Going from a BMW to a Prius: thoughts?

Well, yeah, not RWD and slower than the Prius. If it were RWD and equivalent output of the '12 HyCam or greater, that might be nice. I also don't like the interior space sacrifices of the CT nor the exterior styling.

I agree the interior materials are better than any Prius. I did test drive one briefly at Hybrids2Hotrods.

I won a week test drive of the now defunct Lexus HS. At least it had more power than the Prius (but was also FWD), had a much higher quality interior and had a decent telematics system. I liked the car. If in some fantasy world Toyota told me I could keep the HS I drove in return for my Gen 2 Prius, I'd probably do it.

Too bad its exterior styling wasn't great (both my opinion and coming from others' comments).

Maybe if they could hybridize the Lexus IS and improve its handling... I'd driven the Lexus IS250 and 350 at a Lexus event a few years ago and was unimpressed with its handling vs. the BMW 3-series they had on-hand as competitor's cars (and I'm NOT a BMW fan). Interior bits were nice though.

 

We currently own a 2006 Prius, a 2012 CT200h, and a 1987 BMW 325i. My pick for daily driver is the 2006. The CT and BMW connect you to every pothole, rumble strip, and even lane markers on the road. Frankly, I like the marshmallow suspension. The BMW makes such a commotion about everything. The CT is more refined, but it also has that stupid Jetson's noisemaker when moving at slow speed.

The CT gets literally double the mileage of the BMW, and on regular instead of premium.

One thing we've really noticed about the Prius & CT is that they don't collect brake dust on the front wheels. The BMW needs the wheels cleaned more often than it needs a car wash. I guess if you don't use the friction brakes, they don't pollute the wheels...

 

being the same company, lexus and toyotas share parts/systems, so you'll see highest Prius trims offer similar options as lexus (cruise, heads up etc). i've gotten hihy parts before stamped Lexus (RX 400h shares platform w/ HiHy). lexus differentiates itself in the quality of the cabin (user experience) and tuning the drive for performance at the cost of some mpg.

to me the lexus feels too toyota-like, so i prefer the merc, bmw (audi is great too but reliability is VW like)