New Prime Owners: (Things discovered/Likes/Dislikes)

Suddenly the car puts itself out of cruise control.

 

My understanding is that it shouldn't do that. It might stop doing adaptive radar cruise if the sensors get obstructed, but it should revert to normal cruise.

 

If the sensors get obstructed it'll explicitly say they were obstructed and as a result the cruise control will stop. I'd be curious if that's what they were running into.

The only other time I've had it stop is when it causes the car to come to a complete stop. Once you hit 0 it'll stop till you tell it to start again. Other than that I haven't had problems.


iPhone ?

 

If you get nervous and tap the brakes, it will drop out of cruise control. All cars with cruise control do this.

 

I like my Prime Advanced, but there's a few things I don't like:

• I wish there was more than 1 USB port: one for charging my phone and another for music stored on a USB drive
• I wish there was a volume knob instead of buttons; it's just easier to quickly control the volume
• The beeping when you're in reverse is annoying. I know you can have the dealer set it so it only beeps once, but I'd prefer to be able to just control the volume and make it beep a lot softer.
• I don't like that the auto anti-glare feature of the rearview mirror is always turned on by default whenever you start the car
• When using Siri Eyes Free mode (i.e. holding the call button to activate Siri on my iPhone 6), there's a significant delay in carrying out commands (e.g. when I text via Siri, it takes the car quite a bit of time to process the request).

But overall, I'm very pleased with my car, but then again, my last car was >10 years old.

And, I actually quite like the navigation system. It's a lot better than I expected. Sure, it's not as quick and easy to search for things as google maps, but it gets the job done. I think the only feature I'm missing is the police alerts on Waze.

 

I put that up there with memory seats. Certain 'luxury' not found in a Prius. Odd for a maker willing to add a friggin TV screen. Can't have it all

 

I think it's better to get a lighter socket charger that provides higher current for faster charging. When I really need a charge on my phone is when I'm in car for only a short time. Since my phone accommodates Qualcomm's Quick charging, I got one of those and can get a few hours of battery for just a few minutes on the charger.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Here's my list of likes/dislikes after driving it for a little less than a week, and mind you I had the 2012 PiP bought used for over 2 years...Note that I bought the Premium (middle tier), and the PiP I had was the 1st tier.
Likes

• Seems like a real Plugin Vehicle (the older PiP seemed like an experiment and a neat toy).
• Configuration of screens, I love I can get MPG back, I love that I can see Miles per kWH.
• The cabin seems larger, the car seems quieter, I can hear the radio at 70+ MPH without the need to blast it.
• The kids say the back seats are nice and larger, there's more leg room.
• Lumbar support!
• A load of safety features not seen prior!
• $3.5k cheaper (before taxes but after incentives) than my new 2010 Prius.
• $2k more expensive than my already good deal used PiP.
• Drive is fun and tight.
• EV torque is AMAZING.
• LED head lamps and auto-high beams WOW!
• Ride is so much smoother.
• EV Range is so much more accurate (less variance here and more reliability).
• Center Tablet.

Dislikes

• 4 Seater...Why would Toyota go backwards here. I like the storage in the back, but lack of 4 seat lacks utility.
• Center Tablet - Wth, there's so much potential here that it feels like it's tossed out the window. Entune was so circa 3rd generation Prius in the very beginning. It's improved but has it improved 6 years when compared to smartphones...? Can't we just plug in an HDMI cord into our smart phone and mirror it?
• Where's my PiP Screen? I want to see kWH consumed, Gallons consumed, HV miles, EV miles, etc...That screen was extremely useful in determining the efficiency of the PiP which was already efficient!

Middle of the Road

• Raised trunk space. It's raised, but there's still space so I'm not TOTALLY bothered, but it's still a little bit of a bother.

Great vehicle overall. I have fun driving it!

 

This is discussed elsewhere in Priuschat. Bigger EV range is not necessarily better. Carryng around a bulky and heavy battery costs space and mpg. One that is bigger than you need is wasteful.

So what you need is the right size of battery, not the biggest available. The Prime battery size is carefully judged and in this context a good compromise IMHO. Just fine for me.

Especially as this car also has an ICE. Teslas are Pure EVs so this it's not a valid or helpful comparison.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I'd think the EV/HV ratio would win at the one gallon rule. Ie, a Prius that could go 54 miles EV while hybrid goes 54 mpg. FCA Pacifica sort of has that down, 33 miles EV while 32 MPG hybrid, now with each 'fill-up' at the plug you replace a gallon of gas.

But yeah, there comes a point where the battery just weighs too much (but how did FCA do it? The Highlander Hybrid has a smaller battery and gets less...) It's impressive as it is the Prime has more MPG than the standard non-eco version of the Prius.

 

U have a good point and I agreed with you. I am do now 90 miles per day. I just want to get away from the gas station. Gen 4 really does help me out on that. I fill out my tank every 600 miles which is great. Could be better.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

And that's special because of...numerology?

What's special about 1 gallon?

Would it still be special if we called it 231 cubic inches? What if we called it 33.7 kilowatt-hours?

 

Are you sure that the car actually uses dead reckoning?

IMHO phone Satnavs such as Google Maps are superior to car ones in so many ways that it's hard to know where to begin. Biggest one is constantly updated maps, for free. Next one is frequently improved functionality and UI, again for free.

Certainly agree with others that the lack of good interaction with modern phones is a big turnoff. Toyota really need to pull up their socks in a big way in the Human interface technology department.

The big screen is supposed to give wow factor but it is def worse than old fashioned tactile controls for frequently used functions. This seems like shallow thinking on Toyota's part, style over substance and over safety.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I'm certain my 2004 uses dead reckoning, since they said it does, and it works underground and in tunnels. I don't know when or if they stopped doing that.

 

I agree with that, but having used both, there are disadvantages. I absolutely hate it when I'm streaming music over BT and it gets interrupted by the notification ding from an email or text coming in. And nav on my phone essentially doesn't work at all when my 8-year-old has my phone and is playing a game on it.

And even though the nav on my 2004 has never been updated, it still basically works. For the first time a few weeks ago, it took me to the wrong place (a restaurant had moved locations). Not bad for nearly 13 years of use.

 

It must still use dead reckoning or the navigation setup menu wouldn't include this.

TIRE CHANGE CALIBRATION

The tire change calibration function will
be used when replacing the tires. This
function will adjust miscalculation
caused by the circumference difference
between the old and new tires.

1 Select “Tire Change”.
 The message appears and the quick distance
calibration starts automatically.

INFORMATION
● If this procedure is not performed when
the tires are replaced, the current position
mark may be incorrectly displayed.

 

My old Nokia Satnav worked in tunnels too, but it did this by assuming the car continued at the same speed along the road as GPS indicated until the signal was lost. An assumption that worked quite well in practice.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

A lot of this function our phone come with it and is cheaper to get . Why paid 2k or 3k for something that you can get free.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

How did you come up with those prices? First of all, I gave several reasons why included nav is helpful, even if you have a smartphone. Second, including in-car nav is unlikely to be close to that expensive. Finally, I'm very certain that my smartphone wasn't free to purchase and isn't free to provide service or to maintain. It's actually quite expensive.