2010 Prius Driving Impressions DISCUSSION Thread

I find the 1 minute the best option because it is easier to relate fuel consumption with driving conditions and let's face it, that is what it is all about.

 

True, the 5 min was too much time, unless you were cruising on the open road, you couldn't tell what you did that made it better or worse.. the One minute is better.

Although I Mostly "for now" just reset my trip B at the beginning of the day when I leave for work and compare with the day before... except for temp differences and airconditioner settings, its fun to try to beat my last record without driving like grandma.... Actually Grandpa drives slower than grandma!

 

I use my trip meters differently.
I set the A trip to zero when I took delivery of the car and have left that setting remain because it now gives me the fuel economy for the life of the vehicle.
I reset the B trip each time I fill up with gas and that gives me fuel economy for the current tank.
I would have preferred Toyota to have indicated lifetime FE with the ODO but that was not to be.

 

thank you - i learn so much here on pchat.

i will leave it on one minute but its good to know i have both

 

I'm surprised they didn't either... but I don't give lifetime mileage much credence..
If you could say.. Ok.. I'm getting ready to have fun and drive like a crazy man or blow this thing out, or show off a bit and so I want to "exclude" what I"m getting ready to do.. I would use it.

A lifetime odo takes "everything" into account.
Usually if I'm trying to see how the vehicle is doing, I want to know based on "normal" driving habits so I can later show what the vehicle does "big picture" as a norm.

However, I guess the other way to look at it is.. that thats all included.. the good, bad, and the ugly....regardless I don't miss having it and if I did, there would always be a part of me that would be mad that it shows the bad with the good.

By what I mean as "bad" is the intentional times I do things that I know are going to have a mileage hit "for fun".

 

B trip does not have enough "life" to do lifetime, so i use it for special monitorings, mileage after blink, individual trips, etc. paper and pencil for LT is what i use just in case.

 

I gave considerable thought to accidently resetting before I decided on my modus operandi.
The most likely resetter would be myself, the likely cause being putting my mind in neutral instead of the car. No known combination would save me from my own actions.
I don't have a dog that could stand on the trip button but other people could fiddle with things and destroy my records. To safe guard against this I leave the trip showing B relying on someone to push the button at least once before holding it down for too long.
Let us hope that gremlins don't invade our love and joy.
windstrings, you naughty boy. Don't ever think of driving like you did in the good old days and having fun to boot. You don't want to end up with a smile on your face like the rest of us, do you!

 

The new prii finally arrived in NZ. I was invited down for a test drivelast week, and finally took them up on it on Friday. (Actually they offered me a $50 petrol voucher to do so.) There are two models offerred here, I drove the I-Tech, the one with all the options (sun roof, solar panels, nav, adaptive cruise control, IPA, etc).

My impressions: nice car. I didn't think it handled as well as the sales rep thought it did (maybe I'm spoiled by my japanese version with sport suspension etc), but it is a very nice car. Lots to recommend the knobs and dials, pretty well thought out, but perhaps too many buttons around the edge of the display, nice car though. They tell me the back holds more - maybe, looks sorta the same though. No spare tyre huh? Just a repair and inflate kit, don't know how I feel about that yet. Went back into the sales office to discover that Toyota sold out all their initial stock in less than a week (much to the sales rep's surprise). BUT $62 thousand and change!! Guess I won't be getting one right away in any case. Nice car though.

 

Put my car in EV mode for the first time tonight when I got back in my neighborhood. Very nice! Felt like I was a ninja or something, sneaking around. This really is a fun car to own.

 

LOL!.. ok, you made me look!.....

I had to go see.... yes I have a spare tire... same place as it was in the GenII.. underneath the storage area in the back.

 

I find that the instrument cluster is too busy to be easily interpreted at a glance -and most of the displayed information is too small. These two factors force the driver to take a longer look at the panel, and a longer look means that the driver's eyes are NOT always on the road.

In addition, using the Navigation system while driving, and using the Bluetooth telephone service, are both very distracting activities for the driver. The iPod/USB function just adds to this distraction.

So why did I buy a Prius? To help reduce emissions and also to get better MPG. I am a "gadget man", and really like all of these features - but they infringe on my driving activities too much. I've already found myself weaving over the center line several times because of excess attention to the dash rather than the road. Scary.

One solution: Preset EVERYTHING (navigation, music, audio, etc.) before departing. Look ONLY at the speedometer and gas gauge while driving (and only at a very brief glance), and spend 99% of your time observing the road ahead and the vehicles behind. in front of, and beside you.

By the way, I added "blind spot" mirrors to my two outside mirrors. They help.

 

Say what?.. how do they get away with that?... that would cause a riot here in the states!

I can see my wife trying to do a inflate and repair kit!
I wouldn't mine having one.. but not "in place" of the spare.. only in addition to.

 

I think you are supposed to repair before you inflate. ;-)

The shock for me was the price, $62K - that's $41,540 in yankee dollars.

 

Re: 2010 Prius Driving Impressions Thread

HI Pat,

I'm a ham also--Tom-AC8A. Have you had any rf issues with Prii? I'm thinking about installing a 2 meter/440 rig. 73

 

Re: 2010 Prius Driving Impressions Thread

With the computers in this thing, I would think that would be playing with fire

 

Re: 2010 Prius Driving Impressions Thread

IMO, for the present time, mostly all gasoline cars have better responsiveness in terms on driveability and performance (minus the mpg). I have both vehicles....and I know when I'm driving the hybrd becuase it feels like a hybrd.

 

Re: 2010 Prius Driving Impressions Thread

I disagree.. especially in power mode.. but even normal mode is every bit as responsive to me as a normal car, and eco mode is simply more play to the pedal to do the same thing.

Are you driving yours in "eco" mode?
If your not in eco mode or power mode, then you default to "normal" mode which is in between the two and there is no designation on the panel to say so.

When I first bought my 2006, I did a test.
I was driving 70mph in my Grand Cherokee inline Straight 6 cylinder 4.0 liter and I floored it and counted how many seconds it took more me to get to 80mph.. it was right at "4 seconds".

During my test drive at the dealer, I did the same thing with the 2006 prius and it beat my Cherokee by about 1/2 second.

With that being said, the 2010 is even faster.

You may be comparing with a car that I don't consider to be "normal".. that being a muscle car or one that purposely disregards gas mileage for performance like a vet, or mustang or a true sports car.

I"ve never had a car beat me off the line either!... and while they are shifting "manual "or" automatic" mine passes them right up with the cvt transmission.

I admit the prius is no performance car for speed, but it by far keeps up and superceeds most "normal" cars.. in fact you may have a hard time finding a normal car that can beat it!

It doesn't feel like its going fast with the cvt transmission, but allow a few seconds and look at the speedometer and it will tell you differently as the mass of cars gets smaller in your rear view mirror!

Unless you can find a place to do a side by side test, I challenge you to test against another car in the same fashion I did...

And if you start looking at cars trying to struggle up a steep mountain road, the prius will likely pass them all!