ALERT: Prius V trims often misrepresented on sale cars

You can check the VIN here..

Vehicle Specification | Toyota Owners

 

No idea what has happened since, but many of the early v Fives show up as v Twos and Threes on the Toyota Owners site, despite what are clearly 100% OEM, not port-installed, Five attributes.

 

It should be possible to confirm which trim (e.g. Two, Three, Five) by comparing the attributes of a particular Prius v with those documented in the sales brochure for its model year: Auto-Brochures.com|Toyota Car PDF Sales Brochure/Catalog/Flyer/Info 4Runner 86 Avalon Camry Celica, CH-R, Corolla Corona Echo FJ Cruiser Highlander Land Cruiser Mark II Matrix Mirai MR2 Prius RAV4 Sequoia Sienna Solara Supra Tacoma Tundra Venza Yaris

 

Exactly. Easily confirmed and refuted.

 

This issue suited me just fine. I got a good (slightly below KBB) price on what the dealer thought was a trim two. I knew it was a five with ATP, but obviously did not give them a heads up. I can definitely understand being upset to discover that you'd been fooled in the opposite direction.

 

Unfortunately errors in packages on used car ads is very common.

Too often it is difficult for sellersselle do not know the ins and outs of the brands.

I've seen this with other cars, it is not specific to Prius.

 

I have found most car dealers (even Toyota dealerships) guilty of listing lower level Prius as being a 4 or 5. It’s no accident. I’ve seen literally dozens of plain Prius 2’s and 3’s (Prius, Prius C and v’s) listed as being a 4 or 5 at Toyota dealerships all over my state and neighboring states.

 

On the other hand, my DIL has a v she says is a three with wheel sizes and leather or softex that says it isn't a three.

I have a three that has leather seats and DRLs that no three came with.

Steelerships are salesfolk, they know little about cars and will tell you what you want to hear or they think you want to hear.

 

We have never owned a Toyota before and stopped at a Nissan dealer to look at a used Leaf. While we were there my wife noticed the 2015 Prius V on their used car lot and we asked to have it parked next to a Leaf so that we could compare them. Size wise, the V was bigger in every interior dimension. We often go to movies on Fridays with another couple and the deciding factor was how much easier it was to get in and out of the back seat of the V with the wider doors.

Toyota's naming convention for trim levels could use some work. It is not straight forward and we didn't learn for months that our car was a Two. It did have everything that we wanted so the model was really unimportant at the time of the purchase.

 

This is so helpful, thanks!

 

Thanks for posting this!

 

Totally ran into this looking for used this winter. I actually showed up to 2 test drives for 16' Fours - different dealers, one of them a toyota - and they pulled the car around and it was was Two or Three. Another odd thing I noticed was almost every prius listing on Autolist or cars.com says it has remote starter...but they never do. It's probably some auto populated list of features gleamed from Toyota press releases for each model and Toyota lists "remote keyless entry" so the almighty algorithms just assume that's fancy PR talk for remote start.

At least for 2019 they redid the trims to be like other models like camry and carola. LE/XLE/Limited

 

Know this is an older thread (and my first comment!), but have run into this confusion with the 2014 Prius V that I bought about a month ago. It was listed as a trim 3 by the dealership, but checking the vin on the Toyota Vehicle Specification site lists it as two (and insurance wanted to, as well). Going by the model year brochure... who knows.

My Prius V has:
- SofTex seats (trim 5 standard)
- Heated front seats* (trim 5 standard)
*the switch is a small circle on the side of the seat with two settings vs controls near the dash)
- No navigation (trim 2 standard)
- Has Bluetooth and some display/ call features on steering wheel, though not the voice command ability
- Maybe had extra sensors at one time? (when the mechanic was looking it over, an error popped up for a sensor that didn't look like was there/ not a noticeable feature from the console).

Either way, I'm still super happy with it so far - had a good amount of miles, but seemed like a decent price and checked out overall with the mechanic. Was hoping to find heated SofTex seats and don't use the car's navigation anyway, so a good combo for me. Might not have minded the voice command calling, though!

Any Prius veterans have an idea of what the trim might actually be? (feel like it's averaging a trim 3, haha)
Thanks!

 

I would say its a two that had the seat covers changed along with heaters added. Could have been done by the dealer when new or later.

 

it's not that hard to differentiate. look for moon roof and lights. both are not dealer options

 

As you noted the heated seat control on the seat rather than the dash is an indicator it was dealer or later adds. Yes, if you had LED headlights with cleaners then that is a trim 5 indicator but the moonroof was an option on trim 3 and 5, so not having it is not a factor.

17" wheels and tires are a trim 5 indicator.

Bottom line, I would believe Toyota's vin data and call it a trim 2.

 

We bought what was described as a 2015 Prius Four with 33K miles, at a price that CarFax said was a good deal. The dealer's (not a Toyota dealer) Web page showed all the Prius Four features (which I had not memorized to be able to do a check list when we did the test drive), and we drove the car home. Then I went looking for the HomeLink buttons -- not there. Navigation? Not there. Turned out that it was a Prius Two. It was a weekend, so I couldn't get in touch with anyone, but I grabbed screenshots of the description on the dealer's Web page and demanded that they make things right. While they were still humming and hawing and referring my complaint further up the chain, I grabbed further screen shots over the next few days, which showed it now being described as a Prius Two but still with a list (shrinking day by day) of Prius Four features. Eventually the General Manager of the whole chain agreed to do an even exchange for a 2015 Prius Four (which they had to go and buy somewhere). We ended up with a Prius Four with a full service history and only 22K miles for the same original price. Only complaint is a couple of badly repaired gashes on the dash where someone may have removed an iPass/EZPass or something similar without due care.

 

Thank you for such a great, visual response! This all makes sense. I am not sure what type of headlight it is - sounds like looking at the light color (halogen if warm/ more yellow) will help, and will double-check tires, too. Looking like it is a trim 2 with seat upgrades, plus a few other bonuses.

 

The Toyota VIN lookup web page mentioned earlier in this thread will tell you what you have: Vehicle Specification | Toyota Owners