I picked up a 10 ft long piece of wood at my local home improvement store, and figured I would angle it out of the front window of the car to get it home. I had to laugh when it just slid all the way into the car and rested on the front dash with room to spare to close the hatch. Whomever says the Prius is a 'small' car has just not experienced the joy of smart design in this car. The penultimate of interior space engineering is the Honda Fit, by the way.
I did the same thing with pipe when my Prius was less than three hours old. We bought our Prius from a dealer in the city where my son lives. My son was remodeling his bathroom on the day we picked up the Prius, and he needed help with the plumbing. Next thing I know we are at Home Depot shoving 10 foot pipes into the Prius. I thought to myself "Oh great, three hours old and now it's a lumber hauler." Since that day I have hauled a lot of 10 foot pieces in the Prius. I have a van, but why drive that beast to the city when you can use the Prius. Tom
I've hauled lumber, plastic pipe and 8 ft fluorescent tubes in the Prius. One caution: when I was hauling a box of fluorescent tubes, I took a left turn on the way back to work and suddenly had no power to the wheels. Wth? The box rubbed up against the shift control and shifted the car into N. Oops.
You also have to protect the MFD and the plastic dash. We have heard a few sad stories about smashing the MFD with a pipe. It makes me feel sick to even think about it. I usually take an old towel and wrap the ends of whatever I'm putting on the dash. Tom
So far the largest things I've hauled in my Prius are a 6 foot by 2 foot folding table and a screen door of unknown dimensions as well as multiple bags of manure(thanks to this i still have one of those pine air fresheners, dang car smells like a field)
My sister bought a couple of tall cabinets (8ft?) on eBay, to collect, and on measuring, discovered they wouldn't fit in her Mazda 323. Prius to the rescue! On dropping the rear seats, they went in easily, diagonally across the floor space. (They weren't very wide.) The Prius is a big car in Europe. The six best-selling cars in the UK in 2007 are smaller (Ford Focus, Vauxhall Astra, Ford Fiesta, Vauxhall Corsa, VW Golf, Peugeot 207). Mini, Supermini and Lower Medium class cars made up 63% of the market in 2007, Upper Medium class (including the Prius) 16% (SUVs and MPVs, sadly, 13.3%).
After realizing I could haul about anything I thought I needed to keep the Suburban around for, in my Prius. The value kept dropping and the gas kept going up. I finally gave my 2002 Suburban (which remained parked 99% of the time) to my daughter and son in law. She has serious back problems, so smaller cars or tough for her to get comforable riding in. I have hauled a new recliner home from The Dump in the Prius. I took my Honda lawn mower to the shop in it. I remembered I could not load the lawn mower into a F150 Pickup by myself back when I first bought it. I had no problem with it as the Prius is lower and I could tilt the front up into the Prius then lift the back up as I rolled it into the hatchback, with cardboard flatten carton protecting the paint. I have hauled a very large Pumpkin (100 pounds) in the hatchback, which I could roll out into a wheel barrel by myself when I got home. I cannot remember all the large items I have hauled.
