Wow...the red with black accents...and the black wheel covers are a great combination! Certainly doesn't look like a "base model".
His (@sansprius1) avatar data shows MN. But even the OP is in cold weather WINTERS (PA) ... don't know why 'south' came up .... ? .
"Living in a similar winter road condition area that gets extreme road filth buildup from dirty snow/slush in a heartbeat ..."
great color. almost looks a little orange in the light you used. Will be interesting to see it in person.
I thought maybe I’d get one of the aficionados on that one!! No really I worry more about what’s ahead of me, then what’s behind.. if somebody can’t see in my back window that’s none of my business! Defroster and rearview side mirrors always worked good for me✌️
Rear wipers are a must of vertical glass. The glass that actually got dirty to the point of obstructing view out of on my Prius was vertical, and it didn't have a wiper. Otherwise, there were times having the wiper was, or would have been, nice, but not having it resulted in a safety issue.
its molded in and cant be removed - in PA only one plate is required. - so that bump looks stupid ! its a car capsule - we moved from NY to PA and stored some furniture in it, it was removed last week and put in our new house. my garage is my 3 story 20-acre dream / retirement garage - the garagemahaul = log man cave with living space over garage and a 3rd floor office. Home (wife's house) was just finished across from the garage a few weeks ago. " the wife stated she does not want to live in a garage " so the house was built
Gerdes(xcel) at Cleanmpg took some close ups of it for this thread. https://www.cleanmpg.com/community/index.php?threads/57050/page-4
Wow! Making me almost wish I’d held out for a red one. That looks great. I used plasti-dip on my emblems. You can get it at Walmart, Lowe’s, Home Depot, etc. Usually in the spray paint department but it’s not paint. It’s very easy to use and you can’t mess it up. If you do, or you don’t like it, it peels right off. Lots of how-to videos on YouTube.
I asked dealership about switching tire size to 17 inch and parts guy said it would affect speedometer and something else and they wouldn’t recommend it. Thoughts? Not that I have extra cash to do this but curious because I’m bummed about 19in tires and lack of spare tire.
The speedometer reading will be off, but it isn't required to be precise by law to begin with. The change with the smaller wheels is less than the legal error margins; 1.9% to 4% or 5%. Going larger to smaller will have the speedometer reading high, so you won't have to worry about going faster than the display. Not sure what the something else could be. Alignment? Change in ride quality?
I hate to say it, but this is another case of wait and see. It is highly likely that switching to 17" wheels will have no significant impact to your car(your wallet on the other hand...). That being said, it has been known for Toyota to occasionally change suspension parts depending on which wheels were spec'd for the vehicle. We won't know for certain until the parts site is updated with the 2023 model year. Your dealership parts guy has access to that info already, but unless you saw him/her look it up before answering your question, it's possible they were just going off general knowledge. If they are really helpful and not busy(and they like to gab), you could try going down to the dealership and seeing if they will pull up the part diagrams to see if there are differences between the 17" and 19" cars. The last parts guy I talked to turned out to be a conspiracy nut, so I got myself out of that section as quickly as I could. lol
If there are different parts, the question then is if it really matters to the owner changing the wheels? Maybe the suspensions are different to account for the different tire wall heights and wheel weights. Just switching to 17in from 19in would mean a softer ride than the factory 17in car. Probably something most could live with, assuming they even noticed.
