2019 vs. 2020 prime

We purchased a 2019 Premium about a month ago. We knew about the 2020 coming out but much like we couldn't justify the $$$ for the Advanced, we couldn't pass up the $2500 (at the time) rebate on top of the healthy dealer discount. If they do up the rebate to $5K and there are still some in California, I may be tempted to get another one. Personally I like the split back seat.

 

Is the $4500 fed rebate still active for 2020's? My local electric company upped their "cash in hand" rebate to $1k and California still has the $1500 rebate also, I believe so that's $6500 back right there... assuming they are all still in play.

 

The Model Year 2019 incentives ought to last until that inventory is gone, sold out.

But the 2020 incentives shouldn't start getting very good until about November 2020, or when the 2021s are about ready to come out, whichever happens first.

 

I sorta did that when I bought my used PiP 3 years ago. Toyota only sold about 400 of them in Canada in 4 years, so it was a really rare vehicle. When I saw one pop up on AutoTrader in Northern Ontario, I contacted the Toyota dealer and negotiated a deal over the phone over a couple days (squeezing them for a deal), then when we reached an agreement I booked a puddle jumper flight for $200 to fly up, pick it up and drive back in one day. Her maiden voyage was about 8 hours, it was a fun adventure, had never been up to the ‘Soo (Sault Ste Marie).

They could have shipped the car to the local dealer for like $500 or something, but I preferred to see the vehicle first, and I thought the trip would be fun anyway.

The only annoying part is the dealer didn’t even charge the car for me when I was coming to pick it up... I mean, really?

 

I haven’t been active for a long while but need to be again because I just drove home with a 2020 Prime XLE. My former car was a 2007 Prius but, unfortunately, my son totaled it a couple of weeks ago. Back when my 2007 was new I was a frequent visitor to PriusChat and was able to find a lot of extremely useful advice and thought the discussions were inspiring.

Since I only have a 5-mile commute to work, replacing my 2007 with a plug-in made sense to me. Two things drew me to the 2020 over the 2019: 1) seating for 5 instead of 4, and 2) Apple CarPlay. I weighed those over the advantages of the cash incentives and felt like they were worth the extra money over the long run, at least for me. My only disappointment was that I wasn’t able to get the auto-dimming mirror with Homelink with the XLE but I figured that, with the help of many of the knowledgeable folks at PriusChat, I’ll be able to come up with an alternate solution.

I look forward to rekindling my relationship with PriusChat over the coming months/years.

 

congrats, and welcome back!

all the best

 

Welcome back and congrats on your 2020 Prime. I picked up a 2020 Prime Limited a few days ago myself. You weren’t able to get the Homelink w/ auto-dimming mirror because the car you selected wasn’t equipped with it or because you were told it’s not available on the XLE?

 

When I got my 2013 Plug-in Pruis, I skipped the then $7500 extra for the Advanced over the Basic and also did not get the Homelink mirror. I found it on Amazon.com for about $200 and then paid $100 to get it installed.

 

I was always wondering if the cup holder on the Prime can be removed and that area be reupholstered by an auto upholstery shop (for not too much).

I was looking at it at a dealer a few weeks ago and it’s attached to the base of the seats, which is one big large plastic piece..

But it seems the cup holders can be carefully removed.

 

Mirror is an easy retrofit, although sourcing one used could be a bit tricky, as you'd want Prius-specific with a longer 'stem'.

 

Follow up...

I’m returning the Prime and exchanging it for a 2019 Prius XLE. It’s a nice car but there were too many things that bothered me about it. Beside the lack of autodim/Homelink mirror, there was the fact that it didn’t have a rear wiper (something I didn’t even think of checking for). The rear wiper is an extremely useful feature in the winter up here. Also, the large screen seemed like overkill to me and not as useful as I thought it would be. I liked having the Qi charger but it was rendered redundant by the fact that you need to plug the phone in (and therefore charge it) in order to use CarPlay. CarPlay also wasn’t as useful as I thought it would be since there’s also Bluetooth audio. I put most of the blame for this misadventure on myself for not being as diligent in doing my homework as I should have been. I know I’ll be much happier with the 2019.

 

congrats, did they give you a full refund?

 

A lot of info about that in this thread.
Edit: changed to the right linked page.
Prius Prime - official prices paid thread | PriusChat

 

Didn’t they make the plus, premium and advanced for 2017-2019? The XLE came in 2020 if I’m not mistaken. Which 2019 did TSaxman28 get?

 

Yes they did. They were very understanding.

 

All the literature (and the Toyota website) lists the model as XLE. The choices of model for the 2019 were L-eco, LE, XLE, and Limited.