'Lexie' the baby Lexus is finished

After a long wait for the hard to get wood grained steering wheel, the interior is finally finished. Wife is very happy and we love the comfort.

We almost bought a small lexus for the seats and they sure are quiet. We loved the Prius too but the seats and interior sound levels had to have to some work. Seat comfort was a high priority for us when we went new car shopping last summer. So before ordering our Prius I checked with the local shops and found one that would guarantee our comfort and satisfaction.
We order the Red pkg 5 touring so we could get customized grey leather since it was going to the shop anyway. As you know the factory seats are fairly hard and flat. I wanted the soft plush bucket seat feel as much as possible with the little Prius seat frame. They shaved as much foam as possible from the butt area and then tapered toward the front, added gel pads, seat heaters, electric lumbar and the Katskin premium two tone leather covers. I took it back twice to get some minor lumps shaved and tailored to get that perfect seat.
The shop did a lot of other special stuff for me including the soundproofing. They totally removed all the interior trim, door panels, flooring, roof panels etc, and installed all new foil backed sound deading material throughout. ( I got some neat pictures of this work)
I had them install extra padding on the armrests and center console under the leather. They installed the wood grained interior trim with matching steering wheel (that took a long time to get due to high demand I guess).
All glass was tinted with side window visors installed. Last we added the auto headlight sensor so lights come on at night.

Well I could go on but the bottom line is we call our Prius "Lexie" now, which is short for baby Lexus. The seats are very soft and comfy. The interior sound levels are down really close to the Lexus. Long road trips are a pleasure. We are totally pleased with our decision to go this way especially the seats and sound proofing.

 

I'll get a shot of the steering wheel up on line......

The total $ for all the modifications & work including XM sat radio was $6k. This put our total including 100,000 warrenty right at $34K. Thats $10k less than the Lexus plus about 20 more mpg. The seats and quiet ride is really close to the ES350.

 

Autopartswarehouse.com is where I ordered the visors-
Parts Ordered
2004 - 2008 Toyota Prius Weathertech Vent Visor Vent Visor Price: $69.95 Qty: 1 Part #: W2480357
These visors only cover about 3 inches down from the top of the door, so they may not be what your'e looking for. These are designed to let you crack open the window without any rain coming in. Really great on hot days so that you can ventilate the interior while parked outside. The above order is for the front windows only. I like the way these look so well that I will order the rear visors also. No pics yet but as soon as the weather clears up some I'll get some up.

You can see the leather seats on the Katzkin website. The two tone, perforated, Premium Tuscany, with contrast stitching leather coverings for front and rear was right at $1700 with $400 for installation, the heat and lumbar for both front seats was $950 including install, and the gel pads with seat cushion customizing and adjustments was $500. Our Prius had the grey interior, so the two tone leather was ordered to match the dark graphite and the lighter grey colors.
The sound proofing installed was Thermocite. I have the pics from the all that work, kinda scary seeing your new car completely gutted inside. Turned out very well....only problem was the gas down latch on the floor had to be adjusted on a return visit to the shop. The extra insulation in the floor caused it to malfunction and I had to manually open the door for a fill up. They fixed it easily. These guys at the MasterCrafstman Shop (Beaumont, TX) did great work and were just super to work with, taking care of my every concern without hassel. Big Daddy (Eric) is a real busy guy.

Duke

 

Check out the 'Lexie' photo album. I got a few pics up. There are a couple of the soundproofing in progress too. A shot of the steering wheel for those interested also. I forgot to get a pic of the seat heat and lumbar controls but they were on the front of the side seat bottom.
WE're happy, let me know what ya think,

 

Both the high/low heat switch and the lumbar switch are located on the outside of the bottom cushion close to the floor. Installed in the seat cushions on both front seats. We're using them a lot in this cold weather.

 

Yes I did a quick calc on it prior to install and it was not going to be over 20lbs, more likely to be in the 15 lb range. I felt that was not excessive. I sure can't see any mpg change.
One little flaw has cropped up that may need to be addressed. As you can see in the driver seat photo, there is small pleat in the leather. These Katzkin leather covers are sewn to fit factory seat which are fairly flat. When I had the foam shaved in the butt areas to create the "Bucket Seat" the leather relaxed there and making it wrinkle. Since I really like the seat comfort this way, I may have the shop put some fully compressable foam in this area. This should support the leather to remove the pleat and as the same time fully compress when I sit on it so not the change the bucket seat depth.
Anybody changed their fog light bulbs to get them whiter. They sure do look Yellow compared to the HID's. I want to fix that.