Hi all! I am new to this forum and I am shopping for a 2018 Prius Prime, but want to test drive one first. Any tips on where to locate one closest to the Chicagoland area? I've looked online Pat individual dealerships and also looked on AutoTrader. Any other guidelines people can give me? A number of dealerships have them on their website, but then they are not actually part of their inventory. Thanks in advance!
I test drove one in Northbrook and one in Libertyville. Neither was charged enough to give EV mode a good test. If I had to do it again I would immediately put the car in Charge Mode for 15 minutes and then switch to EV. I ultimately purchased one from my long time dealer in Park Ridge. This was all in the May ‘18 timeframe. Elmhurst had a Prime to test as well but I never went there. Bottom line is they are rather scarce and dealers are not really very knowledgeable on the Prime here. I love mine. J
There are much better prices available on the coasts when you are ready to buy. I'm a Chicago transplant to Denver. And was shopping for one in Denver, and then for one in Chicago for pick up over xmas. But ended up going to California due to way better price. Based on the price forms it looks like the east coast has even better pricing and would be more convenient to Chicago than California.
I drove up to Madison WI (from Des Plaines IL) in June 2017 to test drive one with the advanced trim. Grossinger in Chicago had a premium, which I drove, but they didn't bother to charge it.
That’s why I suggested running in “charge mode” at the beginning of the test. Don’t depend on clueless sales persons to charge the car. J
I found that I had to specify, repeatedly, to all dealerships to pre-charge plug-in hybrids for test-drives. Agree that most dealer staffs know little or nothing about these cars. I drove Ford Fusion Energi's, The Chevy Volt, Hyundai Sonata Plug Ins, in addition to the Primes.
Elmhurst usually has a few. Call Justyna and ask her to have one fully charged for a test drive. Just don't expect discounts on Primes in the Chicago market. Also watch out for unnecessary dealer tricks like VinEtch or Fabric Treatment (Grossinger).
I would never buy a car from Grossinger. Old School unethical dealership. I had a bait and switch incident. Thought it might be a one time thing except they did a similar thing when I gave them one more chance. There are a lot of Grossinger license plate frames on the road. I don’t know why people feel they need to buy from a dealer like that.
