Cross-country Move / Road Trip in our Prius

Well, I've been meaning to post this for some time now....

Priuschat was a great tool when I was doing research when purchasing my car and an ejoyable read since then. it's my turn to give back to the community!!

My boyfriend and I made the big move from Portland, OR to Brooklyn, NY at the end of January. We decided that this would be a great opportunity to see some of our great country and made the choice to drive the Prius rather than have it shipped over on a truck.

The trip took 13 days, 4,346 miles through 16 beautiful states, faced temperatures as low as 16 degrees, trudged through high-desert snow and made countless memories that will be with us forever. Best of all, we did it in The Pri!!

Our overall average gas milage was pretty low- 31.8 mpg! But we didn't do ourselves any favors by driving in the dead of winter, added weight of luggage, 75 MPH speed limits in many states, and our Yakima rack and Rocketbox screwing with our aerodynamics. All things considered, our gas milage was much better than it would have been in most other cars under the same conditions.

The Prius was a champ, I had no complaints at all. I wouldn't trade her for the world. We can't wait to go on another long roadtrip in The Pri.

You can read our travel blog that we kept on our trip here

There are really more pictures than words. A couple of good pictures of The Pri at some of the greatest places in our country.

Happy travels!

 

I bought from Ron Tonkin in Gresham, Oregon. I really shopped around hard on the internet for the best price. I looked up the FMV on edmunds.com and pretty much emailed the dealers and told them if they could meet that price then I would buy from them. Ron Tonkin was one of two who said they could meet the price- all the other dealers said there was no way they could touch that price as the Prius' was in high demand (This was back in June '07). They didn't have the magnetic gray in stock w/ package 5 so they had to put in a "request" for one. It took about 3 weeks to come in. I walked in and there was aboslutely no haggling about the price, and they didn't try to tack on any ridiculous and unnecessary fees. I'd say it was a pretty good experience. If you want the name and the number of the salesman that I dealt with, I can get his card out of my car this evening and get the info to you. As far as regular oil changes- they sent me the standard first oil change is free letter shortly after I bought my car and I took advantage of it. If I remember correctly the deal had even expired a few days prior to my appointment and they still honored it.

HOWEVER, I had two VERY annoying rattle develop in my Pri. My boyfriend took it into them to have it fixed, the technicians weren't too concerned about going for a test ride to hear them. They were sure that they could hear them without us point them out etc etc... well they order all these extra parts, told us it would take a day or two to come in... WEEKS went by and we didn't hear from them.. finally we called them and the parts magically showed up two days later.. took the car back in, they claimed to fix it... we drove it off the lot... the rattles were still there... i was a little disappointed with them then... So, I made an apointment for Wilsonville Toyota (which was right near my work anyhow) and they were VERY motivated to fix it correctly. The technician went on a 10 minute ride with me, I pointed the rattle out to him (which was very obvious, he actually pinpointed it without me telling him where it was)... They had the parts in the next day... and 24 hours later my car was rattle free. I was VERY satisfied with my service experience with Wilsonville Toyota. However, their prices weren't so hot when i was shopping for the car

 

I love it Neon!

We heard a few snickers from people when we would take pictures of "Flowers." I didn't mind so much because my niece was THRILLED to check the blog every night to see where her dog had been that day. So worth it

 

Thanks Brodie!

 

FMV = Fair Market Value. I found that Edmunds.com is an excellent resource for researching cars. In a nutshell, fair market value is what other's are paying for that car in your area and in essence, what you should expect to pay for that car.

My 80 year old grandma just bought a Prius (I had a hand in that ) and she used FMV to negotiate her price as well. She just emailed me today... she loves, loves, loves her Prius and finds every excuse to get out and drive it She tells me that it goes too fast, she has to watch herself or she starts speeding... hahaha

 

Thanks! GC was spectacular in the winter... just chilly I think it dipped down to 15 degrees or so when we were there in the late afternoon.

 

Good to know! We plan on taking a few (shorter) road trips this summer, I'm excited for the warmer weather that will help our the MPGs