2010 prius improvments **LONG POST**

Things that in my mind should be improved in the Prius. This is coming from not an owner of vehicle, but a potential buyer. I'm basically planning to buy a vehicle, but I'm going to run the present vehicle into the ground before I do that. The present vehicle is 16 years old and has 430,000 km on it. I'm thinking it's going to last that the most two more years, as I live in rather a severe climate where it gets very cold in the winter and a car has to be able to work well if it's going to start and be driven in those sort of conditions. There is no point of selling the car, as I am unable to get any sort of price for it for good reason. Taking it to the auto recyclers when it still works is not exactly an environmentally friendly thing to do anyway. I'm also curious about how much longer it's going to last and what is going to give in that will cause it to finally be taking to the recyclers. It's in 1994 Honda Civic by the way.

I live up in Canada so the options and packages are very different from what they are in the states. Right now I'm thinking I am going to get the touring edition of the vehicle as it comes with all of the features I want including the LED headlamps. My present vehicle has extremely poor lighting on the road. It had poor lighting ever since I got it. If I drove it in the city, this would not actually be at large issues as cities have usually good lighting on the road at night. Unfortunately I live out in the country and I use mostly highways which are not lit at night. Country driving also adds an extra element of surprise, as there is frequent collisions with wildlife. Having poor lighting in the car, is a very bad combination from a safety point of view. I've also drive along a two-lane highway, so I constantly get blinded by other cars with better headlamps that further decrease the ability to show me the road at night when I'm blinded by the other vehicles lights. So the next car I am getting, better have great headlamps. From what I heard both versions of the lighting system is good, but from what I have seen pictures taken from the two versions I'm definitely going to go extra with getting brighter headlamps.

The added bonus with the touring edition, is the 17 inch wheels that it comes with. I'm not actually a big fan of 17 inch wheels as I do not believe they are very practical, but are more for looks and marketing. On the other hand my Honda has great handling and they don't mind a slightly rougher ride if I get a good feel for the road. Since I'm getting winter rims with winter studded tires that are going to beasts 15 inch in diameter instead of the 17 inch, it's going to work out great. 17 inch wheels are an absolute disaster in my climate for winter driving.

One thing I am curious about, how is my tire pressure monitoring system going to work with an extra set of rims. I know these tire monitoring devices have to be synced with the car. I'm wondering if I've to go to the dealer to do that, and if it's possible to sync it with eight set of wheels so that I can change the wheels myself for winter and don't have to go and get it reprogrammed every time. I'm thinking smaller rims and tires are better for winter as they produce more pressure for the car to plow into the snow. It would be really nice if these can be synced by myself by using some sort of combination on the car like the way you can sync the car remote for the door's.

So what features I think the previous should have, it available seats with power lumbar and heating but without the leather. There is a lot of people that do not like leather or for political reasons would never consider getting a car with leather. These people still want to have the option of power lumbar and heated seats especially for Canadian clients that live in this cold climate. From what I have heard, the leather seats also have better shape for support which is welcome in any car. They should make it at least an option or an accessory like the leather seats for cloth clients. It's a very minor bug annoying detail.

Another feature that would also be very welcome for the Canadian climate at least, is heated wiper blades like they do in many other cars including the Subaru. It's like a rear window defrost or at the bottom of the front windshield that melts the ice on the wiper blades that always accumulates in cold climates. I think this is an important option as it's a safety feature. I'm not sure if any other Toyota has this feature, but I would be surprised if it isn't as they collaborate with Subaru.uses this feature and a lot of their cars. Again this is a small feature that would only probably apply to Canadian clients as they have to bear the harsh Canadian winter.

Another nice option feature that would be nice to have as a accessory is the ability to put in the stereo with a full-sized backup camera and the navigational system into any option package like most other Toyotas were capable of doing. I'm not a big fan of the navigational system, but I am a big fan of the full-sized backup camera as friends of mine have that in the 2009 edition. What is a shame, is that the Canadian version of the top-of-the-line model does not include LED headlamps or the 17 inch wheels or the Lane assist feature. This is especially surprising since it includes the parking assist feature, as well as the radar cruise control, but it does not include this one feature for keeping the car inside the lanes. With the Canadian dollar rising in price and is expected to be on parity with the US dollar shortly, I see a lot of people traveling to the United States by their vehicle and bringing it over to Canada like they did the last time this happened. It's not just to lower prices, but you also get more features at those prices.

One feature the car should also have is the ability to draw a small amount of current from the engine block heater in order to maintain the small 12 V battery charged up during extended periods when the car is not being driven. The $10 electricity interter with some sort of charge limiting device so the battery does not get overcharged would be an interesting option for the car. Drop your engine plug-ins are available everywhere, where you have a slightly colder climate for the cars. Since most people have these plug-ins available you could use them to help drive the accessories and keep the battery charged. It wouldn't necessarily have to be off the block heater cable, it could actually be just a separate device with it's own plug-in. I'm sure it wouldn't cost more than $20 to build, and it would be great for people that leave their cars at the airport when they have to travel for business weeks at a time.

Another nice feature would be the remote control block heater for the engine. So many times people don't need to plug-in their cars for the entire night. They could get up in the morning, fire up that block heater and let the engine coolant warm up whether eating breakfast and taking a shower and so forth. I'm extremely glad, from my point of view, the remote engine car starter is finally available for the vehicle. I work shift work, and when I come out of a makeshift I don't particularly care if I burn a bit more fuel as I need the comfort to just get in and go. That is finally one of those great features, Canadian buyers were looking for.

Another nice feature that would be nice to have on this vehicle is have all the side markers be LED lit instead of regular bulbs like the Volkswagen Jetta and others have. The benefit would be not having to change lightbulbs, as well as energy savings when the vehicle is on the side of the road and is using the small 12 V battery to power the hazard flashers. So I guess it would have to go beyond just this side markers, into the actual flashers. With the car having such a small 12 boat battery, it would make leaving the vehicle by the side of the road safer since you know the flashers will work for a lot longer. This is one of those safety concerns I have about the vehicle, you never plan the vehicle to break down and it has been an amazingly reliable vehicle. But in life you have to plan for contingencies and the unexpected, which all cars already have the flashers. But the hybrid vehicle is different since the battery for supplying power to the flashers is extremely small compared to conventional vehicles. The small battery is understandable as it's not needed to actually start the motor, but it's the same battery that supplies power to the flashers. Having rear LED lights helps a lot, but I think adding side markers and front markers using the same technology would offset for the smaller battery for as long as conventional vehicles.

Another safety feature that I think the car should have, is turn signal lights on the side mirrors. This is something that's already very popular in Europe and other countries and like every other feature it adds cost to the production of the vehicle. I don't actually believe the vast generation of the vehicle needed this feature, it's only the new generation that needs it. Reason for that is, the front turn signal lights have been put very low to the ground where they are not as easily seen in heavy traffic because they are so low. The solution for this would be to actually add these LED powered turn signals on the mirrors. This I believe would greatly increase visibility of the turn signal which is a safety feature.

I think that of all the ideas that I have given here, the last two are the most important as they are directly linked to vehicle safety. The first few ideas are nice halves, charging the small battery is a little bit of a stretch to justify the cost as very few people will actually use it. If you were to implement the charging of the battery feature I would definitely make it an accessory only as it only applies to a very limited number of people and adds extra cost and weight to the vehicle. To add additional features to be option packages is also much less important as these extra features drive up the cost and make the vehicle uncompetitive with other vehicles in its class. It would be maybe nice to have these features in the last few years of production to help increase sales during the end of the current generation life. But the last two points for extending the amount of time the flashers can be used in increasing turn signal visibility is something Toyota should definitely look at. It would increase cost and weight of the vehicle, but because it's a safety factor think it's still worth considering. Maybe when they are planning an update of the vehicle midway through the current generation, they should consider these features.

Definitely think it's a great car, friends of mine have the previous generation 2009 model. I've had the opportunity to drive that car and I was very impressed. I'm not just impressed by a drive, which I think is very much like every other car and nothing exactly special. But I have been seeing how much they're getting for fuel mileage and I'm extremely impressed with the car does and regular driving conditions. The car does seem to get slightly worse fuel economy in the winter, but that seems to be the case with my own civic as well so it's more on the climate thing. I'm really inch did on how the heat exchanger in the exhaust pipe of the new car is going to actually perform. We have extreme weather over here, temperatures of -43°C at Winter are not very uncommon. I'm not saying we get those temperatures all the time, but we get them for at least one or two weeks a year early in the morning. And those extreme temperatures it's very hard to keep any car or warm as the heat from the engine is just not that great. I'm seriously considering blocking in the front of my car, which a lot of people do already in order to keep the car warmer. It can be very easily done by just putting a piece of cardboard in the front of the car. Of course this cardboard has to be removed in the summer to keep the car cool. I'm just curious how this new heat exchanger is going to increase the amount of heat output that the heater can do in the winter and also increase fuel economy by keeping engine coolant at an appropriate temperature in the winter. Most thermostats in the coating systems do not cope with such extreme temperatures and keep the engine slightly cool which decreases fuel economy. This is the one trick that people that own this car in Japan have noticed, by replacing the thermostat from 80 to decreased to 88°C they are able to increase fuel economy. Because the gas is burned hotter inside the cylinder during the power stroke they also create more nitrogen oxide by oxidizing the nitrogen that is already found in the air. There is therefore an environmental penalty for doing such. I have no intention of modifying in such a way in order to increase fuel economy. I'm not sure also that the metallurgy and so forth won't from the increase in temperature of the engine coolant.

Take it for all it's worth, this is just my two cents worth of what I think would make this car better.:rockon:

 

I use dictation software

Hi

Sorry for the long post but I use dictation software which makes it very easy to write too much without even knowing it. I did not realize how much I actually wirte compared to other poeple until you guys noticed it.