Lowrider...not always a good thing

Toyota, no doubt, put our Prius close to the ground to minimize drag. Naturally, if you drop something on your garage floor like a nice pen, it will roll to the exact centerpoint of your car's underside. Trying to reach it, you could get stuck like Winnie the Pooh if you're not careful.

My dumb humor aside, I learned the hard way that this lack of ground clearance can result in a harsh scrape when traversing anything but the flattest terrain. At my son's HS graduation, the lot attendants directed us to park on the school's ball field. This meant going through some slightly irregular asphalt. Braaaackkkkk! OMG, I hope that wasn't the exhaust or some important part! My poor brand new Prius baby!

Got home and checked it out with a shop light. It put just a tiny abrasion on one of the suspension arms. Whew. I swear it felt like I was cutting the car in half. Lesson learned. And I already know about concrete parking blocks - the salesman gave me advance warning. Oh, well...that's the price of stellar aerodynamics. Be careful out there with your spiffy new Prius.

~Fred

You get used to scraping over anything but the most subtle grades after owning a prius for a while. I know my wife is home every day when I hear her scrape into the driveway, lol. For reference, watch the movie "Lakeview Terrace". Every time the main character pulls into or out of his driveway... SCRRAAAAPE! The editors of the movie didn't even bother editing it out.

On second thought, don't watch that movie. It was awful.

I had forgotten that when I got my NHW11 Prius back in 2005. I had to turn around and used a pot-holed lot only to 'bang bottom!'

I too got out and laid on the dirt to try and see what happened. Based on your experience, I now suspect the bottom works like a mechanical amplifier and makes things sound a lot worse than maybe is really going on.

Bob Wilson

Try taking your Prius on a rock climbing trip. A truck would be better, except we travel long distances to get to the climbing areas. The Prius is ideal for the long trip, but a little scary once we get there. So far I have avoided any major damage, but I have heard plenty of those scraping noises that you describe.

Tom

Or try being a land manager where most of the roads through the preserves are terrible at best. Thankfully I've only heard sounds that made me cringe once. I did find that 2005 traction control won't let me go up tiny inclines if there is grass on it.