Ask the salesperson vs. Owners Manual

After spending 5 hours in the dealership buying my Prius, my mind was mush and not able to comprehend all of the info the salesman was telling me. He called the next day to see how I was doing and I told him I had a lot of questions. He told me to come in and he'd spend some time with me.

OMG, was that a wonderful experience -- he spent l l/2 hours with me (I had made an appt. when it was convenient for him and not taking away his sales). It was a very positive experience and being in the non-pressure ambiance made it easy for me to absorb and ask specific questions after reviewing the manual.

So, just a suggestion for the newbies. It doesn't hurt to ask and sure beats plowing through the manuals, especially the NAV system. I feel like a pro now!

Please note that salespeople can sound very knowledgable at times but a large percentage of them do not know what they are talking about and some of the advice they give should be avoided. When in doubt please refer to the owners manual and this forum when you have specific questions.

We've seen A LOT of people come into this forum who were given bad information from their salesperson.

I'm glad your experience went well though.

Being a salesperson in the business.. I would love to disagree with you. But I can't. In my store, we have about 20 salespeople. I would bet $100 that 10% of them are proficient in the Nav and Bluetooth. I recently had a salesman ask me if the center console in an XLE Sienna can be removed... it is one of the larger selling points of that model.

Honestly, I would rather have a salesman come get me to help out than send someone home not knowing how something in their $30k car works. Even the 18 year olds at best buy will spend days explaining the remote of your new $100 TV.

Very interesting -- guess you both are right. I just found something on this forum that my salesman said "could not be". He told me the headlights are not an automatic off when you open the door and I felt quite sure they were but didn't dispute him.
Having said that, I still had a great experience but will double check the manual from now on when I question something. Thank you very much!

Hello GP:

The salesman was both right and wrong about the lights.....

If you have the headlights (or parking lights) on, then shut the car off and get out, the headlight/parking lights will go off.

If, however, you have the headlights on and shut the car off, and then manually move the headlight/parking lights switch (with the car still turned off), the headlights or parking lights will come on and stay on. They will not go off when you open the door.

And for the last twist....this only works with the driver's door.

Disclaimer: I'm not home right now, and thus all of this is from memory. YMMV.

The moral about headlights is to check when you get out. It's easy to leave them on by accident, and the little 12V battery won't last very long if you do that.

Tom

Talking about the Owners Manual. Anyone know where to download the Owners Manual in PDF file format. A lot of manufactuers put their .pdf owners manuals on the internet for download. Nice funtion of a .pdf is that the Adobe Acrobat .pdf Reader has a word search feature. Type in "Water" and the Reader will search for all text events containing the word water.

When I asked our Internet Sales person about a pdf Prius Owner Manual.. he said had not heard of that request before.

PDF Sure makes it easier to look up stuff.

My salesman gave me a quick tour of the car when I drove it. Then after I bought it while they were cleaning and prepping the car I sat down and read though most if the manaul. Then when they had it all prepped and ready to go, he went over the car from top to bottom. That was very helpful. I didn't have Navigation so that was one part he didn't have to explain

No need to pay. Just register here: Toyota Owners Online | Official Toyota Owners Website. It's an official Toyota website for owners and once you register with your vin number (required), then you can download the manuals in pdf

The sales people I have worked with are great, but while visiting a local auto show, I heard a salesman telling people about the Prius so I thought I would listen in and see what new things I could learn.
1. The Prius is an amazing technology that does not burn any gas to charge it's batteries.
2. Where does the electicity come from? It makes it's own electricity.
3. If it doesn't burn gas to make the electricity, then where does it come from? Why the Alternator, of course.

This was a few years ago, and I couldn't help but take the victoms aside and give them a proper education once the sales guy moved on to others.

So this salesman was selling a perpetual energy machine and you did not snap one up?
Then again, I heard those are not environmentally friendly because the battery was packed with ground unicorn horns.

2010 Owners Manual on PDF

Because the Toyota Owners Online site breaks the Owners Manual into 30-something little PDF files, it's a real PITA to use.

Instead, having the Owners Manual on one PDF file is very handy -- you can word and phrase search the entire manual's 600+ pages very quickly -- just click on the "next" arrow to find the next place the word or phrase appears.

If anyone would like a copy of the 2010 Prius Owners Manual (United States Edition) on one PDF file, PM me with your email address and I'll try to get it to you within 24 hours.

Note that I'll only be able to do this for the next week or so.