Are You Delighted with your Prime?

Everybody I have shown the car to has praised the way it looks. Comments include likening the car to a space ship, and calling it very sporty. The headlights are especially appreciated. The 11.6 inch display is also remarked on as being "totally awesome."

Personally, I am getting a little tired of muscle car and luxury car fans reviewing cars. Muscle car fans (Fast Lane Cars) are never, ever happy with a car unless it meets certain 0-60 criteria. Luxury car fans expect every car to have the features of a $60k car even if it is priced at only $20k. My Prius C model 2 was, for me, filled with features I had not had before, yet was panned by Consumer Reports as cheaply built.

Personally, I love my Prime so far. The ride is very smooth and quiet even with the gas engine on. The seats feel good as does the steering wheel.

 

Delighted with the car, a little annoyed with the process and a few bugs in the software. I have had the car just over a week now, we have put just over 180 miles on it (which for us is a busy week of driving) and it is up at about 62MPG after picking the car up at 15MPG on the tank (dealers drive like maniacs)...And yes I know I could have reset but what fun is that? The car even handled its first snow storm very well even with the LRR tires and other cars sliding all over the place. We went from a Camry Hybrid to this vehicle, the Camry had more space and was a wonderful car but it was only getting 35MPG and we can't plug it in. We have solar panels and over produce over the course of the year so really wanted to get a plug in car to hopefully eat into our overage since the electric company never has to pay me my credit.

A few annoyances:

1. Entune App is horrible, and unreliable.
2. The location of the seat heater buttons is difficult to find and hard to deal with. I often turn on the passenger heat warmer before picking up my wife and now it is hard to reach, in the Camry these were very easy to get to. Also knowing that it is on takes some flipping of screens to find.
3. Lane departure warning sounds on snow piles - okay more an amusement than annoyance.
4. The compartment for the charge cable is hard to get to with anything in the back on the all weather mats. They could have made this easier.
5. The rear window curve appears to be designed to catch snow runoff from the top of the vehicle and obscure vision and the rear defroster appears to be more for show than really defrosting the window.
6. The doors (all 5 of them) are inside the frame they sit in a way that the interior is exposed to the opening of the door. This means that opening any door in weather you end up with the weather on your seat or in the rear of the vehicle. I spent a fair amount of time trying to brush the snow back out of the vehicle from the rear when I put the charge cable away. If only i had a garage I guess.

All of these annoyances are minor nits in my opinion. My Camry had the same issue with the door curve, I think this is a Toyota design issue. The LDA is likely the same in all Toyotas. The heated seat buttons at least exist so their position I can live with. The window curve just means I have to use side mirrors to see back where I normally have them tilted out, but with the blind spot monitoring this seems to be okay as i don't have to tilt the mirrors out so far to catch people who would be in my blind spot.

If I had to do the purchase again today I would, only I would drive a harder bargain. This is the first time I have purchased a vehicle at MSRP, although I did push hard on moving my trade up $2k from their original offer and $3k over KBB.

 

No screens required - page 514 of the Owners Manual.

Passenger side operation indicator:

Illuminates while the passenger side
seat heater is operating, allowing the
operating condition of the passenger
side seat heater to be checked from the
driver side as well.

 

Does Toyota to over-the-air updates to Entune?

 

Actually you might want to try sitting in the car and looking for the light . It is under the console next to the impossible to see switch for the driver's side seat heater. It is lit when the passenger heater is on, but honestly it is almost easier to reach around the console and feel the switch than it is to see this light which is under and behind the center display. I thought there was also another indicator but now I can't find that, so maybe the only one is the light under the console. They make it look so easy to see but unless you remove the steering wheel it really isn't.

 

No ---well sort of. Toyota does not send updates to the device over its provisioned network, but it will update the Entune suite from your phone's network connection. I suggest that the first time you enable Entune you are sitting somewhere with WIFI connectivity so you aren't eating into your data connection to download the Entune update. Even for a car less than 1 month off the boat, there was an Entune update ready for it - which I assume means that they install the software well in advance on the units and do not update them upon assembly.

As a side, the date for the Advanced Safety Connect subscription is based on the date that the vehicle shipped not on the date you buy the vehicle. I lost an entire month off my subscription since I provisioned the vehicle software on 12/10 but it shows it expires in 11/5/2019. I am still not sure if I am convinced I should reenable it at the end since it is $130 per year, and I get AAA for $80 and I only save $38 off my insurance for the vehicle locator. If remote climate really works well though it will be worth the extra $20 to have remote climate, but it is annoying that the charge management features are linked to the Safety Connect and not to the basic Entune.

 

I don't have any problems with it, though of course that may have to do with my seating position compared to yours. I can reach both switches easily and the passenger light shows clearly next to the driver switch. Again, my seating position probably differs from yours, so YMMV.

 

Toyota is a good auto maker but it is not as good in information technology. Half of the reason I decided to buy my Advanced was it appeared to be loaded with high tech, a large monitor for instance that appeared to be loaded with features. I am very disappointed it is not what I had expected. It is bad, period. Etune is a garbage.
On the flip side,
The car is one of the best I have had including Porches, Mercedes, Lexus Chevy, Hyundai, VW etc. My wife loves it. She is an interior decorator and a Cal graduate. The car is fun to drive. Overall I give it a B+.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I haven't been able to figure out what Entune is supposed to be for. I watched the videos but, aside from remote climate control which is a Safety Connect thing, I can't figure out why I'd even sign up for either Entune or Safety Connect. They don't seem to do anything useful to me. I asked before about this and got no responses.

 

I'm very happy with my purchase. I love that the drive is so smooth and quiet. My only gripes are (not about this car in particular) is that Toyota has substituted LDW for LKA which I loved, and that I don't have access to Android Assistant. It's Siri only and I don't have an iPhone. I find using the on-screen buttons while driving to be a little dicey it that you really have to look at the screen instead of the road because some of the buttons are so small. Should be able to customize that.

I love that the Nav screen is so large. I like to look at the streets around me to see alternative routes or maybe other parking opportunities. The Nav does a good job routing around traffic. Set it to automatically engage traffic detours and you will get a message that your route has changed due to a traffic jam.

Still learning all the voice command stuff. I like that you can search for a location on your phone, then sync it to your address book in the car. And that you can play just about any audio source using voice command. (set up a mixed preset list) And the JBL sound system is AWESOME!

I also wish that the built in Qi charger supported fast charge, but it doesn't so I use a fast charge 12V adapter and plug in my phone. This has the advantage of leaving the Qi charger available for my wife when we travel.

 

Safety connect is free for the first year. I am not going to renew it. It should be free but then I will use my AAA even it is.
The voice only does not work for hearing impaired.It sould use the big screen for text.
Toyota needs to hire some good IT professionals. Cars will become smarter fast. I have a vacuum cleaner that is more intelligent than my car. Driverless cars using AI and Tesla making more affordable cars all will threaten these traditinal auto makers if they do not learn fast.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Actually just a correction. Safety Connect is free for 3 years. After that you have to renew it. At least on the Advanced. This also includes road side assistance, vehicle locator, crash detection and a few other features. Add in the Prius app features and it comes in at about $20 per year over AAA and lost savings for my insurance. (Insurance gives me $38 off per year for having vehicle locator and other automated safety features).

The cars features are fine the application interface is horrible. Hiring a set of usability engineers and a couple good programmers could go a long way to improving things, but really they should get out of the infotainment business and buy a system from people who specialize in that space and keep to building great cars. The deal with Ford sounds promising but unlikely to be included in existing vehicles. I just wish they had added the Apple and Android Car features rather than trying to roll their own very poor solution. The navigation option in the Entune Suite is abysmal if you can even call it a navigation system at all. And having to pay for map updates is crazy at this point, usually I just throw in towel after 3 years and start using my phone for navigation, which is sad when you have an 11" display right in front of you to try to use a 5" display for navigation that has to somehow be mounted to your car.

 

I'm happy. Can't find any defects that I have to take it back to the dealer for. But it's not a huge improvement over my Gen 3. It's definitely quieter and handles better. The interior is upgraded (especially the seats), but I miss the storage space, and do not like the shifter location. I'm not a fan of the styling (including the dashboard), the glossy black and white trim, nor the longer length of the car. Maybe it's me, but it seems to have less power in HV mode than my Gen 3; maybe because it weighs more. Nit picking though. It's very nice.

 

I am very happy with the car -- I picked it up on 12-10. only issue is Remote Climate is not working, and the cabin will not preheat when you set a departure time for charging. I am hoping they can correct this issue quickly

 

entune is for synching up your cell with the car, so you can stream data with the car screen using your cell phone data plan. if you want a music service, or surf the web, with bing and etc. other than that, it's useless.

 

Agreed.
From the Prius Owner Group,
"My main point is simple, the main reason for car companies keeping software in house is obvious, they refuse to give up what might be a source of revenue. That's fine from a revenue perspective but continually, the one thing consumers despise about their vehicles is the hinky way most of the software works, or, more to the point, doesn't work. This is what happens when you insist on reinventing the wheel with, arguably, people who are already on the second team, the stronger developers are already employed by, well, Google and Apple, to name just two companies."

I suggest all the car makers open up like Google Android App Development. Let us freelancers add value to it and make a few cents for each download.

 

it's a nice thought, but they won't until we stop buying their cars. supposedly, hyundai will have it, and we'll see how many bail on toyota for better entertainment.

 

Delighted except for the software. We need Android Auto and Assistant! Plus Apple equivalent. Google Maps is so superior to Toyota Nav! And Entune must have been designed in 1985.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

We are on the same boat. Waiting for my prime to replace my 07 prius with 130K miles on.