2018 HyCam amateur review and ongoing blog

A black hood looks great on this car:

 

Yeah, I got that. A strip would work but has 3x difficulties as I see it.

1) It would be hard for me to make a strip look good because of the curve of the hood, it would take a professional. My professional assumed we were doing the whole hood.

2) A hood strip or wrap would be exposed to the elements so it seems like it would not last as long as indoor behind glass tint.

3) A strip would have an exposed leading edge that might make it prone to peeling.

 

Wrapping the whole hood eliminates this issue, however a full wrap would still be exposed to UV light and wouldn't last as long as tint behind glass, I suspect.

 

The strip is on the windshield. I don't like it. My mistake was in trying to only cover the really bright part. As a result some of the white hood is visible over the top of the strip but in an uneven way. I think the strip is straight but there is a complex interaction between the driver's seating position, the strip and the hood. If I slouch down a bit the whole hood is covered and it looks a lot better. I think I'm going to have it redone with a bigger strip. This picture shows what it looks like at the height of my eyes.

 

I like this better, where you can see the hood all the way across.

 

I like this best, where the hood falls completely in the strip.

 

Went driving for the first time in bright sun. The windshield strip helps but the dang sun glare is still too bright. I'm going to need a strip on the hood or a wrap. This is the first car I've even owned with such a problem. Several previous vehicles were black but I've had white and metallic silver with no glare issues in the past.

 

For me none of the apps work at all because my phone does not have data. As I understand it there will be a map app available which will be ScoutLink. The car has GPS hardware but there are no maps built into the car. ScoutLink uses your phone's data to download maps. This really isn't so bad, for 3 years. The kicker is that after a free 3 year trial period Toyota plans to start charging for ScoutLink. They want you to pay them for the privilege of using your data to power their app!

It turns out I really like the Entune 3.0 features that do work with my phone. Called the wife last night using only voice commands and it worked brilliantly. I like the home screen that shows the time, power flow diagram, radio information and phone stuff all at the same time.

 

https://www.toyota.com/content/entune/pdf/Entune_QRG.pdf

All about the new Entune 3.0

 

Some quotes from reviews:

"Horrible horrible horrible! Just got my new car and am ready to punch in the damn screen."

"Don't like this app at all. Comes nothing close to Google maps. It's sluggish at best"

"This is the worst navigation app link ever! I can't believe Toyota has installed this BS"

 

Toyota has some specific language they use to identify the 2 types of navigation they currently offer. The one I have is called "connected", meaning you need your phone's data to make it work.

There is another type that is only available in the higher end models they call "Integrated". Integrated Nav actually has maps installed in the car that work independently from your phone. They want thousands of dollars more for a vehicle with this feature. I can get a Garmin with lifetime map updates for less than $200, so that put an upper cap on what I'm willing to spend on such things.