All I can say is WOW! This is really an amazing machine! Thank you to everyone here at PriusChat for all the information you offer the world as it really helped me understand what I was buying and all the little noises and unique things about the Prius. The User's Guide by John is a great summary of the hundreds of pages from the Toyota manual and really the important stuff everyone should know. Yesterday afternoon was a real test for me. I had to drive down a dirt road with a bunch of loose sand. The Prius did great with it, keeping good control and traction. I only had the traction warning light come on when I wanted to see if I could make it come on. It was smooth as can be and still kept me moving as it should. One thing I did notice was that I was only getting about 42MPG and wondering why it was so low (yeah, like 42 is low). But after reading here, I checked the tire pressure and found the dealer had all 4 tires at 31.5 psi. I pumped the fronts to 40 and the backs to 38 and now am averaging 51MPG. It may be partly that I am learning how to drive a Prius, but the added air pressure was noticeable right away. Living in central Florida I tinted the windows and put on the 3M clear bra. My next purchase will be the mud flaps. I can see where they will help make the car look better and protect the finish. The biggest problem I have so far is that I keep reaching for the key to turn it off. Old habits die hard.
I don't have a Prius yet, but have been "renting" them via San Francisco's City Care Share, which means I have used them about ten times now. Love it so much I am buying one soon. My understanding is that one of the ways that the Prius gets such good mileage is because of the car's design elements: the car is made of super light materials, body design, areodynamics, the engine assist electric motor and the small/light engine. In other words, the car is so tweaked out that it squeezes the extra MPG from what otherwise would be a 30 MPG car, like the Sentra or Corolla. That tells me that if tire pressure is significantly off [not at its optimum for the car] then on the Prius mileage will be affected significantly, as was your situation. On my news station they said incorrect tire pressure will decrease MPG, guess you confirmed that, big time.
Ha, Ha! I just got my Prius last week. I have a water bottle in the forwardmost cupholder and I keep trying to "shift" with the water bottle when it's time to put the car in Reverse or Drive!
Congrats on your new Prius . . . Even after three months of being a Prius owner, I tend to walk up to my front door and expect it to "magically" unlock for me!!!!!! I love the key fob
