Proud new owner of a 2013 Prius w/performance plus package (Canadian spec)

welcome to priuschat! very, very nice, all the best!

 

Love the car and the wheels!

 

Hi from Toronto!

The car does look great. I have a silver Plug-in and have thought about getting the bits and pieces to turn my car into a Plus, but I have one little worry that perhaps you can help me with.

Besides the 17" forged wheels and the aero add-ons for the lower body, the original Performance Plus package as offered by TRD (Toyota Racing Developments) also included a rear anti-roll(sway) bar and a set of lowering springs which apparently lowered the ride height by 1.1" in the front and 1.3" in the rear.

So my question is, do you have the lowering springs? And if you do, has the lowered ride height caused you any problems like bottoming out on speed bumps, rubbing the underside of the nose on steep driveway entrances etc.?

I think the Gen III Prius is a very good-looking car, and it's even better-looking with Plus additions, so I hope you're getting many admiring glances. I look forward to hearing about your experiences with the car.

Cheers!
Chris

 

G4E,

Thanks for the info.

Well, I guess we Canucks get the short end of the stick again, at least compared to folks south of the border. It's been a bit of sore point with me for awhile although it hasn't put me off the Prius itself one bit. I'll give you a quick example. When I found out that the head-up display (HUD) is available on the Prius in the US but not here, I got a bit worked up because I consider it to be an important safety feature. Just for interest, I checked Toyota websites around the world and found that the HUD is available just about everywhere else, so I asked Toyota Canada about it, and the only answer I got was that it's not available in Canada. I pressed for an explanation of why it's not available here, but the only "explanation" was that it's not available. So I reckon we'd get the same answer to why the Canadian Plus package is confined to the wheels, aero kit and badges.

But given that you've installed TRD's rear sway bar, you're half-way to gaining full Performance Plus status, with only the Tanabe coil-overs to come! I've been considering such mods myself, so I'd be very interested to hear about how different your car feels with the rear sway bar. Has it improved the handling noticeably? I assume there will be a further improvement in the handling department if you can't resist buying those coilovers (go on, you know you want to!).

Actually, I'm about to install my first significant mod, a new set of wheels. They're 16x7 Wedsport SA15Rs that I just had powder-coated silver. They'll be shod with a set of Michelin's recently-introduced Premier A/S tires. I decided to go for 16-inch wheels rather than 17-inch because I was persuaded by the PriusChat community that the smaller diameter would have less effect on fuel mileage, and I'm hoping that the SA15R's long-spoke design will sufficiently fill my wheel wells for eye appeal. We'll see! Anyway, when I get the new wheels/tires on I'll post some photos.

Cheers!
Chris

 

Congrats.... with our gas prices already over $1.50 per litre here this weekend I'm sure you will get quickly used to no longer having to feed the Subaru.

Roland