Looking to purchase a 2008 o 2009 Prius

[TK421]

Hello All,

I live in Washington state and have been interested in a Prius for several years. My wife and I are finally in a position to purchase such a vehicle and I am looking for advice.

1) Should I be purchasing a 2008 or 2009 Prius, or hold out for the new 2010 design?

2) With other hybrids now on the market, and the soon to be released Honda Insight, what are the advantages to purchasing a Prius?
3) What do you know now (as a Prius owner) that you wish you knew before you bought?

4) I plan on using the Prius for "around town" errands and a freeway commute of 20 miles (each way). What sort of realistic MPG can I hope for?

Thanks for all your help!

[ruby]

Hi TK,

1. The answer to your question depends on your priorities. If you want a good price and no waiting, buy now. 2009 Prius seem to be in plentiful supply at many dealers in the US at this time. If you love new toys, and price is less of an object, wait for the 2010. There will be demand for that, there will likely be waiting lists, and there will likely be MSRP+ prices for the first several months the car is available. But it will have a quieter ride, warm up more quickly, go 0 to 60 faster, and have a higher combined MPG (50, compared to I think 46 for the current model). Not to mention it will have loads of other goodies you can read all about starting today.

2. I think the new Insight will be smaller, lighter, less expensive (may feel "cheaper" - just a guess) and may get better MPG. I don't know as much about it, but you may want to do the research yourself if those are items that make a difference for you.

3. Because of an unusual (and good) circumstance, I did not test drive a Prius before I took delivery of mine. I wish I had known that the driver's seat has no lumbar support. I need a more permanent solution than the little pillow I currently have, that moves around every time I get in and out of the car. I'm not giving the car back because of that, though I need some way to secure a support to the seat without blocking the area that needs to remain free for side airbag deployment.

4. Depends on how hilly your routes are. Some folks do great with hills, some don't. With reasonable driving technique you could get 45+ winter, 50+ summer, in my opinion. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[DanCar]

The 2010 Prius kicks butt. Better horsepower, better mileage, better ...
If you can wait till late Spring.

• Toyota pulls wraps off all-new Prius
• Detroit 2009: next-gen 2010 Toyota Prius
• Toyota.com new features

Honda Insight will be released a little earlier, April 22nd.

[miscrms]

1) I can tell you what I did, I just bought a certified pre-owned '08 with pkg #4 and 10k miles for $20,800. An '09 with the same package has an MSRP of $26,675, which we might have been able to get down to ~$24,500. For almost $4k cheaper, the CPO seemed like a great deal to us. We had been wanting a second Prius for quite some time, and it seemed like the time was right. The combination of low gas prices, the economy, and the buildup of inventory means there are some good deals out there to be had. The '10 look great, if some of the features and improvements sound like things that are important to you, it will probably be worth the wait. For us, we knew we really loved the Prius as it is now, so there was no reason to wait.

2) Honda makes great cars, but not so great hybrids IMHO. Honda's IMA system is much less sophisticated, and much less powerful than the current Prius HSD. The Insight uses a scaled down version of the system in the Civic Hybrid, that if anything seems like a step backward to me. The new Insight has a 10kW (13hp) motor, and an 0.58 kWh battery. The current Prius has a 50kW (~67hp) electric motor, and a 1.31 kWh battery. The new Prius has a 60kW (80hp) electric motor. The unique architecture of the Toyota HSD allows it to blend all of the best attributes of a parallel hybrid (like the Civic) and a series hybrid (like the Volt) for better overall efficiency. The lbs/Hp ratio is actually a little worse for the new Insight than the Civic Hybrid, which is already slower than the current Prius. The numbers just released for the new Insight are 40 mpg city, 43 mpg highway, 41 mpg combined. Thats slightly worse than the current Civic Hybrid, and quite a bit lower than the 48 mpg city, 45 mpg highway, 46 mpg combined on the current Prius. The new Prius info out today says it will be 50mpg (assumed combined). The Insight is also listed as 85 cuft passenger volume, 15.9 cuft cargo, so its smaller than the current Prius's 96 cuft passenger, 16 cuft cargo. The new Prius is even larger.

So, to me it looks like the Insight compared to the current Prius is slower and smaller, but still gets worse mileage. That gap widens further on all three counts for the new Prius. The only place the Insight may be ahead is on price. Rumors are that it will start ~$19k, but nothing is definite yet on it or the new Prius. If you don't need the extra room, performance and gadgets on the current Prius, the Insight might save you a bit of money but you'll be giving up some fuel economy too. On the other hand, with the kind of deal you can get on an almost new CPO 2008 Prius its about a wash on price. The Prius also has a very large group of dedicated users to provide support and teach you all kinds of tricks about your car

3) I wish I'd known how much we would like it and bought a second one sooner. We used to drive a Land Rover Discovery (13mpg on super) and a Saab version of a Subaru WRX (18 mpg on super). I bought my first Prius because I felt like it was the right thing to do from both an environmental and national security perspective. I thought it would be a big sacrifice, trading down to a small, slow car, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Of course, I didn't get rid of the other vehicles, I was just going to drive them less. I was still convinced I needed a sports car and an SUV at least some of the time. Fast forward a year. I never would have thought that the Prius would have become my favorite car to drive of the three. I also never imagined how much stuff you could pack into what looks like such a little car. Unfortunately it also became my wife's preferred car to haul the kids around in, so after the first 6 months I almost never got to drive it. It became clear that, much to our surprise it was more than enough car for pretty much anything we needed to do, so why drive anything else and get much worse mileage? First we sold off the WRX. Then, we traded the Land Rover in on our second Prius. Finally I get to have mine back, and hopefully soon will be starting a plugin conversion to get my commute up over 100mpg.

4) If you are willing to drive efficiently, and learn how to get the most out of your Prius you should be able to get over 50mpg easy. If you are not, you'll probably "only" get 45mpg. My wife has two small children in the car to contend with, and often just needs to get where she is going. She really has no time to mess around with mileage tricks, and she still gets 48mpg in a mix of urban freeway and city driving with very few long drives. Very short trips will have a negative impact on mileage, as will very cold or very hot weather. There are tricks to help deal with all these situations as well though.

Best of luck in your decision,
Rob

[kens]

1) Given that you are "finally in a position" to buy one, I assume that you don't have buckets of extra cash sitting around. Given that, I'd buy a 2008 or used one.
Many Prius buyers will want the latest & greatest technology so I'd expect a major price difference, and in my opinion buying the new version only makes sense if you have a new job or some other major increase in income. Even then, I personally wouldn't do it, because the current version of the car is pretty damn nice.

Of course, that decision depends on how you like to handle your finances, which is a personal decision, not an automotive one.

2) I'm a cheapskate, so the Insight sounds appealing due to its lower sticker price. But I bet it would be a step down in every non-price dimension (size, mpg, etc).

3) I've been astonished by how well our Prius ('05, bought used in 9/08) handles in the snow. That's largely because we have snow tires, stability control, and antilock brakes, unlike cars I'd previosly driven in the snow ('89 Camry, '98 Civic Hatch). The one thing that I insisted on when buying ours used was that we had to get one with stability control, and both my wife and I are very happy we did.

One thing I initially forgot to note: I absolutely hate the Prius's climate & stereo controls. I'm a strong believer that such things should be handled via simple knobs & buttons on the dash.

4) We drive a mix of errands and commuting. Our mileage was 44 in the fall and 37 in the Michigan winter. This is with very little attempt to hypermile, or even to drive reasonably -- my wife, who is the one who drives the car, accelerates quickly, drives 75-80 on the freeway, etc. I suspect we could do vastly better with relatively-minor changes in driving habits.

[dwdean]

Originally Posted by ruby

... I wish I had known that the driver's seat has no lumbar support. I need a more permanent solution than the little pillow I currently have, that moves around every time I get in and out of the car. I'm not giving the car back because of that, though I need some way to secure a support to the seat without blocking the area that needs to remain free for side airbag deployment.

Ruby, just a thought on this, but have you considered sewing/gluing some Velcro to the seat and attaching the complimentary piece to the pillow? Of course you'd have to position this so that it puts the pillow in the right place. Unless the pillow is larger than I think that should keep it out of the way of the side air bag but also keep the pillow relatively fixed.

As an aside, if were going to try the sewing part, I think I'd want to use a curved needle and I wouldn't take deep stitches. I don't know where the air bag wiring harness is and it would be shame to put the needle through it... On the other hand, for simple proof of concept, the adhesive Velcro tape might be a better place to start.

[dwdean]

TK421,

As others have pointed out, "Your mileage my vary" depending on how you drive (both driving habits and short vs. long trips), the temperature, and the terrain where you're driving.

Have you gone and taken a test drive of a 2008/2009 Prius? (From what I understand the '09 is basically indistinguishable from the from the '08 except for the VIN.) At least that tells you what the Prius is like. I'd hazard a guess that most folks around here are just a tad biased towards the Prius, even if any of us had any real first hand experience with the new Insight....

As for the whole 2008/2009 vs. 2010 question, well the point that someone made about that being a financial decision hit the nail on the head. I have no regrets about buying my 2008 and no plans to rush out and buy a new 2010. Yes, the "new" model is cool and all, but that doesn't make the "old" ones obsolete. The second generation cars are likely to remain viable for quite some time.

Good luck!

[miscrms]

Originally Posted by dwdean

As an aside, if were going to try the sewing part, I think I'd want to use a curved needle and I wouldn't take deep stitches. I don't know where the air bag wiring harness is and it would be shame to put the needle through it... On the other hand, for simple proof of concept, the adhesive Velcro tape might be a better place to start.

I've also been told you can frequently find new or almost new factory seat covers on ebay for ~$50. They are the ones taken off Priuses getting dealer or other aftermarket leather. That way you could make your changes on a spare set, while they are off the car. If you mess it up, at least you didn't mess up your real ones

See TK, large helpful online user community

Rob

[ruby]

DWDean: My car came with leather - so I won't be putting any needles into it. I do have some sewing experience. I was contemplating dyeing some elastic to be beige (I have tons in my stash, it's just all white) and sewing that onto the pillow somehow, and stretching the elastic strategically around the seat. Another option might be to make some kind of "sheath" that goes vertically around the seat, and attach velcro to the sheath and the pillow. I envision a stretchy fabric that would pass under the headrest, down the back, in between the seat back and seat bottom, and back up the front of the upper part of the seat, leaving the sides open (for the side airbag). I hope I described that well. This would make it easy to vertically adjust the pillow, while preventing it from falling over every time I get out of the car.

Rob: would the fabric aftermarket covers fit over my leather? Or would I have to remove the leather? I don't think I want to remove the leather.

[CharlesJ]

Originally Posted by miscrms

1) I can tell you what I did, I just bought a certified pre-owned '08 with pkg #4 and 10k miles for $20,800. ...Rob

I must have been really lucky then to get one for 18.4 with 25% less miles even though it is pac 2.