Good Vibrations

Hi All,

First post from a long time lurker (since Sept of '05). Our Jeep Cherokee was stolen that Sept and we considered it a capital excuse for getting a new car and we had decided on getting a Prius a long time ago.

I heard about the tax credit coming up in '06 and the police found the Jeep and we were able to hold off until January - once we decided to buy the Prius, getting the Jeep back wasn't enough to stop the train (we've had the Jeep since '91 and it had more than 250K on it).

We live in the Seattle area and decided to get the car from Kirkland Toyota who have an excellent reputation. We put ourselves on the waiting list ($500 deposit) and were quoted a price of MSRP+529 for the '06 equivalent of an '05 package 6. We stuck to our guns a couple of times when an '05 became available before Jan 1.

To make a long story short, Kirkand wasn't getting many Prii after Jan 1 and we were suddenly farther down on the list since alot of people had made the choice to take their car after Jan 1. We were told in early February that we might be looking at three more months. So I started looking on the internet and calling around. Turns out the dealership in Yakima WA (east of the Cascade mountains) has the contract with WA state gov and provides 400-500 Prii a year to the state (I think it's kind of cool that WA state thinks Prii are a good investment in the future). I worked with Jason Edlin at the dealership and he was pretty easily able to get us a Tideland Pkg 8 to be available within two weeks (In the meantime my wife talked around and decided she wanted to go for the leather since we have kids and it makes cleaning up easier).

I have to say that this was the easiest car purchase I have ever made. There was no pressure, it was all done over the phone and it was straight MSRP, he hinted that I might be able to get better than that, but I wasn't in the mood for a bidding war. Even better, I didn't have to drive to Yakima! He offered to drive it to my house and have the papers signed there - I didn't have to meet with the finance guy in the back room! And the sales tax is about one percent lower in eastern washington and on a 29K purchase, that adds up. Certainly if you live in the Seattle area and are on a waiting list, give Jason a call!

Frigga arrived on Valentine's day much to the excitement of the whole family (Frigga is the wife of Odin and we name all our computers/pets after norse gods).


Now, for some impressions:

The good (most of it!):
We love Frigga! She drives very well, we love the Nav and are getting great mileage. I'm sure our mileage will continue to improve as we get used to all the "Tricks of the trade".

One thing that I haven't seen posted about as a difference between the '04/'05 and '06: there has been much angst about Verizon and bluetooth posted prior to '06 in that you can't download phone book entries from your phone and the Prius did not allow you to type in a name or add phonebook entries manually. This worried me since I use Verizon. While it is still true that Verizon won't let you download from your phone, with the '06 Prius you can enter and edit phone book entries including names, two numbers per entry, icons, groups and the like - up to 1000 of them. It's certainly alot of work, but you can do it.

To limit the length of this post, I think I'll stop talking about good stuff because that could get real long.

The bad:
Still not used to the visibility out the back yet. The Jeep and my truck both have excellent visibility and while I'm sure I'll get used to it, it's "different" now.

Just in case Toyota is listening, please give us a way to unlock the Nav while we are driving, it would be OK with me if they only unlocked it if there was a pasenger in the right front seat because that is when I need the Nav the most - When the family is going somewhere strange.

The UGLY!:
The ability to enter text in the phone section is obviously new and has a couple rough edges. In the Nav setup section you can select whether to have the alpha keyboard displayed in QWERTY (typewriter) or alphabetical order - good, I'm a touch typist, and want a QWERTY layout. The phone entry stuff is separate and there is no way to change to a QWERTY layout - this is very annoying to say the least.

But if that's the only really annoying thing I've found, I must be pretty happy about the car - and I am!

 

Rhody lovers in general aren't too much of a cult. I love Rhododendron species (not those silly hybrids) which is a cult

Sales tax is applied where it was purchased. Licensing fees are calculated based on where it is registered.

Frigga (Frigg, Fricka), Odin's wife, was considered to be the Mother of all; and protectoress of children. She spins the sacred Distaff of life, and is said to know the future, although she will not speak of it. Some believe that Friday was named for her instead of Freya, and there is considerable confusion as to "who does what" among the two.

 

Ooops! My bad, I equated tideland with blue..... It's Seaside Pearl.