2009 Pkg 6 certified? or New 2011 Prius level II

after owning the gen II for years i bought a gen III fully loaded V with radar cruise, the works, you get the idea. lets just say i sold it and went back to the gen II. Although the outside of the gen III is much more beautiful (as opposed to nerdy) the inside is downright insane:
first, its missing some key HVAC steering wheel buttons, and instead added a dozen or so hard buttons on the center stack. In gen II I could go months or years w/o having to touch a button on the dash because the steering wheel buttons was perfect, not so on gen III.
second, speaking of the center stack, that floating scandanavian thing may be cool in a volvo, but it just made me feel cramped and closed in from the rest of the cabin.
third, the nav screen is way too low and pointed towards the ceiling, after years of never having to take my eye completely off the road to see it in the gen II the gen III is downright dangerous.
fourth, and this is going to sound petty, the cupholders went from being really cool in the gen II to downright stupid in the gen III. Whereas the 'door' of the front cupholder in gen II becomes part of the cupholder (ingenious imo), the door of the gen III front cupholder is too tall and ugly when open. And speaking of open, you have to leave the center console partially open to have a second cupholder, that means you are losing storage space and you have to show the whole world all the crap you keep in there.

Yes you are correct the seats are better on gen III, but if you care that much about comfy seats than you want a long distance cruiser and you should get package five not two because the radar cruise makes long distance driving so relaxing, you can just set the speed and the car automatically slows down for traffic and speeds back up when traffic clears, you get out of the car after a 2 hour drive feeling like its only been 15 minutes. The cost: oh about 10 more grand for the loaded five over the two. Also I have to give gen III credit for allowing me to see consumption and nav at the same time so I don't have to toggle back and forth, all in all in 6 years Toyota has made more deprovements than improvements.

exterior: like I said the gen III is much more beautiful and the roof is strong enough to support a moonroof (aftermarket or factory solar) which would make summer driving more enjoyable than a gen II. But there is a problem, you only get the cool L.E.D. headlamps and fog lamps on the package five, all other 4 packages get cheap-looking halogens and cheap gray plastic instead of fog lamps that just shouts "This car is missing some available options". At least on 'cheaper' gen II Prius you don't get empty spaces where fog lamps are supposed to go.

last is the wheels, on the gen II we got either nerdy looking 15" wheels or attractive 16" wheels, but at least you could take off the 'trim rings' and the 15" wheels would look decent. on the gen III you either spent over $30K to get the V with gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous 17" wheels or you get 15" wheels which in my opinion are unattractive w/o the covers and downright hideous with the covers on.

and your theory of making more financial sense to buy the gen III is wrong, the first buyer always takes the biggest depreciation hit. a car loses 7% by leaving the lot and 10% each year. I think the 2009 is priced a little high but a certified 7 year 100K mile warranty will give you better peace of mind than the 2011. The 2009 will look like a 2004 whereas the 2011 will still look like the newest model for years to come, something to keep in mind.

So when comparing gen II and gen III I think I've made it pretty clear that my dream prius would be a gen III package five with a gen II interior but the seats from a gen III . . . if only such a car existed? Maybe toyota will keep the prius attractive for gen IV and fix the interior . . .

 

that's so funny you liked the original insight cause if the CR-Z had rear seats I would buy it, where else can you find a good looking 2 door car with 6 speed manually transmission that's a hybrid??

It has something to do with headroom but the CR-Z is a 4 seater in Europe and Japan but not America!! And unlike Europe we get the HID headlamps on EX models, but Europe gets a cool glass roof (that doesn't open), and Europe and Japan both get a reverse camera with their navigation but America doesn't. What's up with that??

So until Honda is able to get a rear seat in their American CR-Z (& hopefully improve gas mileage as it isn't much better than a non hybrid 4cyl) I'm stuck in the boring Prius, but it saves me a lot on gas and insurance.

 

for the last 13 years I've found pretty much all honda 2 doors to be beautiful, that includes the accord coupe, civic coupe (most years), s2000 (but I still prefer miata), the sexy prelude, the original insight and the aforementioned stunning CR-Z. Yet for some reason any car with 4 doors and the honda badge is hideous and that includes the new Insight, I think they only copied the Prius on the back end, i'm not sure where this double window thing started (Pontiac Aztek??) but for the love of sh*t let this ugly trend end. I actually think gen II Prius' painted spoiler looks better than then gen III's black spoiler, unless of course you buy a black gen III. But the gen III still looks better from the back because the bumper has crisper corners and the taillights have nice sharp edges to them as well. Toyota, on the other hand, has made better looking sedans for the past decade, I think the 2007 camry SE with dual exhaust (v6) looks amazing, and our Corolla looks better than any civic sedan. And its not just sedans I find honda 4-door CUVs to be ugly as well.

I think a major problem is that its extremely difficult to make one body style look good in both sedan and coupe versions. Its not just Honda, I found the original infiniti g35 coupe to be gorgeous (especially equipped with spoiler) yet the sedan was hideous, the same can be said for the bmw 3-series the past 15 years. Mercedes, on the other hand was making beautiful C and E-class sedans while their SLK and C-coupes made me vomit.

Toyota and Subaru's new collaborate coupe looks quite nice, but its RWD and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be your only car, especially if you live up north. Its sad to see but I think the days of the premium coupe are over. (Acura CL, Lincoln Mark VIII, Cadillac Eldorado) Now its just sedans and CUVs or convertibles.

Regarding the CR-Z yes I know that US DOT has headroom standards re: rollover protection, but I think Honda engineers should have known what they were and design the cabin slightly larger to allow the rear seats. I don't even mind a 2 seater, but a 2 seater with 'storage buckets' instead rear seats is just downright depressing. I know even in Europe or Japan those rear seats are just token seats, mainly intended for children, but if they had designed it properly in the first place they would be selling a lot more of them right now.

And can someone from Europe tell me why those governments are so obsessed with pedestrian safety cause its killing the styling of certain cars (primarily sports cars). I'm pretty sure in this country pedestrian vs. auto accidents make up less than 1% of all accidents, its usually auto vs. auto or auto vs. building/object.

 

i forgot to respond to your comment about not liking Auto Stop feature. I think it is an awesome way to save gas and its showing up more and more on non hybrids like BMWs so you better get used to it, someday Auto Stop will be on all cars.

I am curious what you don't like about it, I test drove the stick shift CR-Z and it usually shut down as you were approaching a stop light, usually 5-10mph. The engine comes back to life as soon as you lift off the brake pedal so by the time your foot moves over to the gas pedal the engine is on and ready to go, no delay at all!! I hadn't driven a stick shift in a decade and didn't stall even once, they explained it was because of the huge torque of the electric motor makes it almost impossible to stall out a CR-Z. Between Auto Stop and Stick Shift it really gives you the feeling of complete control of the ICE that you just don't get to enjoy in a Prius.

 

How about 2009 private party? There not much reason to get certified pre-owned. 2009 is the best Prius ever in terms of repair/maintenance.

 

you guys are knocking auto stop because Honda uses it in their "mild" hybrids. As I said the engine turns on as your lift off the brake so by the time you hit the gas there is no delay. I can see how it would be annoying during a traffic jam, but that's only because Honda doesn't make "full" hybrids that can go short distances at low speed in electric only mode.

Honda should add a more powerful engine to the car, along with much larger battery, and then add an EV "crawl" button you can push to prevent the engine from turning back on when you need to go forward just a car length or two in congestion. The Civic hybrid gets pretty good mileage, but the CR-Z and older Accord Hybrids barely got better mileage than the non-hybrids, so I sometimes wonder why they even bothered.

Hybrid components are so complicated and expensive to repair that its only worth it if you get a huge mpg boost, otherwise you're better off with the conventional version. I foresee the mild honda, porsche & bmw hybrids to be a dying fad. That's why a lot of CR-Z owners are actually ripping out the hybrid batteries; the batteries were doing so little to help them they would rather take a small mpg hit to save weight and increase performance.