2006 Toyota Prius Changes - semi-confirmed

What the heck does this mean...

"Burgendy instrument panel color will be dropped and replaced with a dark gray textured grain trim"

Which Prius has a Burgendy instrument panel color? All I've ever seen is black?

Nice addition of the tire presure alert. The car already has ABS, so it is incredibly simple to have the computer detect a single wheel turning too fast and indicating a lower tire presure that when the reset button was calibrated!

A lot of people do not understand how this works - they think it has something to do with the actual tire presure, but the alarm only measures tire rotational speed and reports when a wheel is significantly out of sync with the others.

 

Very interesting. Of course, it could be something someone faked up -- but all the items on the list have either been confirmed elsewhere (colors, change to grill styling (we've seen that in Europe)), or seem well within the bounds of reason.

A few speculations on my part:

• I'm betting "advanced airbag system" probably means that they've added a sensor in the seat to detect weight, and then base the airbag explosive pressure on this.
  
  It was a feature I was interested in when I first researched the Prius, and was somewhat disappointed to find out they didn't have. It is available in other cars (usually higher-end models).
  
• Agree re: tire pressure monitor -- very nice!
  
• Ah, the audio AUX-IN and the ability of the CD-player to play CDs with MP3s on them. Perhaps this will be a dealer add-on feature for earlier models!
  
• Since the rear camera is already available in the Japanese Prius, no surprise there.
  • 
    Finally, I'm not sure I'm clear yet on the colors. Let's inventory those 4 new exterior colors:
    • Salsa Red -> Barcelona Red Metallic
    • Tideland Pearl (Green) -> Silver Pine Mica
    • Millenium Silver Metallic -> Classic Silver Metallic
    • Which leaves us with: either Magnetic Gray, or Flint Mica?
      • 
        Flint Mica was an initial rumor, but at this point, I'm seeing more confirmation for the Metalic Gray. Or have I missed something?
        
        Thanks very much to aridon99 and Danny for posting/summarizing this!

 

I have a 2005 Silver with the burgundy dash...only the curved section just above the wheel and the door ledges are burgundy. You have to get it into the sun for it to show very well though. The cloth is gray.
Go to the Toyota Prius website and check out the color palette listing for the interior. Although the color representation is horridly off, you will note the variation between the flat portion near the windscreen and the curved portion nearer the wheel.
As I said, the burgundy is not very noticeable without bright light (and even then it is not all that uhh, good looking<inmho>

 

Let me see if I got it right. Danny is referring to a Hybrid Scoop item which in turn relies on a message posted on Prius Chat as its source.

 

Yup. Though the summary he posted on Hybrid Scoop is pretty much a word-for-word summary of the PDF file (in fact, it's clearer, as there were some formatting problems in the PDF.)

 

Wow, every new option would fix a problem I have with the car... I wanted a darker interior and especially MP3/aux support.

 

AHHH! Now I feel like I really should have waited another six months. Of course, since my old car died, I'm not sure I could have.

Nine days after I bought the car, Congress increased my potential tax savings by $2250. Now Toyota is adding the camera and aux input. I'll leave out the flat tire I got changed this morning (car was two weeks old at the time), since it's not really relevant to this post and I would just be venting. :roll:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bookrats\";p=\"115234)</div>

Actually, having just read some articles on airbag technology over at Cars.com, I'd like to retract my guess and eat crow.

After reading the article there (and elsewhere), it sounds as if that weight-based deployement isn't being implemented yet.

However, deployment that takes into account whether your seat belts are on or not are being implemented in cars; and really, this is probably the most useful criteria an airbag has.

As mentioned in the Car Talk article sited in this thread, by law, airbags are supposed to absorb impact for someone who is not belted in. That's way more force than is needed for someone who is belted in; and supposedly, that "extra force" is what has caused injuries in the past.

A system that takes into account whether you're belted in would mean that the potentially deadly "extra" force would not be used.

 

Well, here's hoping that they do make a MP3 player with aux-in available in the new models, AND they come out with a reasonably priced (cawf) version for us to install on our older models.

I'd be willing to pay up to about $300 to install a new CD player that would handle MP3 CDs as well as having a line-in jack for HDD mp3 players and such...

Dave

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveG\";p=\"115351)</div>

That's about my price range as well, Dave. Particularly if it's done by Toyota techs, and doesn't invalidate the warranty.

 

Factoring in the $2500 credit, I may decide to sell my 2004 and get a 2006. But January I'll only owe around $6,000 I think, so I can just pay it off, get the title and do a private sale. I figure I'll wind up owing around $6000 on the new one after the tax credit. I guess I'll have to decide if that's worth it.

 

CD?

Eww!

DVD is more scratch-resistant, has better error-correction, and has a drastically larger capacity. So that's what I would want my in-dash MP3 player to be able to read.

Of course, the big question is how much you'll be able to take advantage of the Multi-Display for MP3 selection.

 

All that fluff, and they can't even write a little
code to give it proper instrumentation. sheesh.
.
_H*

 

Ya, I'd definately prefer DVD as well, but I doubt that the $300 price tag would be attainable with a DVD drive (which isn't to say that the technology itself is cost prohibitive, but coming from Toyota, I'd figure it's sort of unlikely...). A DVD drive would likely push the device over $600, probably without even having any sort of DVD video capability.

Dave

 

don't count on any of this making it to the Canadian models till the 2007 release. Look at the Nav issue.

 

Well, 700MB of mp3s on a CD (if it even works) is still quite a bit more than one plain CD. If it's still a 6-CD changer, that's 4.2GB of mp3s, not too shabby.

Enough to last ~3-4 days straight of 24 hour play, but of course screw that if you can get iPod input.

 

Sokay, 2007 is about when I'd be looking at an upgrade anyway

Dave