2016 Prius - let's hear from buyers

The Prius has DRLs (Daytime Running Lights). It's been an optional safety feature offered on many cars in the U.S. market for about 20 years. DRLs are lower intensity and less focused than headlights, and are intended to improve the visibility of vehicles to other drivers (it's based on the same reasoning as leaving headlights on at all times for motorcycles). Exact implementations vary (this is not a NHTSA standard), so DRLs might be integrated with the headlights (as in the Gen4 Prius), or completely separate lighting elements (currently many are in the form of strings of LEDs in various shapes around/near the headlights). Our 2005 Gen2 does not have them, but my 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV does (using separate, smaller bulbs in the same lamp as the foglights).

 

@patjcoleman I'm surprised to see someone here from Jim Coleman! But I will say I had a pleasant buying experience and didn't feel the need to go to another dealership. Buying a car always seems stressful, especially if you are looking at high volume brands. Also, I had heard so many bad experiences by women in car buying in general, especially women that had brought their male spouses/partners/friends and felt ignored. I didn't have that at all and glad I was talked to and listened to. Our salesperson Amar was very helpful and even when I came back a couple days later, he checked in on me to make sure I didn't have other questions and everything was ok. Everyone else I worked with was also very pleasant as well.

 

I guess I'm just behind on the times. I know it is something you do for traveling in certain areas (mountainy roads) but never realized cars would do it automatically.

 

As close to night that I could think of.

 

I wish you hadn't mentioned the smiles as my mind imagined the X-rated version. . . .

Bob Wilson

 

Minor update. Sticking with the 4 my dealership is securing... turns out all of the dealerships I call in other states (well, there's ONE car I found) are either uncomfortably pushy, flights are more expensive than I'd like, or something else. Ultimately I don't want to risk going out somewhere on short notice and risk having the negotiations go blargh. Plus this one's a bird in the hand, cheaper, and super local. I just don't need that stress in my life for a feature I'm not likely to use terribly often.

On the down note, my boat's been delayed! It won't hut port until Friday. They say it's up to 2 weeks before it gets to the dealership from there! Noooooo! I just hope it comes in before a conference I'll be at the 14-18th.

 

I think the Four is the best of the bunch

 

It was a matter of wanting the ATP, actually. I mainly wanted it for the adaptive cruise control, but I'm not likely to use it all that often... so just a straight-up Blue Crush/Harvest Beige 4 for me. Really excited! Probably dropping my old car off at Carmax here shortly since they offered a lot more than the dealership and the offer's only good til this weekend.

 

Hi! I bought from Jim Coleman in Bethesda and while they were super nice and spent a lot of time working through the insane options mess they were not wiing to negotiate AT ALL. I was referred to them by TrueCars/American Express and the only thing they gave me on the price was the normal Toyota $500 loyalty incentive for being a Prius owner. IIRC, there was a $100 kicker because I had an AMEX card (or Geico insurance or any number of other things) and I did not get even that.

So no, there was no give at all at Jim Coleman.

In fairness I should add that at DarCars they were not willing to honor the CostCo buying program. They said it was CostCo's fault but I did not want to play the game with them so I excused myself and went back to Jim Coleman. Jim Coleman did not give me a good price, but they were helpful and worked to make sure we got what we wanted.

 

Where were you when we needed you? Jim Coleman only had two cars on the lot, IIRC and the sales persons did a search and did not find what we wanted -- which is not all that crazy: Four in blue with BOTH packages. That simple a thing had to be special ordered from Japan with a 12 week waiting time. We just bought the car on Friday so I'm sure things have not changed that much.

The only reason we bought the car from Jim Coleman under such terms is that our sales person, Stephen Richter, worked hard to find answer to out questions and work it through. The sales person at DarCars seemed barely awake, and I just won't do business with Fitzgerald after the way we were treated in 2006.

Feel free to reach out to us (oh how hate that phrase!) If I got any details wrong I will certainly acknowledge that publicly. So far I'm hopeful that Jim Coleman will be a happy experience, despite the price.

 

That's a shame, maybe I went on a good day and there were 20 Priuses (not counting Prius C and Prius v) on the lot the day I went so maybe they had just got a shipment in and it was a couple days before the superbowl (and the superbowl ad).

 

I went to the one in Bethesda and they told me they had only two or three (I forget now) on the lot when I went there first ... about two weeks ago. I'm not sure anything changed on Friday when I was there last.

 

Bethesda is where I bought mine. You can search their inventory online, which is what I did. I just did a search right now and it says they have 26 2016 Priuses on the lot but that is for all trim levels, so maybe they meant they had 2 of a certain trim level or color.

Edited to add: Also, I saw you were looking for blue, which is weird because if I go to Toyota.com to do an inventory search, it uses my zip code (Mont. Co., MD) and doesn't even show me blue as an option so for some reason Toyota has decided blue won't be sold here? If I switch the zip code to one I know in NoVa, it gives me blue as an option only for the Two or the Eco. Which is weird. Which I know explains some of your issues.

 

Someone here explained that the Toyota search and build tools are only for what is available NOW and HERE. This is possibly the stupidest thing Toyota does. Actually, one has to let the dealer search as they use different tools which access different databases.

As to inventory, you may be right. I like to simplify as much as possible so before I talked to the very first dealer I knew what "trim level" and options I wanted and simply went deaf to other things. (Yes, some dealers tried to sell me what I did not want.) So it is possible that the folks at Jim Coleman were respecting what I wanted and meant "We only have two of the Prius 4 models on the lot." And, since that is the only thing I wanted to buy, it is the same as "We only have TWO CARS on the lot." LOL

 

@mike091020 Glad to hear you had a good experience with Stephen. He was actually my waiter at a restaurant down in DC, I hired him on the spot to be a sales consultant for us because my experience was so good there! I would be happy to more closely review the pricing you have agreed to. We definitely have been flexible on pricing on the in stock/ allocated in bound cars. Prices are traditionally higher on the special order/preference vehicles. To confirm with @Zojja we do have 26 2016s in stock now. 10 Prius IIs, 6 Prius II Ecos, 3 Prius IIIs, 2 Prius III Tourings, 4 Prius IVs, and 1 Pius IV Touring (my car/demo) We also have 14 more of the various models arriving in the next 5-7 days.

 

Hi Pat,

So far so good with your dealership. I bought my 2006 at Fitzgerald and they are closer than you are, but I won't give them the business on principle. I got burned with the HID fiasco and they wanted about $1800 per headlight to replace the bulbs -- after refusing to fix them under warranty. I bought two bulbs on Amazon and had my mechanic replace them ... he had to figure out how to take the front end off and he still only charged be about $100. Now the dash display computer is starting to fail and they just give me a dumb look at Fitzgerald. So I'll drive down to Bethesda for service on the new car. I'm hoping your service department is a bit more reasonable ... the clowns at Fitzgerald are forever trying to sell me a $60 cabin air filter ... under $10 on Amazon. The only thing good they do for me is a "free" oil and filter change every quarter. ($40 for a $20 oil change with a $35 credit = $5 ... you gotta love the brass of those guys. LOL

As to Stephen, yes he is great. His most important attribute is that he does not "wing it". He goes and finds out the answer and gets it right. I'll be trying brunch at his place in DC soon.

Review: Yeah, that would be nice. If you find more discounts or any extra room in the price, that would be wonderful. I wish it did not take so long to get the car, but that is not your problem. Toyota is a mess ... but I'm sure you know that better than anyone. As it stands, the hope is that I could get it just a bit sooner than 12 weeks. But whatever works will be fine. My wife drives from Gaithersburg to NOVA in Alexandria every day so a new, comfortable car is important for her. She has always wanted a sun roof, and she fell in love with the Blue color Toyota offers. With the other options and the add-on accessories she got (window and interior treatments and a few knickknacks) the price was higher than we planned but she will have a nice car in the end. The 2006 has had no major problems (except that HID nonsense) and we are only getting a new one to head off possible future dependability issues. I mean, 230,000 miles is really pushing our luck! We are hoping to get a decade out of this one as well.

Thanks for looking into it for us.

 

My 05 prius gets blown everywhere when there're crosswinds. The 2016 Prius Four I just got doesn't handle crosswinds well either (maybe a little better than the 05)
The car isn't meant to be aerodynamic from the sides, only the front.

 

Thanks for the info. I've had an 04, an 11, a 12c and a 14. All were bad in the wind, worse than any other car I've had. I was hoping the 16 would be better.