Newbie...looking into buying a Prius

[Jeffrey99]

Hey guys...with the rising gas prices I'm looking into buying a hybrid and the Prius is the only one I really like..but I'm trying to do as much research as I can about the car...I rode in one this past Saturday that had package #7 in it...I'm looking into getting one with package #3..I'm not too worried about the Navigation unit(it'd be nice to have but don't think it's worth the extra $6,000) and the 6 disc cd changer...Only thing I wish you could add is Sirius Sat. Radio...

I'm mainly wanting to buy a car that gets good gas mileage...I'm been reading online that alot of people don't get no where close to the 60/51 Toyota says..I've heard it's more 40-50....I live in a small town in Indiana...so I'll never be in actual stop and go rush hour traffic...I can either drive highway, or interstate(which is what I take now) I drive 36 Miles one way to work...I currently drive a Chevy Trailblazer thats lucky to get 21 mpg...I'm trying to decide between a Prius, Yaris, or buying a Harley. So my question to you Prius owners...is it worth the extra $10,000 compared to a Yaris which gets 34/40 MPG. And will I get decent gas mileage driving Highway or Interstate, or does the Prius only work best in stop and go city traffic?

Thanks in Advance,
Jeffrey

[jburns]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeffrey99 @ Apr 24 2006, 10:18 PM) [snapback]244646[/snapback]</div>

Hey guys...with the rising gas prices I'm looking into buying a hybrid and the Prius is the only one I really like..but I'm trying to do as much research as I can about the car...I rode in one this past Saturday that had package #7 in it...I'm looking into getting one with package #3..I'm not too worried about the Navigation unit(it'd be nice to have but don't think it's worth the extra $6,000) and the 6 disc cd changer...Only thing I wish you could add is Sirius Sat. Radio...

I'm mainly wanting to buy a car that gets good gas mileage...I'm been reading online that alot of people don't get no where close to the 60/51 Toyota says..I've heard it's more 40-50....I live in a small town in Indiana...so I'll never be in actual stop and go rush hour traffic...I can either drive highway, or interstate(which is what I take now) I drive 36 Miles one way to work...I currently drive a Chevy Trailblazer thats lucky to get 21 mpg...I'm trying to decide between a Prius, Yaris, or buying a Harley. So my question to you Prius owners...is it worth the extra $10,000 compared to a Yaris which gets 34/40 MPG. And will I get decent gas mileage driving Highway or Interstate, or does the Prius only work best in stop and go city traffic?

Thanks in Advance,
Jeffrey
[/b]

First of all Toyota doesn't say it gets 50/61 the EPA does. No car gets what the EPA test say it will. IF you compare the results for all cars you will see that all of them are off by around 12%. The reason the Prius seems to be way off is the difference between 12% of 60 as opposed to 12% of 20.

As far as the Yaris if you just compare the mileage of course its not worth the difference however the Prius is a totally different class of vechicle.

[priusblue]

You'll find people on here that do highway and get high 40's/low 50's. I drive a mix of low speed 4 lane highway and stop and go 20 miles each way and get right at 50 - although the tank I'm on right now is reading 55. Go to greenhybrid.com to get a feel for what people are getting with different commutes. Try to find one that's similar in distance, speed and climate to you to get a better idea. I'm personally not a fan of motorcycles (what do you do when the weather is nasty) and they are smog machines. I'd say go test drive a yaris and a prius and see what you like best, what's most comfortable, and what fits your general everyday needs (and wants) best.

If you focus just on the "payback period" versus your current vehicle, you'll likely be disappointed with what you get - no matter what you end up buying.

Personally, I love my Prius - I find it comfortable, roomy, and fun to drive - and the mind-blowing MPG is a huge bonus!

[Tideland Prius]

Worth the extra $10,000? probably since you're quoting real life Prius figures with official Yaris figures. That's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Also, it depends what you're looking for after fuel mileage. Is it space? practicality? second car or one-car-do-it-all? how long will you keep it? Don't forget about the tax credit.

The Prius adds SKS, backup camera, tyre pressure monitoring system, traction control, ABS w/ EBD (different from the Yaris' regular ABS), Brake Assist, bigger cabin, 7" LCD touchscreen, 6 speakers, push button start, shift-by-wire, maplights, cruise control, engine immobiliser... etc etc.

Given that you commute 36 miles, it seems a reasonable distance for you to max out your mileage and become part of the 50mpg club. Driving the Prius is a whole new experience, if you wish to learn. If not, that's perfectly fine and you'll still get great mileage.

If you have single laned country roads, you can probably glide to maximise mileage (that is engine is off AND no battery power is used).

Lastly, test drive again but this time, reset the mileage on the screen and go for a longer 30-45 min test drive over highway, city, rural country roads and get a feel for it and see what's the average.

Oh and check out john1701a.com for more Prius informatoin.

Good luck in your search for your new car and hope to hear back from you soon!

[Jeffrey99]

after doing alot of research and reading what seems like a million reviews...I'm about 90% sure I'm gonna buy a Prius...just had one more question...I've seen in a couple places that the car bottoms out easily with 4 adults in the car..while 95% of the time I drive alone...we do go to about 2-3 Columbus Blue Jackets NHL games a year and one of the interstates you have to take to get there has to be one of the worst and roughest I've ever been on...do you see any problems? or if it even has this problem are there some mods to buy to fix it?

Thanks in Advance,
Jeffrey

[Rancid13]

And regarding the Sirius satellite radio, you can either have it dealer-installed (my dealer was doing free installations with Prius purchases, and a free 6 or 12 month subscription) or you can buy a Sirius kit and have it installed at an audio/alarm place or install it yourself. I have XM radio that I bought the kit for, and hat it installed by a Toyota audio/alarm guy on-site at my work, and it's integrated into the touch screen mfd. Works perfectly, except keep in mind there's a 10-character limitation with song titles and artists (I assume Sirius has the same character limitation as XM). I bought my satellite kit at www.metrotpn.com.

[richard schumacher]

Are you trying to (1) minimize your total cost of ownership, or (2) minimize gas consumption, or (3) minimize air pollution? The answers are:

(1) Harley or clean used car
(2) Harley, unless you buy a real hog
(3) Prius

[Maytrix]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeffrey99 @ Apr 26 2006, 06:26 PM) [snapback]245767[/snapback]</div>

after doing alot of research and reading what seems like a million reviews...I'm about 90% sure I'm gonna buy a Prius...just had one more question...I've seen in a couple places that the car bottoms out easily with 4 adults in the car..while 95% of the time I drive alone...we do go to about 2-3 Columbus Blue Jackets NHL games a year and one of the interstates you have to take to get there has to be one of the worst and roughest I've ever been on...do you see any problems? or if it even has this problem are there some mods to buy to fix it?

Thanks in Advance,
Jeffrey
[/b]

I've only bottomed out once, with just 2 people in the car and it was on a steep incline at the end of a driveway.

I don't think having more people will in the car will cause it to bottom out. I've had a few friends many times and never had issues. I've also had the car fully loaded with heavy things and didn't have any issues either.

It is a low car though and like any low car, you need to be aware of the surroundings. But it's not anything I would consider a problem. And while I've only had my car since Sept, I've driven it 19k miles.

[Angelnterrupted]

Hi to everyone I am new and this is my 1st post. I would like to respond to this poster.
I drove to Houston from San Antonio to buy a used 2001 prius. I knew I would get good mileage since my friend has a 2006. I bought the car and on the way home wow I got 51.9 mpg. The car is unreal and it flies. I even got a little better mpg than my friend. I can't wait to see what I get in town. I have a mercedes and firebird. But now this Prius Is my #1 car. Go Prius

[eagle33199]

To answer your question about bottoming out:

In some situations, like at the bottom of steep inclines, it's possible (of course, it's generally possible in any car). If you look at DarellD's website(http://darelldd.com/ev/prius_racks.htm#saris bottom of the page), iut shows a pic on there of my Prius "fully loaded" with two 60 lb kayaks on the roof. we then took it up to the marina with me and 4 friends (some of the others were fishing instead of kayaking) and had no problems, and we even had to go over an uneven brick road for part of it (i'd say comparable to that interstate... forget the number, but i'm originally from columbus, now in cleveland)