Buyer's (partial) remorse

when i remodel a house, i bury all the problems behind the drywall and put in fancy kitchens and baths.

 

I really feel, on my own personal level, that you're looking at this wrong. You're looking at it from a materialistic POV instead of a financial POV. Your Prius will outlast that Elantra. Your Prius has something the Elantra doesn't. You've got a great car...you should appreciate it.

 

Eric - I completely sympathize with your point of view. When I discovered how much more profit Toyota makes per car than most other brands, it answered most of my questions. You can't argue with how well Toyota competes with other car makers, but I share some of your criticisms.

 

can you share that with us?

 

Interesting viewpoint. Having once been a Mercedes enthusiast and owning a number of variations (SL convertible, E-Class, and S-Class) and other German brands, the term "German quality" has come to seem ridiculous. My last Mercedes was beautiful when I drove it off the showroom floor but its body rusted through within three years, the front seat cushions "collapsed" within five years and the dashboard cracked right down the middle. Its front interior light assembly disintegrated the very first time I switched it on and the radio failed within the first few weeks. I could provide a very long list of things that went horribly wrong.

Also, two friends and I each bought a new LS400 shortly after Toyota introduced the Lexus brand. I don't know what you mean by features but for us it was mainly about performance, interior space and noise level. OK, the price was pretty nice too just over $36,000

Do most people really care that much about what features other people have in their vehicles? That our Prius v has a hybrid drivetrain had nothing to do with the reasons we bought it.

According to the part number cross reference I just checked, the same plastic interior fastener "clips" used in the Prius v are also used in the least expensive Toyota Corolla and the most expensive "Toyota" sold in North America - the Lexus LS600hL. I've done substantially more interior disassembly of Lexus LS cars than I have in our Prius v but I can definitely tell you that the interiors of all the Toyota and Lexus vehicles I have had experience with are held together essentially the same way. Removing the interior door panels in our Prius v was just like removing the interior door panels in one of my Lexus LS cars.

I don't know why your Prius v interior has rattling - ours has no rattles - but it doesn't have anything to do with interior fasteners unless somebody has done some improper disassembly/reassembly. Try using an automotive stethoscope to find the rattle source.

 

Yes, it is extreme.

Detroit News

Toyota's per-car profits lap Detroit's Big 3 automakers

$2,726 Toyota
$994 Ford
$850 FCA
$554 GM

 

thanks man! great article. my take is that toyota makes more money per vehicle, than all of the big three combined, for a variety of reasons. but less value for the money is not one of them. in fact, i would contend you get more value, based on lifetime ownership costs and resale value.

 

Well said. I can be critical of certain features, but in the end my purchase decision was made on exactly the reasons you noted.

 

I have had 2 Camrys and 1 Prius. Now I have a 2014 Avalon. I have had squeaks and rattles in all of them. It's the cheap plastic parts. We have to get used to it and get over it. That is the way it is. When the temperature changes here comes a new squeak or rattle in a different place than before.

 

agreed. they lure you in with hybrid technology and high mpg's, then they zing you in other area's. but i suppose you can say that about any car. can you not find anything to complain about in a $90,000. tesla?

 

The Smart car certainly has a record of issues - probably worse than any "real" Mercedes. For your amusement, here is a photo of the Smart car I rented in 2012 for a month parked next to my wife's Prius v. I was on my usual Friday evening run to the airport when a Ford F-150 crashed into my Lexus while I was sitting at a traffic light - right in front of the Lexus dealer body shop! The onsite Enterprise car rental at the body shop had only two vehicles left for me to choose from - a Chevy Suburban and this Smart Fortwo. You should have seen my wife's reaction when I pulled up in front of the airport terminal in a tiny white Smart car instead of a large white Lexus.

Although the ride of the Smart car was punishing, it was noisy and was blown around by the wind at highway speeds, I found it great fun to drive. Wonderfully comfortable full size seats with massive legroom, incredible halogen headlights. Most people seem to hate the "automatic manual" transmissions but I quickly learned how to modulate the throttle to get it to shift when I wanted it to. Yes, fuel economy sucked and it required Premium fuel but I could see having a Smart car if I lived downtown in a large city.

The early Lexus LS was most frequently compared to the Mercedes 420SEL by auto journalists. Both were somewhat similarly equipped but the 420SEL had more standard features including leather seats, memory for the driver seat, and headlight washers. The interior of the 420SEL was substantially larger - especially in the rear seat area. The early Lexus LS had a much softer ride like Americans prefer, was quieter and completely vibration-free, handled better and was far faster in acceleration. I think the Lexus LS400 was the first "mainstream" car that had a four cam V8 - it looked like something out of a Ferrari. I used to open the hood and just look at it.

It can be much more difficult to find rattles when they originate outside a vehicle's interior. The last few times I searched for a rattle/buzz noise source with my stethoscope, the noise source turned out to be something stored in a glove compartment, door side pocket, center console, etc. The funniest one was a nasty buzz that I finally figured out was coming from a loose setting on a ring I was wearing. I've noticed that Toyota brand vehicles are more subject to rattles originating from center consoles and glove compartments due to the lack of felt lining. More expensive vehicles always have these types of compartments lined with felt or a similar material.

 

When I bought my 2009 Hyundai Sonata, I thought it was the greatest bargain out there. I got the lowest trim model and still got XM radio with a shark fin (just like a BMW!), mp3 radio, USB and aux input, driver side auto up windows (just like a BMW!), and projector headlights (Who needs HID? Not me). All this for thousands less than a comparable Camry. 6 years later DW drives it and I drive the Prius with those features and more except the shark fin antenna. Ironically, it was cool when only BMWs or nice cars had it. But now that Hyundai's have it, it's not cool, so I don't care for it anymore. DW likes her Sonata way more than the tiny slow ugly Prius hatchback. For her, it's simple: 170 hp is better than 134 hp and paying for it at 25 mpg is worth it. It's a smoother and quieter ride. She also feels safer in it because it is a larger vehicle and no weird blind spots/bisected rear window. Each vehicle serves its purpose in its own way.

 

my wife feels the same way about her hycam. that's why we have choices!

 

Yawn

Double Yawn

Good idea, although I should add that for my driving style the car is wonderfully quiet.

Yawn

Triple Yawn

Quadruple Yawn

Quintuple Yawn

 

The engine in the Prius v is unrefined as it is very noisy when accelerating - PWR is always on. Our 2013 Elantra GT 6 speed manual has the 1.8 MPI engine, not your wife's 2.0 GDI, and gets 40 +/- 2.5mpg (combined 33 mpg with less than 1/2 highway) depending on tail or headwind - ECO is off. It has a very quiet engine and is a joy to drive. Combined on the v is about 45mpg - lot more city than highway. So we have a city car and a highway car. And with both cars, the trip computers are very optimistic from 0.5 to 3mpg.

If you went with the Three, you would have got XM and HD. The Comfort, Normal, Sport settings for your Elantra and mine are for steering wheel resistance which have nothing to do with the suspension components. ECO changes the transmission shift points for the automatic. The Toyota interior pales in comparison with the Hyundai.

Both these have torsion beam rear suspension, but engineered quite differently for ride comfort in favor of the Toyota. I changed the OEM rear shocks to KYB to better control the Elantra GT rear end which is stiffer than your sedan.

And what was Toyota thinking with not showing a real time compass so you can tell which way North is. Our 2000 Odyssey has it and all standalone navigation systems have it. If I knew that, I would not have put in the non-compassed OEM EC mirror, but rather the Gentex one with 8 ordinal points.

Anyway, two different cars for two different purposes. Happy with both of them.

 

I should have bought the CT200h. Now I'm stuck with my prius. The only way to get rid of my remorse is to modify it as much as possible and transform it like the CT.

 

We all have different wants and needs. And financial priorities. And bodies. And prior car experiences. Yours are right for you.

But I have little sympathy for someone who finds the car isn't what they want (provided their circumstances haven't changed). Test rides are available. Multiple comparisons are available. Reviews are available. Forums are too.

Is the v perfect? Not by a long shot. I have a long list of changes/improvements I'd liked to have seen. But then I had a long list for my last car too and it cost twice as much and those were some really serious issues. At least my v is what I expected it to be, little more and little less. Functional and economical.