genuine curiosity: why do all you like the Prius so much (i promise, not a troll thread.)

I've got some questions for you, Iraqiswhack: Approximately what percentage of the time you spend driving your Audi are you taking corners at high speeds, enjoying the turbo spooling, accelerating and or braking quickly, and other such maneuvers?
And then, what percentage of your driving time is just going from point A to B, driving with the flow of traffic and blending in, so to speak?

Also, in what sort of streets/area do you live? Is it out in the country where the roads are open, or city, or 'burbs, or what?

I was thinking about all this tonight as we made a 30-mile highway trip, in our Prius. During the 40 mins. we were in the car, I spent most of the time trying to drive better and get a better 'score' in the gas mileage game. (Part of my rules, mind you, is that this all must never cause other drivers to put on their brakes or swerve around me). Point is, the entire time we went from Point A to B, I was engaged and interested in driving. Not doing anything fancy, just driving.

So I was thinking about you, and wondering if you were driving on a similar stretch of admittedly boring road, would you be one of the speeders zooming by at 80+, would you be matching traffic and not thinking about your car, or would you be engaged with driving your car the entire time, like I was?

Looking forward to your response.

 

I'm kind of surprised that noone mentioned the fact that the Prius is a fairly lightweight car. 2900lbs for the NHW20 (source Wikipedia). Besides cars like the Elise, it's one of the lightest cars I get to drive on regular basis. I really like the way it feels in corners (although I wish I could replace the seats). Besides, I couldn't withstand the frustration of sitting in traffic with 350+hp on tap. Even though I think the Prius is a little fragile (e.g the windshield), I'm much happier in it sitting in traffic.

I've driven a few audis, but I guess I was never the target market - I'm not the type that appreciates heated seats and leather surfaces, etc. Especially given the weight penalty: 3500lbs (IIHS: IIHS-HLDI: Audi A4). I'd prefer a stripped interior with a rollcage, no backseat, and some carbon brides.

I suppose I'm not so surprised that 1.8L can be turboed out to 500hp - a lot of Evo and STi guys achieve that kind of power at the crank with surprisingly few mods. I'm really curious about the suspension mods you have - I'd much rater go faster in corners rather than in a straight line (played with the idea of getting some Moton 2-way adjustables for my other car).

The environmentalist in me says you should put a cat back on though - most of the time the difference between a HFC and a testpipe is like 1-2hp. And it makes your car smell better. Car looks real clean though.

You can show this to your friends:

I could beat that time in a Prius. I mean that's just sad. Like they say: Driver > Car. I mean you've seen the Top Gear where Sabine Schmitz drives around the ring in a delivery van faster than most people in high-pot sports cars.

Looks like you're in good company though (she's a cutie):
2000 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro - Becca Guiney's 390whp - Eurotuner Magazine

 

Glad I could help. Yup, one of the significant byproducts of gasoline combustion is water. You can easily see it spilling out of exhaust pipes early in the morning when the cars are cold. Once warmed up you can't see it since it exits as steam.

I have a page on fuel cell vehicles here if you're interested:
Fuel Cell Vehicles

 

Here's my 2 cents Iraqiwacks. I'll take your OP at face value and not debate the issue of what makes a post a troll or not, blah, blah, blah. I don't pretend to have the netiquette of many others on here who have a much longer forum history than myself and frankly think many of us (and speaking globally here) need to relax, not be so sensitive and take offense at the slightest difference of opinion. God forbid, we live in a clone world where everyone walks on egg shells, but I digress...

You'll see in my signature we currently have several different vehicles. Only 2 of these are daily drivers, the C230 my wife drives and I drive the Prius. I don't think I fit the average profile of the majority of Prius owners which is why I chose to respond to your post. I consider myself an enthusiast. I try to do most wrenching myself but do not have the skills many others here do to do it all. We go to car shows, we've hosted them and we've participate in them. So I think it's pretty clear that we like autos in general.

I used to think the Prius was a pretty neat idea, but was butt ugly and never thought I would own one. However, something about them fascinated me - maybe it was the technology or the way you could be standing next to one running and suddenly be startled out of your shorts when the ICE kicked on because you had no idea it was running. Then I drove a couple. Man was I surprised! The ride was smooth, comfortable, not anemic and it just felt fun. So from there I started researching as I knew what was coming regarding the economy and gas prices and it was time to start looking for a commuter to replace my old Chrysler Concorde LXI. So while fuel economy for a daily driver initially drove my purchase interest, it has since evolved into something else. I now simply enjoy having a daily driver I can have fun tweaking / playing with and it fits my work lifestyle incredibly well. I've grown to like the looks now that I've made it my own and find it to be one of the most practical purchases I have ever made. The fact that I am "reducing my carbon footprint" or being "eco-friendly" is a nice bonus, but I guess for me it's more of a gadget / general car enthusiast type thing if that makes any sense.

As for hard in the corner acceleration and power, well I am a fair amount older than you, but still young enough to enjoy that too. Being in a family full of car enthusiasts, it's hard not to have a bit of a Peter Pan syndrome sometimes!

 

Audi drivers are dumb. Audis are ugly. Every Audi I've ever driven handles like nice person. Audis are high-maintenance to the max. There, that's all I've got to say about that. Oh, I forgot, DON'T FEED THE TROLL!!!

 

The troll soon tires of the attention and moves on ... a good thing. But we are also posting for our friends and fellow Prius owners and operators. We're sharpening our understanding of this amazing machine we have and drawing sharper contrasts to the alternatives.

A true troll will never understand, they are selectively deaf. Some come and aren't quite to deaf but without renting and spending some seat time, they'll never really understand. But among us, the dialog, the conversation, can be enlightening.

The only time I lose patience with a troll is when the contradict their own statements. We call those people nuts (not counting wives and husbands.) Here I'm fairly tolerant of a troll until they finally reach their limits and begin arguing against the very thing they first claimed to support (aka., the "Swiss" who claimed noise makers that work just around the blind would 'stigmatize them' as if hurting their feelings was also a safety issue!)

So if our young Iraqi veterans enjoyed their tour of duty, they've paid for the right to burn up as much oil as they want ... and go back. Eventually, they may get a clue or maybe not. It doesn't matter. If someone chooses to hit themselves on the side of the head, fine by me as long as they don't force me to do the same madness. Perhaps that is how we know we are sane, the examples of the insane.

So I say, enjoy life and enjoy the game, whack-a-troll, or tune out the thread if you don't. As long as everyone is happy, who cares?

Bob Wilson

 

You are a wise person with an open mind and an open heart! You are what Prius owners are made out of. Keep on enrolling....

 

thx for the kind words!

 

I suppose if I drove the Prius like I used to drive my 1967 Camaro (when gas was less than $1.00 a gallon) I wouldn't be happy with its performance nor handling. However we purchased the Prius knowing we wouldn't be pushing it. I don't corner fast, nor do I attempt rapid acceleration because I'm interested in high mileage. So I drive it quite easily. Given all of that I find the Prius to be very quiet, smooth, easy to drive, and it has a bunch of features that make it interesting to drive. It is surprisingly roomy given that is appears so small from the outside. The hatch back and fold down seats allow us to reserve driving our Honda Odyssey for all but when the largest items or more than 5 people are to be transported.

I'm quite impressed with Toyota's design, including the simple, reliable, and effective Synergy drive, long lasting battery, and wonderful keyless system. Frankly after 11 months and 25,000 miles I'm thrilled everytime I have to go somewhere and I get to take the Prius.

Our monthly gas budget in December 2007 was set at $488/mo. based on past actual expenses. After purchasing and driving the Prius for some months, even as gas prices rose, we dropped the budget to $300 and even that was more than we actually spent. Now that gas prices have dropped we didn't even spend $90 in November.

When we bought the car I never thought the gas cost savings would make up for the extra cost of the Hybrid purchase. The main expense wasn't the $4-5K extra but rather the loss of compound gain in the stock market investment of that same money. I had to pull the extra $4-5K out of the market to buy this car. However as the market has dropped about 50% even that turned out not to be a loss.

We really like this car and expect to keep it for a very long time.

 

Hi Scummer,

The Manta was not a very quick car - the Prius is actually quicker. It was also funny looking with the small tires. But there was not a better car for the money ($1200 used! in 1979 for a '74 - affodable for a grad student) on the rolling landscape in the summer in Central Illinois. It outdid the Camaros and Trans-Ams easily in sweeping curves, and can could be side-slipped around muddy corners with ease. I was on one rally where there was flowing mud down a cambered road. In order to maintain the speed on the directions, I had the car at about 15 degrees to the road , speedometer at 50 mph, and the car doing about 40 mph in the direction of the road. This was not difficult in the Manta, even though it was rear wheel drive. Drove down that flowing mud for five miles doing this. My navigator got a kick out that Ha!.

I had a friend with Trans-Am who looped it on cloverleafs a few times. And he was just was a mess after being in the shot-gun seat with me doing cloveleafs. He was ready for the back end to snap out.

The difference was actually very simple. The Detroit cars back then did not have Panhard rods or torque-tubes. The Manta did. The 1980's versions of the Detroit cars all added the Panhard rods and torque tubes. But were still so wide and flexible, they were unwieldy when any kinda bump upset them in a curve. The Manta was narrow, but also had an X-brace behind the rear seat, which kept the rear of the car stable under load - which is much more important for a rear-wheel drive car. This meant there could not be fold-down rear seats back, because there was a 9 inch wide X of stamped sheet metal in the way.

The Manta manual transmission also had a synchronized first gear. So, in tight turns one could get down into first gear quckily, and accellerate out of the turn better.

In many ways the Manta is like the Prius. It was bought by people who wanted better cars, even if they looked a little funny.

 

Memories? In the early '80's I had an Audi Fox! (Not the VW Fox) Does anyone remeber that car? It looked great, handled great and was very comfortable to drive with the Recaro seats. Only problem (s) was that it was a piece of crap and cost a fortune in repairs. It needed a new fuel pump every year or two and the electrical system was constantly problematic. Audi got most of the bugs out with this car. The Audi drivers of today drive a fantastic car because of all the problems they figured out with this one car alone! IMO

 

The Manta was a very popular car for the tuner enthusiasts in Germany and the young boys who wanted to imitate those tuners. So just like the ricer roni movement here in the US now there used to be a Manta craze, which lead to some questionable looking cars. So the jokes were flying high in Germany about the wanna-be Manta tuners and want-to-be-oh-so-cool drivers.
The car itself was definitely a good car.

 

I like the idea that I'm not killing the environment with this car. And I like a nice ride too, because our other car is an Infiniti. But this car is the best for the longer commute, especially with gas at $4.50 a gallon- and it will go back there some time.)

 

I don't like my Prius that much, in fact I think its premium stereo sucks royally.

There! I feel so much better to get that booger off me chest.

 

I guess I'm honestly curious why an Audi fanatic posts on Prius Chat?

 

Well, because he "genuinely" wants to know why we drive such sucky cars. Weren't you paying attention?

 

Ah huh.