Finally pulled the trigger

Remember a few days ago I was asking for opinions on trading-in my one month old fully loaded 2012 ford focus titanium hb for a prius? Finally I made it happen. The whole process was quick. I took a test drive on Friday before going to work, sent out a few emails after work. Most dealership gave me a ridiculous trade-in price on my focus (like $18k when the MSRP is nearly $29k) and a so so price on the prius. Just before I decided to give up, a dealer called and asked me what's my target price and offered me my target price + $500 conditional on I going to their place and signing the paperwork immediately. At that point, they haven't even looked at my focus so I thought there must be some hidden traps waiting for me. Surprisingly, the whole process went smoothly without drama. And I ended up with driving a 2012 Blizzard pearl prius 3 with solar sun roof home.

Since I paid a deeply discounted price for my focus, I managed not lose too much on it. The trade-in price was about $1k lower than what I paid and I got about $2k off MSRP for the prius, which was a good price compared to edmunds or truecar numbers but I know you guys have gotten better deal than that. So net-net I think I did OK on the trade-in.

As for driving dynamics, the prius is definitely less sporty than the focus with handling package. But at least it drives like a normal car. The focus had some pretty bad steering wandering issue and the dealer couldn't fix it even after replacing the entire steering rack. At highway speed, it feels like having its own mind and occasionally pulls towards one side or another, which sometimes could get a bit scary. That's the main reason I wanted to trade it in. In addition to that, it never gets the EPA rated gas milage, highway or city.

I do miss the firm suspension and flat cornering of the focus. But other than that, the prius drives just fine. Although it has less hp and more weight than the focus, it doesn't really feel slower (when in power mode). What I don't like is the rubber band feeling when in eco mode. So I just drive under power mode most of the time. So far the car only has about 50 miles and mpg is already 46+

Oh, one more thing. I just figured that my wp7 doesn't have entune app. Doesn't anyone know if there is any plan for entune on windows phone platform? I can still stream music through bt, make handsfree calls, thoguh. I don't want to buy a new phone just for using entune.