Your complaints/disappointments with your C?

Jan, sadly, it's a completely different car mind set here in the U.S. (and always has been for as long as I've bought cars). Manufacturers leave out the great options in most of the small cars to lure customers into larger, more expensive and generally less efficient cars that can be fully optioned. It's called the 'profit motive'.

Marketing has worked hard and spent much money on advertisements that convince prospective customers to think that bigger cars are a mark of success, and the small car as something you want to move "up" and out of as soon as possible. It's one of the reasons that small cars have been minimally engineered here historically, lacking any suspension sophistication or build quality inside and out. The now defunct Chevrolet Aveo comes to mind as a prime example (there are many others).

This sort of marketing ploy has successfully driven (no pun intended) auto sales here a long time. Didn't quite work for me, since I never acquired the joy of driving large acreage on wheels.

The marketing strangeness continues into other areas of car sales. If you want a fully optioned manual equipped car here, you'll be relegated to looking at a few high end imports or a few sports cars. Otherwise, you are generally limited to a near bare bones car, if you happen to like shifting yourself. No options available on 95% of them, unless you order the automatic transmission. We're talking basic options like alloy wheels, upgraded interiors, sound systems, sunroofs, fog lamps and the like. Young drivers aren't even being taught how to drive a car with a manual transmission, thus killing off that part of the marked through driver attrition.

Eventually, as fuel prices go up and cars in the Prius c segment become more numerous, we might see an overdue change in this old marketing strategy. We can only hope. The Prius c and the Ford Fiesta are a start.

Re: the missing dead pedal in the c... hey, it's missing in the Gen III Prius as well! I'm thinking about getting one from an old Gen II and seeing what the possibilities are for mounting that dead pedal in the Gen III and the c. I'm sure that it will take some modifying. A good solid dead pedal makes a big difference for the left leg. Don't understand why this item has gone away!?

Re: rear visibility... Get a Homelink mirror with backup camera screen built in. I usually fold down the rear seats, unless I have to carry passengers. Those little round convex mirrors will help when you load 4 people in the car.

When I test drove the c in traffic, with one passenger in the back seat, I had no problem with rear visibility after adjusting all the mirrors optimally.

 

The only thing I don't like about my C is the darn airbag lights. Bright light when it's off and two bright lights ("airbag on" and "passenger") when it's on! This must be the first thing Toyota engineers fix. A simple software upgrade is in order.

 

Dead pedal complaints-Actually if you take the floormat out and get down and look you will notice the "dead pedal" is actually molded into the floorboard. and the carpet sits on it. The pedal is there but most of us like something that sits on the carpet as to not ruin the carpet.

 

Does anyone else miss the dome light for the rear passenger seating area???

 

most definitely, that's going on my list of mods

 

1. "Thump thump thump thump thump" when rear windows are open and fronts not. I had this to a small degree in my last two Accords, and it was annoying. At any speeds over 40 in the C it's absolutely unbearable. With all the extensive wind tunnel testing that was done with this vehicle, I guess no one ever opened a rear window to hear the effect. I don't have passengers often, so it's not a big issue. But it actually was physically painful at 45mph.

2. No voice command to switch to USB. Not having a compatible smart phone or iPod, I was enthused to find out you can plug in a USB thumb drive with a bunch of MP3s on it, and the audio system will immediately begin playing the music. I ripped a couple dozen of my favorite CDs to MP3, created a few play lists, loaded them on a thumb drive, and it's great. There are numerous voice commands for playing the album, artist, song, or play list you want, but alas, unlike the commands for AM, FM, and SAT, there is no voice command to switch to the USB device from any other source.

However, I have found a workaround. You have to switch to the USB device manually once, or start the car with it already active from the last drive, before you can use the workaround. If you change from USB to any other audio source (AM, FM, SAT, CD)
and want to later switch back to USB, use the voice command "Search for music". It will then prompt you to name a song. Name any song title on the USB drive, and the source will switch to the drive and play that song.

3. Changing audio source between AM, FM, and SAT does not change the corresponding presets on the screen, whether done manually or with voice.

 

You know you can mixed type on the preset screens, my main preset screen as 1 AM station, 2 FM station, and 2 SAT stations on ...

 

To low of ground clearance. Front bumper drags when pulling out of drive way. Everthing thing else is A ok

 

They wouldn't put it through a wind tunnel with the windows open as that defeats the purpose of aerodynamic design, and the phenomenon you described occurs in every single car I've ever ridden in or driven. For whatever reason one might need only the rear windows open, most people would also roll down the front windows a pinch to counter the sound as it allows for the air to have a fluid entrance/exit assuming you are traveling forward and not in reverse.

Luckily, if sound is your concern, rolling the windows up and turning off interior a/c circulation allows for outside ventilation while maintaining silence.

 

It's not what we tradititionally think of as part of wind tunnel testing, but there's aerodynamics, and then there's driver/passenger comfort at higher speeds. Wind tunnel testing is the perfect time to take advantage of the simulation aspects of highway driving to find out what occurs "from the inside" when you open the windows after all the changes you've made to improve the slipstream on the outside.

Sorry that your experiece with rear windows down has not been as pleaseant, but I have had several cars that did not produce this thump thump sound in that circumstance. Try it in your C the next time you're on the highway and see if you think it's just a minor annoyance.

 

Just for the record, my c has the same "sound" issue with the back windows open. I was a bit freaked out, but when I showed it to my wife, she said her BMW does the same thing...

 

not to say that this isn't a problem, but what's the reason for putting your windows down at speeds above 45 anyway? as far as fuel economy is concerned, running A/C with the windows up is better anyway at that speed.

 

>>not to say that this isn't a problem, but what's the reason for putting your windows down at speeds above 45 anyway? as far as fuel economy is concerned, running A/C with the windows up is better anyway at that speed.<<

When you're riding alone, there is no reason. But when you have a back seat passenger, they may have a desire for fresh air when you don't, even when the air conditioner isn't on or needed.

Since all of the cars I remember that did not have this problem were made before wind tunnel testing became common, I suspect it's exactly those changes in design that are causing it. Car engineers have had their sights set on hi MPG for a good 40 years now Most car makers change their exterior design every 4 years anyway, so incorporating wind tunnel testing was a low cost way of reducing wind resistance and improving MPGs. Which is why so may cars look very similar in overall shape now.

I don't think the two goals of hi MPGs and less "thump thump" when the the rear windows are down are necessarily mutually exclusive. I just don't think the latter has been a goal at all. Like I said, I don't have rear passengers that often, and they'll just have to tough it out. It's only because the sound and the pain from this phenomenon in the C were more pronounced than I have experienced in any other car, that I mention it here.

 

i'm not exactly arguing here, but my point was that turning on a/c (or just a regular fan at the lowest temperature setting) even when you don't think it's necessary is still more fuel efficient than rolling down the windows. so if you have a backseat passenger who wants to roll down the window just say "hold on, let me turn on the a/c" and they should be fine. right?

 

Ditto on the rear cup holder ... 2 passengers in the rear and only one cup holder ...

 

The threshold speed depends on the car and how much you open the windows..

 

On systems with Display Audio, you are provided 6 banks of 6 presets each; none of the banks are confined to a particular medium and therefore can contain a mix of stations between the three sources. As such, the system is not programmed to change the displayed presets when the source is changed since it doesn't conform to the system's preset storage behavior.

I'm not sure about the other headunit, however.

 

Or even better, since it is so much more efficient to use A/C, do away with the rear windows entirely. Then do away with the front windows. It's more efficient...

 

This is why I've always loved having sun/moon roofs. Tilting them up is a good way to introduce some fresh air flow through the cabin without the fan/vents, and with very little wind noise at all. Personally, it's the only window I use at higher speeds just due to the relative lack of noise they make.


ron

 

Well for me, in the end, I will find some way to get whatever combination of air flow and temperature as needed, so the comfort issue is relatively small. But the first time I heard that awful noise I pulled the car over, thinking something drastically wrong had happened. It does seem strange that this noise would be considered a "standard" feature of many cars.