My mods... Leather, radio, floor cover

I just purchased new 2011 Prius II on feb 27th 2012. My budget for new car was around $23,000. I wanted, touchscreen radio with Bluetooth, leather seats, good gas mileage and room for three (wife, one seven year old and luggage). After test driving over a dozen cars I narrowed my selection to the final four...toyota Prius model 2, Subaru impreza limited, ford focus SEL and the Hyundai Elantra limited. All four had what I was looking for in the $23k range except for the Prius... It had way better gas mileage but for $23k I could not get a model with the bells and whistles I wanted... But, I could get a base model for $21k and then I could add my own bells and whistles and with the mpg being sooo much better than the other 3, not to mention higher reliability, trade in value etc it was a no brainer and I bought the Prius. So I have had the car for about three weeks and I love it. Here is what I added
1. Katzkin leather seats (dark gray). Original seats were light grey, l like the contrast of the dark gray leather with light gray dash and carpet. I had the seats professionally installed by the dealer and this was negotiated into the sales price and wrapped into the loan, total cost was $1099

2. Pioneer avhp-440bh DVD receiver. I installed this myself with the help of instructions provided by spiderman over in the audio section of the forum, after buying all the parts (radio, steering wheel adapter, trim kit, parking brake bypass). Total cost was $700

3. Rubber floor mats, I researched husky and weather tech floor mats but I figured I should try the cheap ones first before investing in the custom ones. So I went to Kmart and spent $20 for two front mats and $15 for the rear seat runner. So far so good and I think I will stick with them. I also purchased a rolls of cheap clear vinyl carpet runner from Lowes for $5. I cut that to size and placed under the runner for extra protection (the seven year always seems to manage to spill some kind of liquid on the carpet. Total coat is $40

I guess my next thing will be window tint. Any other ideas. Here is a link to my Dropbox gallery with pictures of the leather and the radio. https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/36881683/1/2011 toyota prius my mods?h=46ccc4

 

The pioneer HU is awesome, the only hassle is the iPhone connection is a little temperamental. When I plug in my phone to the 30 pin plug the HU has trouble deciding If to stream music via Bluetooth or direct connection. The pros of the radio are...very nice touch screen interface, you can change the color of the buttons and the screen independently. So I have the buttons set to green to match the climate control buttons and the screen is set to blue to match the dashboard speedometer screen. Has all the bells,whistles...
- hd radio (the reception is improved over the stock radio
- Bluetooth audio streaming
- Bluetooth hands free talk
-iPhone connection, to display gps motion x and Netflix and have direct control over pandora.

The parking brake bypass is located behind the radio.
Under the bridge next to the power port is the iPhone cable. Since that cable is short I am going to permantly mount it in the empty knock out so it looks neat and then I will simply run an extension cable to hook up the phone.

 

I think katzkin advertise their MSRP at a ridiculously high level. You can purchase the katzkin for the Prius and install yourself for $700. So $400 for a full days work to install is reasonable. I did a search on katzkin through this forum and it looks like the going rate to have katskin installed is $1000-$1500. And yes you can do two tone, you can pick the sticking and all that. That might costa little extra and add to the lead time. I would definitely recommend getting the katzkin leather over the factory leather.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I think the leather made the seats more cushy and comfortable.