Anyone having 2nd thoughts about buying a 2010?

And that's a good enough reason not to buy. For me, one test drive of the 2010 was enough. Toyota does not improve incrementally. The Gen II to the Gen II is what the Gen II was to the Gen I.
As for gas prices, if anyone believes China will be a decreasing oil market in the next few years, then it's reasonable to predict a stable gs price. I don't!
R

 

Second thoughts? of course, even third and forth thoughts. I suffer buyers remorse anytime I purchase anything more expensive than a laptop. Come to think about it I had doubts while I was waiting for my last laptop to get here.

I ordered my Prius last week and I don't expect to see it for another couple of months but everything I've read here about the car is pretty positive and that helps. Waiting and planning for the new Prius is kind of fun in a sadistic sort of way, just so it doesn't drag out to long.

I hope it gets here in time to take a vacation trip before winter.

 

yeah i thought of getting the 2010 as well but i didnt like the way it presented itself, the exterior i mean. although the interior is way nicer but in mpg wise, its not as much as i thought it would.so im still thinking about it. either a 2010 or a brand new street bike.

 

I just spent yesterday picking up my black 2010 from the dealership. I've already went through customizing some options, but so far I've been very pleased with the handling and the driving in cities with the vehicle, plus I had a few hours of interstate driving and still haven't filled the tank up yet!

The back up beeping can be fixed, but I'll have to go to a dealer for that, but the rear view mirror camera (installed after arrival) seems to work great and I like the auxillary option for listening to audiobooks from my MP3 player.

The sunshades I had from my prior vehicle don't fit well in the Prius, but I ordered front and back ones from the Priuschat shop.

Max

 

None.

I had to buy a new car this year, and the stimulus package's car sales tax deduction helped seal the deal. But that's almost beside the point...

The Prius itself is a joy. It has a good ride, handles well, has good passenger room, and great cargo capability. It has nice high-tech touches and looks good. It really think that the 2010 is the first Prius you might buy regardless of whether it's a hybrid or not.

Of course, it also gets 50-55 MPG without even trying hard. And it makes driving fun, even the terrible traffic here in DC. I doubt that gas prices will do down, and the Prius gives you enough tools to get even better mileage.

With the engine/motors working together and simplifications like the PSD and braking, it may well be more reliable and take less maintenance than a non-hybrid. Ans as a bonus, it puts less junk into the air.

 

I think the 2010 is the cats meow for what out there at the moment....
There should be no buyers remorse until something better is released.
But thats the curse of buying cutting edge, its only the best until the next model is released.

I personally don't think the 2010 was a big enough jump to buy unless you needed to buy anyway, then its a sweet buy.

I don't customarily buy another new car until I have many miles on my present without a strong reason to jarr me otherwise.

Actually I've always bought used until I purchased my prius because it was so different than anything I could buy used, I had no choice.

I don't intend to buy new again either until I'm equally bedazzled with newer technology.

Regardless, I'm waiting for plugin, with LiIon or better and a reasonable ability to drive on electricity alone.... reasonable being over 20 miles, but I think over 60 miles or better would be desirable.

I somehow doubt thats what we will get on the first generation plugin.

 

Living in a condo, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to use a plugin. No place to plug it in. Same for apartment dwellers and many townhouse owners (who do not have a garage or parking directly in front of their townhouse). Hybrids will be useful for quite some time to come. At least for me.

 

It will still be hybrid..... electric "only" is pretty scary since most folks have unpredictable lifestyles that warrant the ability to go farther then planned when they first left on their trip.
Electric only would only be safe as a commuter to and from work.

It will still be gas too and designed to not try and keep the large battery full with the use of the gas engine as that would not be efficient and would remove space available for kinetic storage and the opportunity to plugin.

Even if you "never" had a chance to plugin, the extra battery space for kinetic storage would really help as now we often fill our little battery up with just one stop or coasting down a small hill.

Plus you then would have a place to put all that energy from solar cells instead of merely running circulating fans.

 

Yo windstrings good to see your ugly face again, your avatar's face that is. Now that I have a Prius on order I'll be hanging around here a bit more. I'm going to be attending the Portland HSD group meetings again also, at least when I can get down there. The two years since I sold my GII have convinced me I'm really very much a hybrid person, can't wait to have Prius again.

Tom

 

No second thoughts at all. Bought the car without even test driving it. I am VERY happy with my purchase and love driving the car.

We are happy first time Prius owners.

 

I just bought a 2010 and I love it. It is my first Prius though so I cannot comment on your situation. If I had a decent 2005 I would probably keep it for a few years. I try to get at least 10 years out of a car. I don't see any kind of economic justification for getting the new one, it gets slightly better mileage but not enough to worry about.

 

On Oahu, 87 octane is has gone up 18 cents this weeks and 40 cents in a month @ $3.18/gal. A year ago was 87 octane was $4.35/gal. Luckily my Prius should be in this week.

If I currently owned a GenII, I doubt that I would be trading for a Gen III. Despite the proven technology, reliability, and owner satisfaction of the Gen II owner, it wasn't enough to motivate me to purchase. But, the Gen III has improved in so many ways, I couldn't refuse...

 

I have a 2004 with 66,000 miles and it is in perfect shape. I can't understand why some people would upgrade after only a few years. I like to get at least ten years out of a car. In the past, I never followed this line of reasoning. I would get a new car every few years. No more. I love the fact that I don't owe a penny on my car and it runs perfectly AND still gets great mileage!!!

 

Thanks Tom.... yes, the prius is unique enough it would be like leaving your first love to go away and not come back.

I"m in a different neck of the woods now or I would come visit you and take back some of your rain.


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Welcome to the forum BradJ, Enjoy your new prius!.....

You will be getting to know her for quite a while before the honey moon is over.

After driving these, it makes other cars seem like they are from a previous era. A statement people just don't understand till they drive one.

And DjasonW...... there's allot to be said for "no" car payments verses a little more gas savings "and" a car payment.... when I do the math, It just doesn't make sense to buy unless there's dang good reason.

But most of us buy on passion instead of math... but in this case theres just not enough passion to override the overwhelming numbers yet.... I"m still waiting for the right woman before I switch!

 

I haven't had any second thoughts about obtaining a 2010 Prius however finding a model that I want is starting to be such a pain in the A**:rant:...I did tell the dealership I wanted a Prius IV with the moonroof however I think I will tell them to get me the Prius V with the ADV TECH package instead, today the salesman said they had (3)Prius III coming in sometime this month and I could build this vehicle to mimic the Prius IV, what BS!!!:crazy::lalala: " I will not settle ".

 

Buying a MY2010 Prius was a no-brainer decision for me. I happened to buy a Pkg II with some 700 miles on it straight off the dealer's lot. I could have ordered but there was no gurantee I'd get it before July 31. In my WA state the sales tax is being waived thru to July 31st so I jumped at the chance to get the MY2010 Prius. The Pkg II suited me just fine.

The sales tax savings that amounted to around $2400 gives me around 40,000 miles (assuming $3/gal and 50 mpg) for free fuel cost.

My commute is some 32 miles round trip and I'm averaging a little over 60 mpg.

I have no regrets at this time.

 

Ah, so you're talking Prius Plugin. I was thinking something more like an all-electric car or the Volt, which also has a gasoline engine but if you don't plug it in you're way, way better off with a Prius.

And it's not clear to me that a larger battery without plugging in would benefit me. After all, the regenerative braking and engine over-capacity charge the battery, and then it's used by the motors to boost performance. Sort of a smoothing of energy usage. They question is how large of a buffer would you actually use?

Obviously, if you can plugin you're getting 1/2 price energy that you can use for X miles of driving before you have to switch to the current Prius MPG at "full-price" energy (gasoline). But without plugging in... ?

 

Yes, I should have bought a 2012 ... and traded in my 2010. <GRINS>

Everything we want is in the future and everything we have was from the past. So I'm kinda not really worried about it. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

Hi Windstrings,
I do not think that the math, engineering and economics works out to be even close to getting a 60 mile EV range on a PHEV, certainly not on a Prius any time in the near enough future to be "waiting" for it.

Let's walk through the numbers a bit. Let's just be overoptimistic and say that the current size/weight/cost of NiMH battery could be made into a mythical Lion battery that got you a 6 mile range. We know that the current battery only gets you, 1/2 mile, maybe a mile if you used the full range of the battery. And we know you can't use the full range because the deep cycle shortens its lifetime.

So you'd need 10 of these, which would more than fillup the spare tire and lower trunk space, so the car would need to be bigger (or be an effectively smaller car). And the current ~100 lb battery would now be 1000 lbs...lowering ICE mpg and needing more batteries just to get that range, because this is a 25%+ gain in weight. The car would need a better suspension, more steel, etc. Make whatever assumptions you want, but this is a significant set of desgin issues.

On the cost. 10x the battery is going to cost a lot. Does the current battery cost $2000 or $3000? I don't really know, but a 10x bigger battery will cost $20K plus...sort of have to.

Now what do you get for that big chunk of change? You get the ability to charge up on cheap night time electricity to save about a gallon of gas per day, assuming that you drive 60 miles every day. That is over 20K miles per year. If you drive less than that why are you hauling around a heavy gasoline engine everday, causing you to use more battery power than you need? Oh, for those few times that you need to drive more than 60 miles per day. You certainly aren't doing it to save money, since even if the electricity were free at most you'd save $4 per day ($4/gal gas) or $1500 per year. And if the battery were to last with that deep cycling to 200K miles you'd save $15000 over the life of the battery -- with zero cost electricity. The reality would be more like $10000 saved for $20000-$30000 of battery costs, in a smaller (usable space) car...which would be unlikely to sell in high enough volume to ever be made (in the next 5-10 years).

So the next reality check it to incrementally make the battery smaller and smaller to see what really makes sense in terms of battery costs, costs save, size and weight, etc. IMO, when you get down to about a 10 mile range and some expectation of somewhat higher gas prices and lower electric rates for nighttime charging it really makes some sense. Yes, I'd want one of these...even a battery that is only 2x to 3x as big as the current one with the ability to plug in would be welcome and cost effective.

3PriusMike

 

I certainly have, first of all I don't like the options are packaged, some options only available on high end model, rear view camera is gone unless you buy nav system, I like the new design but not worth the money for 5 miles per gallon more, nice to have a little more power, didn't want to give me enough for my 2006 which is in great condition only graded as good not excellent, and won't discount off sticker means they are making about 5 to 7 k on sale, with the markup on my trade in.

My bottom line is I am keeping my 2006 I am happy with it.