New Prius Owner wants to say thanks

All,

Yesterday, my wife and myself, picked up 2 new 2011 Prius II cars. This purchase has ended a 4 month search that looked at the Volt, Leaf and Ford Fusion Hybrid. We were a 2 car Ford Taurus family before this purchase. However, for us ,looking over all the features, ect. ,we kept coming back to the Prius. We are a family that NEVER buys new instead , we always buy 1 year old cars with extremely low miles. However right now, used Prius cars are going for MORE than new around here at times, ( I know I timed the market perfectly). Locally the waiting list for new Prius cars is around 4-6 months , so we had to drive 3 hours north of here to get 2 cars at a dealership in northern Wisconsin, where we were lucky to reserved both cars with only a 2 1/2 week wait. Of course we had to take the only 2 cars they had coming in, heck we were just happy to get them, and YES I PAID STICKER. ouch. Not to far away in Chicago, most dealers were quoting OVER invoice, so it almost made paying sticker feel like a deal.

Anyway, I am writing this to thank everyone on Prius Chat. I have been reading daily here for 4 months, never posting, just reading, trying to gather as much info I could to make an educated purchase. The enviromental factors were a very important factor to us, heck the money savings couldn't hurt either.

We are currently loving our new cars and they drive better than we expected and in the months to come, hope we will keep feeling like we made the correct purchase and I am sure we will.

We have been reading the manual, however one question we have from our long drive home from the dealership. Why after this 3 hour drive was the battery not fully charged? After getting home it only showed a 3/4 charge. Any idea's?

Also, one request I would like to make of people currently shopping for a new Prius car. PLEASE DO NOT pay over Sticker Price, let's not let these dealers, turn a terrible situation into a money making deal. I know it is hard to wait, but if we all hold our ground on this issue, maybe they won't even try this in the future. Just my two cents and my last "rant" on Priuschat, I Promise.


Again, Thanks

 

To all, First off, I see that I misspoke when writing my, first and only, rant. Instead of asking people not to pay over invoice, I meant to say not to pay over STICKER PRICE, which is the only way to buy a car now. I passed over several cars that may have been a better "fit" because I would NOT pay over STCKER PRICE, and for this confusion I am sorry.

Thanks to all for the battery info. Good to know that everything is normal.

I think it might take me a little while, before I can ignore everything on the dash. However, in showing my daughter in college, how to use the car, I might have "over complicated" what needs to be done to drive a Prius. My wife tells me, my daughter is now scared to drive it. Had to tell them both this morning to forget everything about ECO MODE, ect and just drive the car like a normal car. I think, I spent to much time going over what is different with a Prius. What got lost is that it is still just a normal car. I will go over trying to squeeze a few extra miles latter, after they are comfortable with the cars.

BTW, for what it's worth my wife took the black Prius, I took the red one.

Thanks everyone for all your help and well wishes. Nice to hear, because Family/Friends can't stop giving us hell over buying not one but two Prius cars. But one thing I have learned, this cars sure brings up strong feelings in some and almost always based on ignorance.

 

Glad to hear your still loving your new Prius too. So far I am still excited to drive it, never had that with any car before. I knew early on that trying to get a lower price was also not worth trying. A local dealer here, is currently selling a 2010 Prius II with 50,000 miles, for a sale price of $26,800 which is down from $30,000. That is almost $2500 over current sticker for a NEW 2011.

Like someone mentioned above, I am positive I will never buy another FULL gas, non hybrid model also. I love what Toyota did with this car. It is the first time in my car owning lifetime, that you can see the hard work that went into a car.



Another thing that was hard for us is that this is the FIRST non american made car in both my wife's and myself's entire extended family. At first it was hard to get over that fact, but after much thought my guilt turned to anger at Chevy, Ford , ect. It really shows how little they are doing and how short sighted they have been operating. Because with up to a 6 month waiting list and not one of them having a car that can match the Features/Price point of the Prius. Sure the Volt is awesome , but for that price we bought 2 Prius cars. We even still thought of just getting one new car, (the Volt) however after seeing it we finally noticed it is only a 4 person car and that was a deal breaker for us.

The Ford Fusion only get's 40 mpg (I know not bad) , however one thing kept coming to mind. The Fusion comes in 3 different , "Flavors" (engine Configurations) and only 1 of them Hybrid. Meaning, it really wasn't built from the ground up with Hybrid in mind.

Anyway, I hope that I too can get 57 mpg as an average.