What's different between 2008 and 2009

My wife and I just got our 2008 Prius and we tried to order the 2009 but they are not offering the 2009 nor will they let you order one. Most dealerships have stopped taking orders for the 2008 because they cannot promise one in a reasonable amount of time. If they do promise you one quickly be warned that some dealerships out there doing this to get your deposit knowing full well that it could be a year or more before you can get a Prius.

There was an article I read recently listed on Yahoo written by Road and Track about the changes. Looks like they may be putting in a bigger engine with more mpg. The cars overall length of 175.0 in. will grow to 179.0 in. giving it a larger interior space. The look wont change too much but if you follow that link you will see it still looks like the 2008 model.

If you search Yahoo or Google for 2009 Prius you will find several articles that will try and tell you what is changing. Only Toyota will know what is what until the car actually is released. No release date has been given so far for the 2009 model as far as I could find out.

 

I believe the changes won't happen until model year 2010 which will be in 2009 some time so the biggest difference between 2008 and 2009 are you can get 2008 if you are lucky but not 2009.

 

another article I read is that Toyota only can manufacture about 25,000 Prius a month. They allocate about 15,000 of them for the United states. I don't know how many dealers are in the Toyota dealer network but just say its probably approximately 1,000. That averages about 15 per store per month or about 3 - 4 per week.

 

One of my local dealers mentioned they had gotten 8 cars in their last allocation around June 5. I'm on their wait list and they expect to hook me up with an '09. Another dealer confirmed that there will be no changes between '08 and '09. I think the silver pine mica color might be disappearing as an option, though.