Looking at Prius gen 4 2016 as first Prius and have ?s

That's why I press the buttons directly on the console - faster and to the point.

 

Might be apples-and-oranges, sorry. I'm 2010 3rd gen: this is what I'm using:



Would much prefer controls that you can adjust without the need to take your eyes off the road. Say dial with detents, or similar slider.

 

The Gen 4 has a paddle near the bottom of the console that controls this. It's distinctive, easy to find, an improvement over the Gen 3.

I'm still not happy about having to reset the temperature setting when I switch the AC on and off. I don't have a suggestion how to improve it without making things much more complex.

 

You can do that in Gen4 too - you can do it also via MFD, but I find that quite redundant and although yes, you are keeping your eyes more "up" and closer to the line of sight of the road, it is quite tricky to get to the right tab, and the right setting.
Mind you I keep the AC on Auto 99,9% of the time so I have very little to set.

But for example, recirculation, I have always used the button on the dash on the Gen3 and doing the same on Gen4. Faster and quicker.

On Gen3 there was a handy button on the steering wheel to toggle recirculation, but in the end I had to look to the dash to see if it was already on or not as the MFD would not tell you the status - Gen4 in this respect is better - as auto will turn it on and off according to a several parameters.

So in the end I dropped the steering wheel button and went directly to the dash one, so that I could see if already on and toggling it as necessary.

 

? what do you mean? if I set the temp to e.g. 24C, it will stay there after on/off cycle of the car. You mean after turning on/off the whole system, or simply the AC Compressor button? does it really default when you turn the AC compressor on/off? if yes, to what temp?

 

If I am running without AC and just want outside air without any heating, I set the temp to "LO". Then if I switch on the AC, it tries to turn the car into a refrigerator unless I increase the temp setting. I'm usually happy with an AC temp setting a few degrees below ambient so I get the dehumidification. Then if I switch off the AC, I have to remember to set the temp back to "LO" or at some later point in time I may get heated air coming into the cabin and wonder why it feels stuffy.
The Gen 3 was the same way.

 

I like to do that to dry out the vent assembly with dry air. Only use AC on trips at high speeds or my wife is in the car.

Doing that since Gen2.

 

In the Gen 4, the problem with "AUTO" is that if you have the temp set to "LO" and the ambient temp is anywhere above say 64 degrees, "AUTO" raises the fan to full blast to try to cool the car to the "LO" temperature. This is without AC running. The noise gets tiresome, especially if you're fine with the ambient temperature and just want a little air circulation. In that situation, I switch off "AUTO".

With the AC on, "AUTO" works great, turning the fan speed down as the set temperature is reached. Alas this means another adjustment to make when I turn the AC on or off!

Thank goodness the AC is electric! In the old days I used to "pulse" the AC in the Insight-I because the AC was belt-driven from the engine. Pulsing the AC in the Prius would mean a LOT of flipping switches, etc.

 

I keep it simple, no A/C or fan. Windows up or down controls my environment.

 

My copilot insists on wearing her fur coat year around. So it's not that simple here.

 

I set it to 19-24C (depending on season, external temp, and how dressed I am), full Auto (ECO) and forget about it.
I cannot really use the "window option", because we get rain like every other day, and in city traffic I don't want to breathe the exhaust of all the VWs (and not just those) diesels (and not) around me.
So recirculation needs to be on practically 95% of the time of my commute, if through town. The rare times I can take the "ring" road, recirculation will be off, unless the HVAC decides it needs it.
To this respect, I am glad the HVAC unit is so refined.

 

So what did the OP do? Buy one or something else?

 

Sorry, I forgot that it's not that simple. In a cold start, the Gen 4 will leave the gas engine off and let you EV a ways (depending on the SOC of the battery). As far as I can tell, this seems to be true only if the cabin temperature setting does not call for heating. If it is set at say 70F and the car has cooled below that overnight, the gas engine kicks on immediately to warm itself up so it can supply the heat necessary to warm the cabin up to 70F.

This is unlike the Gen 3, which in a cold start always kicked on the gas engine 15-30sec after pressing the "on" button.

Running EV until you are out on the road can have a small efficiency benefit: the gas engine won't turn on until it is needed for propulsion and battery charging, and running it under a higher load is more efficient.

 

congrats! all the best.

 

I've noticed that in Auto the AC will come on if needed or be turned off. I don't change it. So now I just set the temp I want.

As for what constitutes distracted driving... you all know the the "smart" people have decided for us that only using a cell phone is distracting while such things as kids, radio settings, make up, getting something out of your storage locations are not. If they were then there would be fines for them too.

 

Hi Michsteve, i cant answer the first question as i live in the tropics. i own a Prius Gen 4 and i do easily achieve 50MPG from mixed city driving. as for whether the car is hardy enough for 25K miles per year, i feel that toyotas generally are able to do such mileage comfortably. where i come from, our taxi companies here are increasingly using Prius if thats any indication of its ability to tackle high-mileage usage.
Hope this helps!

 

It shouldn't really work like that though - the point of climate control is you set the temperature you want, and the car tries to maintain that temperature. If I set the temperature at 20°C, even if I switch A/C on (and it's cold outside), it will use warmed air/cold external air/air conditioned air (if switched on) as it sees fit to maintain whatever temperature you have set.

You should really just be able to set the temperature at one you are generally comfortable with and leave it at that. Setting it to "LO" without A/C just means the car is trying to reduce the temperature to 15° or something (I can remember the minimum), without having air that is cold enough to achieve that, so it'll be constantly struggling to do it.

You might have to vary a degree or two up or down from time to time, given the body's differing perception of temperature depending on other factors like humidity etc., but overall the temp setting itself shouldn't need to be changed much once you find your comfort zone.