First impressions of our new (to us) Prius

Bought a 2012 Blizzard Pearl Prius 2 for the wife a few weeks back. Only 17K miles on it, so it feels like a virtually new car.

We took it on its first long road trip last week: a 6-day, 825m trip from Carson City, NV to Santa Cruz, CA and back with a good deal of driving around the Monterey Bay area.

Gotta say I like the car! Not a luxury car by any means, nor a sports car, but it was an easy and enjoyable car to drive. It handled well over the mountains, without any issues with being sluggish. As economy cars go, this one does just fine! Not the smoothest or most quiet ride, but I didn't expect that either.

The first thing you notice when you're driving a Prius (I think) is how many other Prius' there are on the road. Even in rather conservative/rednecky northern Nevada, there are quite a few. Pointing out the other Prius' became a game for the wife and myself. We said "there's a Prius!" a LOT. Especially by the time we got to Santa Cruz. The day trip to Carmel was ridiculous. Seemed like every 3rd car was a Prius.

And this stuff about Prius drivers being the slowest on the road? I didn't see it. We were all passing each other left and right.

I didn't go out of my way to drive as fuel efficiently as possible, but still my calculations were that we got about 48.5 MPG over the course of the trip. I'll take that. About two tanks of gas which is about $55 these days. We had glasses of wine that were nearly that much!

 

Well, it IS the best selling car in California for a few years now, so no doubt there are a LOT of them there. But also it's just that "if you're looking for it you'll think you see it more often" mental thing. Like seeing the number 23 more often than any other prime number or something.

And yes...they DO stand out!

 

If I owned an Accord and was thusly on the lookout for them, I'd probably see more. I see a lot of RAV4s (one of my other cars) as well.

 

Hey, that brings up a question (that I could probably find in the manual, but might be easier to just ask here). I don't see where it calculates MPG for a "Trip". I get the fuel cost (if I remember to enter it after each fill up), but I couldn't find MPG anywhere other than the calculation it gives you for each 'leg'.

Is that something that isn't on the Model Two?

 

Yes, but where does it show the MPG of each trip?

 

Ok, but where does it show the MPG of each trip?

 

There are at least 2 others just on my street here in Carson City. And I see quite a few on my trips to Reno. Not sure about Vegas. Or maybe we just have different definitions of "quite a few".

 

Yes, I know about that. I'm talking about showing the average MPG for the "Trip A" and "Trip B" odometer settings. Not since the last time I turned on the car. For the Trip Odometer settings. Where does it show that?

I've seen a picture of that someone posted here, but I can't figure out which setting it is. All I get is the Trip A or Trip B odometer readings, but not average MPG for Trip A or Trip B.