take a look at this thread: Cyclists - Roof Rack or Install a Hitch & Thule Rack? my personal experience with a hatch mounted rack on a Gen 3, it cuts your mileage down by ~20% ...
Has anyone installed a bike rack on a Prius Prime that is easy to use for short hauls to local bike paths?
I've always been a supporter of installing a receiver hitch, and then using whatever hitch-mounted bike rack, cargo carrier, or tow ball was needed for a particular task. I use a hitch-mount cargo carrier on my 2005 Prius fairly often, maybe 5 or 10 weeks a year. I'd figured I'd put a hitch receiver on my Prime first thing. I haven't. Basically, the cargo capacity (including passengers) is only 670 pounds, vs 825 pounds on my 2005. Receiver hitches, even small ones like on any Prius, are heavy. Typically 40 pounds, and that's hanging out behind the wheels before you even attach anything to it. So I'm not saying don't add a receiver hitch, or don't mount a bike rack on the hitch. But figure out the weight of it all, and how often you'll remove the bike rack vs leave it in the hitch, etc. And see if that interferes with your plans to carry people and cargo inside the car. It doesn't matter if the bike trail is 2 miles away, if you leave the bike rack on the car 24/365. Certainly the receiver hitch isn't the sort of thing that's ever going to be removed (except maybe when you sell the car) once you install it. The same is true for some roof racks, but not others. And for some stuff I thow in the trunk.....but wait, there really isn't much of a trunk on this car, is there?
I just received a reply from the Toyota People regarding the bike rack. There is no bike rack for the Prime that Toyota makes. I would send you the Toyota link, but this chat site won't let me do it.
I looked into this and they do make a hitch for the Prime. I called Toyota and they told me that it would void my warranty if anything happened to the car in relation to having the hitch installed on the car. If you want to install one then Uhaul sells them and will install them in my area for about $180. It has a tongue rating of 200 lbs. After buying the extended warranty I will be buying the Toyota Roof Cross Bars for $299 and installing some compatable bike racks instead of the tow hitch.
