Front end too low to the ground?

On several occasions, I've banged the bottom of my front end when backing out of a parking area where I have to go down a curb. And not even a big curb. If I back straight out of my driveway and into the street, the bottom of my front end hits the curb. The big "bang" sound makes me cringe! I no longer back straight out of my driveway...

By the way, this doesn't happen with other cars.

Also, yesterday I was pulling out of a parking lot. The exit to the parking lot sloped downward a bit and when my front end got to the street, it hit the pavement.

I've looked under the car. No real damage that I can see and everything seems to be working ok.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Turn the wheel and come down at an angle, I guess you have never owned a sports car.

This doesn't happen to other cars because they don't have the same Cd as the Prius. You have to pay for good aerodynamics.

Tom

When my father first saw our car the first thing he said is "Boy the front sure is low to the ground" We live in Michigan where the winters bless us with deep snow.

This has happened to me twice in the last week....makes me cringe, but I have looked under and only noticed minimal scraping.

I've got to learn to come down at an angle...I haven't ever owned a car this low to the ground either, but I am loving being a Prius owner!!

My previous car was a S60R, a 300 HP sport edition of the Volvo S60. From the factory the S60R was very low for better handling. I've noticed that the Prius is as low or lower on the front than the Volvo. Don't worry about it, you are just scratching under the front spoiler. You will never notice.

Around here there are a few entrances or exits to shopping or restaurants that have some pretty sharp dips as you transition from parking lot to highway. I'm careful to avoid them, for just the reason that I don't want to scrape the underside of the Prius. Particularly since it has plastic panels on the bottom to improve airflow and reduce drag.

I imagine older folks like my parents would really put a beating on the underside of the Prius. They're used to driving cars with a good bit of ground clearance that can take sudden incline changes at 30 mph, lol.

I received my new 2010 Prius from the dealer already with scrapes under the front spoiler on both sides!

+1

Happened all the time with my Volvo too, and also with my Honda.

A LOT of cars have low front and rear bottom spoilers.

* * * * * * *

If you roll your windows down and listen carefully, you can hear the plastic spoiler touching or scraping the curb or a concrete parking space block.

When going forward or backward down a curb cut, go VERY slowly. This will lessen the dipping of the front or rear end of the car.

Right now, my Gen II Prius has on only 2 out of the 3 pieces constituting the rear bottom spoiler. The 3rd piece (passenger side corner piece) is in my cargo area storage compartment. It was popped off by my friend when she was backing up without using the backup camera. If she had used the backup camera, she would have seen the concrete parking space block and could have taken measures to avoid it.

It's a free snow plow!

We live in Michigan too, but our snowfall isn't too bad. I don't remember ever getting over twenty feet in one season.

Tom

same thing here. It's a good thing my wife noticed it. Big scrape under the front spoiler on the passenger side. I also found a scratch on the front spoiler (driver side). If this is any other car, we would have walked away. We're bringing it to their body shop this weekend to have the scrapes and scratch repaired. We participated in C4C, so we can't really afford to wait for the next PRIUS to arrive (who knows when that money will run out).

Thanks everyone for their feedback. My previous car was an Infiniti G35. Also low to the ground, but never had the "bottoming out" effect that I have w/ the Prius. If anything, I'll just have to be more aware now that I know of this issue.

Can anyone take a picture of the scraping? Is it scraping the paint off or just scraping some plastic underneath? If it's low enough to scrape the paint off, that might be a deal breaker for me.

Yeah, it might be under the car where you can't really see it, but I still hate it. I had a Trans Am one time that was like that and it got on my nerves to no end.

I only noticed this after taking this picture while installing side turn signal lights for PChat. I'm quite sure I didn't scrape anything, so had to be done during the initial 5 miles before delivery. The front air dam does come close to curbs etc. But don't know if this should be a deal-breaker for you. Recommend you ask to take a test spin as you normally drive including up/down driveways etc.

I would like to add that the Prius is alot better than my 04 impala
so to me i have no problem with the ground clearance of the prius.

It's not TOO low, but it is low. I like my gas mileage though, so it's not an issue.

Check out the Corvette and Camero forums.....same topic discussed on them.

Thanks for the picture! I'm going to do what you recommend and take the car for a test drive over roads I'm normally on.

My Intrigue would scrape too. Damage is limited to scuffing of plastic panels underneath the car and maybe losing a fastener. You'd have to run over something "pretty high" to scrape paint.

On those cars I would expect it, but on my daily driver, I would hate it...especially considering I'm not the only driver and I know others wont be as anal about "approach angles" as me.