Hello everyone! Long time reader, first time caller. One week ago, while I was driving down the tollway, a semi hit my wife's 2009 Prius. We are wanting to get her into another Prius, and we are shopping 3rd Gen Prii. However, she is wanting to find out what year was the first year that the 3rd Gen Prius came with USB. Thanks!
Ouch! It looks serious accident. I hope you and your wife were OK. My Prius is 2015 Model Two, so it is the last year of production for Gen 3. It has USB as standard, if you mean the ability to plug in USB thumb drive with MP3 files to play on the audio. Not sure about when they started having this feature though.
Yikes! Looks like your Prius protected you well! Hope you are okay! I have a used 2013 that has USB and Bluetooth installed. Love it! iPhone ?
3G Prius (2010-2015) Standard and Optional Equipment (Some Countries) | PriusChat September 2009 build and newer, it came with vehicles equipped with navigation. Pre-Sept 2009, it was not available. 2012MY to 2015MY, it was standard equipment. Hope everyone's ok!
The USB browsing built in to the 2012+ models (the 7-inch-with-nav version anyway) is somewhat nicer than with the 2010-11 add-on box. You can find things by artist and album ID3 tags, not just by folder and filename. -Chap
Wow!! Hope everyone's OK. Sounds like you got your questions answered and I learned some more from these walking and typing encyclopedias, too.
JBL and nav in a 2010-11 may be necessary but not sufficient conditions for having USB. The USB is still an extra accessory in those years ... a small box under the driver's seat. The large box down there is the XM radio tuner. If there's a smaller, more deck-of-cards-sized box also mounted there, that's the USB interface. Both extra boxes went away in 2012; the 7-inch nav has both XM and USB built right into the headunit (but to make room, it has just the single-disc player, to the 2010-11's 4-disc changer). -Chap
The USB outlet is located in the centre console bin. The CD changer was removed because nobody was using optical discs as often as they used to so a single disc sufficed. Note that new offerings from Toyota omit the CD player (RAV4 Limited, RAV4 Hybrid Limited, Prius Prime Advanced)
Right, sorry if what I said was confusing. In 2012+, the cable from that outlet in the console bin runs straight to the headunit in the dash; in 2010-11, it runs down the carpet at the side of the bin, to the accessory USB reader under the driver's seat. So you can check whether a 2010-11 has USB either by looking for the outlet in the console bin, or glancing under the seat. -Chap
