whats the things you like and dislike about the gen 3?

I love the car, but hate the foot parking brake. Give me the hand E-brake, please!

 

To be fair, part of that $1500 was the solar roof too.

 

No solar roof on my Three! Satellite radio is nice.

 

Dislikes-
Sometimes the seat feels like a couch, really comfortable, sometimes I feel bunched up on it if I sit too far back into the seat. Leather / like covering may help.

Seat needs lumbar support.

It's an 'ok' highway cruiser, but far from great.

Power to weight ratio is lower than Civic, Corolla, Focus and similar compact cars. P/W much lower than Camry hybrid

Prius liftback 134 HP / 3042LB = .044 HP / lb

Corolla LE 132 HP / 2800 lb = .047 HP / lb

Camry Hy LE 200 hp / 3435 lb = .058

Can we get 148 HP in 4th gen Prius, same weight?

Driving position still a bit awkward, mostly due to steering wheel that does not telescope enough.

I would like a slightly larger steering wheel, slightly.

 

That's weird. Nav comes standard on the Three and the solar roof is a $1500 option. So if you paid $1500 extra for something then it should have been the solar roof.

 

When I say rear visibility, I am including all three views--passenger side rear, directly rear, driver side rear. Even with the CarTalk.com trick for arranging your mirrors, I can't eliminate a blind spot at least the size of a motorcycle.

 

Not a $1500 option.. The difference in price between a Two and Three. The other thing you get for the $1500 difference between the two models is Entune which is worthless to me. I do like the satellite radio Next time: Better research before buying.

 

Do I need to worry about rattles? We only have ~10000 miles on our 2012. There is nary a squeak.

 

Had this car for a little over a week. I Ffund that the Voice Recognition works fine IF you speak quickly. Trying to annunciate clearly with slight pauses between words makes it useless. So the motion lock does not bother me.

Also, stealth mode is a heck of alot easier to get into in my Gen II. It's like they took away some of the control from the accelerator input to satisfy the people who can't or don't care about pushing the MPG's higher.

We still own an '07 Prius 2 and it is really cool to see them next to each other... I MHO they really took the car to the next level!

 

I like the mileage and I like the reliability.

Having come up from a GenII, here are the things I miss/don't like

1. Can't reprogram settings from touchscreen to turn off reverse beep

2. Never liked the headlight delay. I'm in my garage for goodness sake. The Gen II would shut the headlighs off when you opened the door. The GenIII has a delay, and if you want it dropped to zero, you have to pay Toyota $100 to reprogram it.

3. I don't like the placement of the steering wheel switches. Maybe just me, but I drove a GenII for 5 years and I liked that layout...radio AND climate were on the left side of the wheel. To this day when I want to change the temp, I end up changing the radio station.

4. The reverse beep that can't be turned off without a $100 visit to the Toyota dealer

5. The low tire pressure lights. Especially getting THAT idiot light reset. Another $100 job.

6. Even after having the recall for the brakes fixed, it sure feels like it loses traction when stopping and hitting a bump...the 2005 never exhibited this problem

7. It seems like there are a lot more "quality" issues with my 2010 than there were with either of my 2005's - rattles, poor fitting panels - an oil pan cover that fell off ($300 to replace).

Despite that, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat - especially with gas being what it is.

 

You also get 3 door SKS right? That's almost worth $1500. lol

 

The Sat radio is slow when switching between stations, reception sucks too - comparing it to my other two cars with Sirius

 

I use the little stick-on rectangle mirrors on both side mirrors, placed low to the inside. Couldn't drive without them.

 

There's some wiring that one can purchase that is supposed to bypass this.

I ordered mine on Tuesday--will let you know how it works. I think it is more hazardous to have it inoperable, because then I am limited to interfacing with the molasses-slow NAV in a few seconds at stop lights in the middle of traffic, when I should be paying attention.

If I can use situational awareness to pick a good time to work with the NAV (out in the clear), then everyone is safer.

 

Coefficient of drag on the 2012 Prius is a respectable 0.25 (lower is better).

Drag coefficients for a sampling of other vehicles are:

2003 Ford Explorer 0.41
2003 Dodge Ram 0.53
2003 Hummer H2 0.57
2011 Mercedes Benz C-class 0.27
2011 Honda Element 0.57

Coefficient of drag figures in linearly to aerodynamic drag. Velocity figures in exponentially (^2) to aerodynamic drag.

I ordered Euro mudflaps that I hope will help with the mud splatter on the rear of the vehicle, which fits high on my vehicle priorities since I live on a gravel/mud road.

 

3rd Gen Prius handles ok, but it would be cool to have independent type rear suspension (muli-link, etc) instead of torsion beam and bit lower center of gravity. Sounds like 4th gen will get both.

Would like more driver-centric gages. Little odd they are up and center of dash.

 

minor thing but can't tune to XYZ station using voice commands (only can switch from AM to FM to SAT)