My thoughts on the Prius

So I have had my Prius for about a month and a half. I have always been a car enthusiast and love speed. I have owned a turbo Probe GT, a 5.0 Mustang, a Porsche 944 turbo, a Subaru WRX, a C4 Corvette and two Dodge Dakota trucks, one being a heavily modified 4.7 liter. When the Prius first came out, I thought it was a joke. A cute and odd love child of a Toyota Echo. Once the second gen came out, I secretly liked the futuristic shape of the body but I kept ragging on it while mashing the throttle in my car past them.

As gas kept creeping upwards, paying $500+ a month for gas was getting to be painful. I needed a car. I needed 40 mpg or better. Around now, I started to see the gen 3 Prius all over the place. The damn thing looked so sporty and the high tech nature was just so enticing. I just couldn't afford it. I ended up buying a used 2009 Civic hybrid. Finally, I can see what the hybrid hype was all about. I tried replacing the tires with Ecopia ep100, increasing the psi to just under 50 psi, I got a shark fin antenna, got nano tint and replaced all of the lights with LEDs to hold onto as much HV power as possible. Using the best driving techniques I could muster, I could get short blips of 50+ mpg but by the end of the tank I always ended with 42-44 mpg average. Whenever my wife borrowed it, she ended up giving it back with a 33 mpg average. She hated my car and took every opportunity to remind me of that fact. It was slow, loud, the brakes were really touchy and she thought it looked ugly. I had to get the paint redone 3 times, replace the brake lines, and replace the IMA battery all within 40k miles of driving the Civic.

So fast forward to last month. My wife is looking at a 2014 Highlander. We walk the dealership and I find myself literally standing in front of this gorgeous black 2010 Prius IV. I have to drive it. I never driven a Prius before but I just had to satisfy my curiosity. I cannot believe this thing has a HUGE truck. And the seats fold down? But...Honda insists that you cannot build a hybrid that has a truck or seats that fold down. This almost feels blasphemous. The back seat is so wide. And...two glove compartments? The bottom storage area is big enough for my wife's purse and there is so much room. I sit in the thing and feel like I am in the cockpit a stealth fighter.

The test drive was a wake up call. The Engine stays off the entire trip from the dealership to the highway. The Prius takes off so quickly and gets to 80 mph so easily. It is smooth and refined compared to the Civic hybrid. The engine is so quiet. When you come to a stop, it just stops smoothly. The Civic shakes and the engine just dies like someone pulled out the spark plugs. I ended up buying the Prius for $16k. It's been a month and it is still amazing how smooth and how powerful it is compared to the Civic. I can get 50+ driving at 75 mph on the highway and get over 60 mpg averages without trying too hard. I am getting 500 mile tanks. Even my wife, who couldn't get over 35 mpg in my Civic borrowed my car for the past few days and I just looked at the screen and it was reading 51.3 mpg. The Prius is just an amazing car. It is so high tech, so economical and even while saving gas, it feels like you have performance when you need it. My wife even likes it, which is saying a lot. She loves how smoothly it starts and stops the engine and how easy it is to use the brakes to smoothly slow the car. Even she is getting excited over using EV mode to drive the whole neighborhood.

I am sorry for the length of this post, but I just wanted to put my thoughts down coming from a guy who drove a Civic hybrid to a now satisfied Prius owner. I started off loving speed and hating the thought of a low performance car, but somehow I am totally in with the Prius and get a guilty pleasure out of watching the mpg bars go up. The Prius is a car that is truly in a class of its own. I love owning one and when I replace it, I am pretty sure it will be another Prius of some sort, maybe the next plug in model.

 

I've pressed the power button a couple of times, mainly when I know I need to switch lanes ahead of someone else or get through a merge lane quickly. It does have a sense of power, but since I am a nut for mpg now, I tend to keep it almost exclusively in Eco mode. I am not sure how much the different modes truly change the nature of the Prius performance, it seems like it's widely debated that there isn't any real difference. However, everyone agrees that Eco mode makes the a/c more efficient, which is important here in Florida.

 

If the 4th gen Prius plugin can double its current EV range, it would be hard to pass up.

 

I've read other people complain about the steering wheel and seating position, but I don't see it. I feel really comfortable in the Prius and the wheel is just fine for me. I am 5'11 and a relatively thin 160 lbs., not sure if that makes a difference. I have the seat all the way down and have the perfect position for the wheel, mirrors and all the controls. When I had my Civic Hybrid, I had a few issues with the steering wheel since it was so easy to block the mpg gauge and the seats SUCKED for any trips over a half hour. The Prius with the softex leather feels like a Lexus to me in comparison. The only issue I really have with the interior is that the climate control screen is hard to see in the sunlight sometimes and I agree that the plastic is a tad bit creeky at times.