Picked up our brand new 2023 Prius LE!

Congrats - always nice to see new owners and pics of this beautiful car!

 

Very nice! Like the 19" wheels too!

 

Congratulations, white is a beautiful colour for the Prius 2023!
Could You please elaborate a little more about the proactive driving assist?
Regards
Alessandro

 

congrats, all the best!

 

Glad to see all the new arrivees out there! Looking great!

 

Nice, congrats!

I like the black wheel covers better actually.

 

Congrats on your new car! I also have an LE in wind chill pearl, I still can't get over how good it looks and drives compared to my old 3rd gen

 

Right now I can't decide if it's worth it go up to the Limited trim. Literally everyday I keep going back and forth between AWD LE or just Yoloing it and going to AWD Limited. I like the idea of upgraded audio, softex, larger screen, sunroof etc, but I also know I don't NEED those things. I'm currently in a 2007 Prius that I love (despite the fact I have personally replaced the hybrid battery twice...). Anyone have any thoughts on the base sound system and if I'll regret not getting the Limited if I'm planning on keeping the car for 10+ years. (I may make my own post about this.)

Anyone have any strong opinions or suggestions?

 

(sorry for the dissertation - my post got away from me)

I'm also planning on owning my new Prius for 10-15 years(I owned my 2010 base-trim Prius for about 13-14 years), so I look at the option payback over the longer term.

It depends on what you value most. For me, I really wanted the panoramic view monitor. My brain loves a bird's eye view and finds traditional backup cameras fairly useless. And now that I've got them, I wouldn't give up my ventilated seats for anything. The heated rear seats are nice in a northern climate, but I doubt they'll get much use as I have people back there extremely rarely. I am looking forward to the heated steering wheel and seats this winter.

I would absolutely want an auto-dimming rear mirror with HomeLink, so I'd would have had to upgrade that myself if I had gone with an LE. I also like the memory driver's seat in the Limited that moves back automatically for easy egress when you shut off the car(I have it set to the intermediate point). I like to have YouTube videos playing when I'm on my long, boring drives, so the larger screen is nice for that(mainly for UI reasons - I'm mostly listening to the videos; I just find YouTube easier to navigate versus a podcast app). And I really like the three-door smart key access after 13/14 years of only having it on the driver's door.

As for mostly useless stuff for me, I haven't used the advanced park that came with my top-trim package, but I live in a fairly rural area, so there's been no reason to get used to it. The sunroof is nice, but I wouldn't miss it. The upgraded stereo is also nice, but I've heard there isn't a huge difference between the levels. Rain-sensing wipers are meh to me, but I don't hate them. Same for the power liftgate. I thought the wireless charger was going to be great, but it turned out to be fairly useless to me as the app I use to stream YouTube causes my phone to heat up enough that I have to keep it out of the confined space of the charger slot.

Probably the biggest negative to me about the Limited over the LE is the 19" wheels. It's not so much the loss of mpg(though I'd really like to get that back), it's more the difficulty of getting better tires than the stock choices. Maybe that will change over the next year, but at least the 17" wheels have some acceptably close tire sizes already available, with some nice tires in the stock size coming in just a couple months.


So would I still go with a Limited over an LE if I had to do it again? Absolutely. It would have been a harder decision if I was only planning on holding onto the car for 3-5 years, but it's a no-brainer since I hope to be driving it for 10+ years. I'm not looking at it as a $7000 upcharge, but more like $50 a month(or $1.65/day) over the life my ownership. For how much the options improve my daily driving experiences, I find it worth the value.


note: I was in the enviable position of trading in two vehicles for one new Prius. That meant I left the dealership with a car and a check even though I was buying the most expensive non-Prime Prius you could get. My decision wasn't how much it was going to cost me, but how big a check I was going to be taking home. That probably made the decision to get the Limited a whole lot easier than someone looking at years of car payments.

 

Congrats on your new Prius!

I have to agree the 3rd gen Prius comes in 2nd to the 5th gen.

 

My thoughts: I view autos the same as I do phones or laptops. Get the most that you can afford with the equipment you want so it will stay relevant for you as long as possible. I did not get a Limited simply because I did not want the sunroof. If the upgraded sound system was something I really really desired, I probably would have bought a Limited but it would have come with other equipment I did not want. For me, the desire to not have a sunroof outweighed the desire for an upgraded sound system. For as long as you would keep the car, my suggestion is that if you can afford it, get what you want and enjoy it.

 

I think for me right now, it's more a question of how best to use my money. I'm not rich, but I can fit either the LE or Limited into my budget. It's now more of a question of how much I want to be putting into a savings account for an eventual downpayment on a house in 5 years. I can pay off the LE in 3 years, or I could pay off the Limited in 4 years. I'm also getting philosophical about taxes and interest payed. The Limited is $7000 more in just MSRP, but on top of that about $1200 more in interest and taxes. It's definitely easier to swallow when thinking in terms of monthly payments, but I also know that's how people stay in debt. I currently have no debt, and this will be my first new car purchase. It's a wild time for me.

 

With the larger tires, your speedometer will now be inaccurate unless you have the car serviced.

 

Regardless of the wheel size, the Outside Diameters of the wheel/tire combos are roughly the same.

Speedometers always slightly high, by design. It's legislated, in a (mostly vain) effort to slow drivers down.

I doubt anyone's capable of adjusting the speedometer.

 

Unless you paid to have some aftermarket seat heaters installed, the USDM LE never got heated seats, only heated steering wheel.