find myself.

In the Prius, this means saying things like "Find an address" before giving one. And never ever saying "Find a destination". Do that and my car will most certainly piss me off asking what bus station I want. Better to speak Prius and ask it to find a POI and so forth.

Yea, it shouldn't be that way - but when in Prius....

 

Is there a Prius dictionary available or list of things you can say and how to say them, or is it learn as you go. J

 

There used to be...there are many voice commands that work in my 2006--too many to remember even. Seems that for the 2016, it's a complete waste of a button. Toyota has gotten carried away with a lot of useless nonsense in my opinion. The flying buttress in the last generation was annoying and intrusive--a good friend has a gen 3 and every time I would ride in it, I felt like I was in a roller coaster seat...and the space underneath the buttress was an uncontrolled catchall--stuff would slide around and NOT be handy to reach while driving. As I've said, it has gotten even worse in the 2016. The space taken up by this charger thingy is ridiculous, not to mention all the extra and useless stuff on the shifting bezel as well as the Eco A/C button which from what I can tell does NOTHING. It's a pity because they did a nice job on the re-styling to make the car look a tad more contemporary, but then cheapened the whole thing up by not offering genuine leather and making the interior somewhat of a joke. The shiny black around the screen display looks like a cheap tablet and the hoop-jumping you have to go through to get displays similar to what I had in the 2006 is just plain stupid. I couldn't look at this car in advance of purchasing it because there were no threes or fours in western NYS and certainly that included touring model(s). Online information as I've previously written is misleading and downright dishonest. I paid an extra $199 just to cover the porcelain urinal in the middle and that didn't even cover it all up. One should NOT have to do that with a new vehicle, nor should one have to spray paint the white urinal panels on the steering wheel on a $30K car. The design engineer who said 'no spare' is an idiot but to NOT even have space to put one in aftermarket is negligent in my opinion. And in NY you pay a tax for the tires on the car, so the dealership charged me for five tires at $2.50 each...not a large sum, but I pointed out that the car only has four tires and therefore the tax should be $10.00 on the itemized sheet and not $12.50 as listed--they said: "Oh well" Again, not a big thing, but just another example of the carelessness, and outright lack of precision, honesty and common sense swirling around this 'new' version of what has been a very practical automobile.I think I'm trying to share what came as complete surprises to me as a result of not actually being able to see the higher options of 'trim' for this car. It drives just OK...and the things I mention are extremely disappointing in a $30K car. Folks need to see/hear that. I had the things that I think are essential to carry in a car--jumper cables, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, decent, long-battery-life-very bright flashlight and of course spare tire. Those things will not even fit in any of the available storage compartments! THey have to either be on the back floor or in the luggage space. That's a downward trend from my 2006 which enabled me to conveniently keep all that stuff out of sight. When I'd pick up folks at the airport, I didn't have to move stuff from the back floor area or shift stuff around to accommodate luggage. I had functional buttons and non-weird decor touches like the white urinal plastic. I had cloth seats that were comfortable and didn't feel cheap like this softex crap does. And the seats, while not adjusting much were reasonably comfortable. The hard vinyl seats are anything but! People who have always liked Prius need to at least hear alternate opinions other than how WONDERFUL and advanced the 2016 is, even though much of what they promised has not from my perspective, been realized in this year's models.

 

I like the way you think. What ever happened to just enjoying the vehicle and driving it? I got creative on the storage. Only kept Nav. & Audio in glove compartment. All other info has been PDF downloaded to computer. If a need to review an item contained comes up, jot it down and check on it in the evening while I'm checking this site for helpful or humorous content. So plenty of room for crank LED flash light and ultra thin emergency space blankets, etc. Center console has plenty of room for tissues, Lifetime MPG log, clean rag, digital tire gauge, etc. So guess I'm baffled by all the negativity. Just my 69 year old opinion.

 

LOL, good take on the emergency equipment bowerda47. That was a little over the top. Really, the storage in the 2016 Prius is about the same as I have in my VW Golf and I've "survived" in that for the past 5 years and 114k. J

 

Too bad you folks don't understand what I've been saying. The 16 is supposed to be BIGGER than gen 3 or gen 2 and I'm telling you that that's false advertising! I cannot come close to transferring the car-related equipment I have in my 2006 over to my 2016...a supposedly bigger car. It doesn't even come close. I have tons of extra storage space that is unused in my 2006 and even when carefully packing the exact same stuff into the 2016, it doesn't come close to fitting. And no spare tire! The car simple does not come close to fulfilling its promise and that to me is unethical for Toyota to have done that: especially saying it's larger inside! Volume doesn't translate to functional, safe, convenient storage that the 2006 has! Sure I could leave all this stuff lying out in the area behind the rear seat, but who wants that clutter, not to mention the loose stuff flying around the cabin in a quick stop?!

I understand that this forum is full of Prius apologists who naively believe that Prius is perfect and Toyota can do nothing wrong, but from my perspective of having a Gen 2 for over 10 years and having business associates who have Gen 3's that I ride in frequently, this current version is a huge disappointment and advertised with claims that I cannot verify from actual experience! Hence deception with a host of online apologists! Sad, but it explains a lot about the verity of what I read on here.

 

My comments are based on comparison with a 2010 Gen 3 we have owned for about 6 years (and still do). I cannot make any meaningful comparisons to the Gen 2.

 

Actually we do, especially after five repetitions. It's you who do not grasp what we are saying: we are reasonably satisfied with the Gen 4. I don't think anybody here thinks the Gen 4 is perfect. We're more focused on understanding it better and figuring out ways to deal with various problems (for example in-cabin storage spaces). Like ATHiker, having owned a Gen 3 for 5 years I found that the Gen 4 has fewer and smaller storage places in the cabin, and this discussion has been very helpful to me in dealing with that.

In terms of interior volume, my Gen 4 is a bit larger than my Gen 3 thanks to the lowered floor. I hauled my old clothes dryer over to Habitat in the back of my Gen 4 and there was room to spare.

Macomb, if you hate it so much you should sell the car and move on. Posting these tirades on here doesn't accomplish anything.

 

Not for you maybe, but it's already been helpful to others who, like me, don't like being lied to. As I said: profligate apologists!

 

Like you, I have real problem with Toyota using the same EPA certified MPGs for all non-Eco models, even though the practice is legal and other car companies play similar games.

Good to share all your observations, too.

That said, some of them come across like those of a guy who marries a woman with a 24 dress size, and then feels a need to tell everyone she is fat on the honeymoon.

I say that not so much a a critique of your style (group think is worse) but rather as an explanation for some of the reactions you are getting-- and why they are not driven by profligate apologists.

Thanks for teaching me a new word, BTW!

Edit: I may have to retract my thanks for teaching me the word "profligate". Upon further research, I am not sure it was really used all that well. But I will thank you for inspiring me to look it up.

 

Always wise to be certain of the meaning of a fancy word before deploying it. "Profuse" maybe? Though even that doesn't quite fit. I do not know.

 

Rather than do the real chores my wife suggested, I thought I would screw round under the hatch and took out the left hand section of fancy styrofoam to see how much crap I could stash in its place.



My stuff seems to support the lid well enough, and allow it to lie flat. Time will tell on rattles and change in road noise. If that's a problem, some of this will go back into a travel bag and ride uptop.

 

JohnF, I too gotta wonder how you fit all the owners manuals in the glove box. My door won't close. Even when I removed them from the vinyl case, they still wouldn't fit... (My salesman spent 5 minutes and he couldn't do it either.)

But that's Ok, I'd rather keep them in my "riot gear" plastic box I have in the hatchback area. (Yes, the infamous plastic box that I foolishly put back there before I took my meds. )

 

Thanks ATHiker for the first appearance of what appears to be a possible solution to fitting a spare tire (if one can remove both of those cutout foam panels. There is a white 'screw' in both sides of the cutout sections that I can't seem to remove. At this point, I don't want to force it, lest I break something. How did you remove the white round fastener to enable removal of the left foam 'tray'? I cannot in good conscience get rid of this car without a space-saver spare in it. I have an extra one in my garage that holds air at pressure and isn't 'old rubber'. Thanks.