'08 silver bullet

Definitely congratulations and a hearty welcome to the forums.

MAB

 

To:BigBlockGasGuzzlerPrius




Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln

 

Hi Kathy,

Congrats.

Curious, which NYC area dealer did you use?

I bought from Toyota of Manhattan, and my family has bought from Plaza Toyota or Bay Ridge Toyota (don't remember which one) in Brooklyn.

In any event, watch out for the closer (usually a finance guy, whether you finance the car or not) who will try to sell you extended warranties, service agreements and other products (usually of dubious worth) at outrageous prices.

If you are truly interested in getting an extended warranty or service agreement, be aware that PriusChat has a vendor (Troy Dietrich of WarrantyShack.com/Toyota of Greenfield, MA) who sells them at the lowest prices around. For example, my Toyota dealer tried to sell me the Toyota Platinum Care 7 years/100,000 miles extended warranty for $2,500, while Troy/WarrantyShack/Toyota of Greenfield sells the exact same warranty for $990.

 

Whoa, your first car --- and already you've shown much more saavy than a lot of veteran car buyers (certainly a lot more than me)!!!

BTW, if you haven't noticed already, parallel parking in NYC is brutal on one's bumpers, especially the rear bumper. Within 12 hours after I drove my Prius home from Toyota of Manhattan and parallel parked it on my street, I got 10 nicks, scratches and gouges on my rear bumper --- clearly from the front license plate screws of the parallel parker(s) behind me who had to "tap" my rear bumper repeatedly in order to get into or out of the parallel parking spot.

Since then, I put on 2 inch wide, full length, color-matched, front and rear bumper guard strips from BumperDefender.com, and little, spool-like, rubber bumpers on my front license plate screws so that I do not inflict similar damage to parallel parked cars in front of me. You can see photos of them here:

http://priuschat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34614&highlight=bumper+guards&page=2

Let me know if you're interested in either of these bumper guards. I have some more advice regarding them, and have helped other Chatters here in NYC and elsewhere with them, including actually installing the BumperDefender.com strips onto IndyTrailMike's Prius.

Congrats again.

 

Yeah, one problem with NYC is that you can't avoid parallel parking completely. Even if you own or rent a parking space in a parking lot or garage, if you go anywhere else in NYC you normally have to parallel park at your destination.

I would guess that with 2 inch wide, full length, BumperDefender.com bumper strips, at least 50% of the commonly occurring NYC parallel parking nicks, scrapes and gouges will be avoided. The bumper strips are relatively inexpensive --- about $80 delivered. I think they look good (being color matched, and with the color impregnated into the strip itself), but some people think they look bad or dorky (like pocket protectors). And although they will not protect against all nicks, scrapes and gouges, any nicks, scrapes and gouges that do appear end up being less noticeable because the eye is distracted by the bumper strip running along the center line of the bumper. An alternative to the color matched, BumperDefender.com bumper strips is to get contrasting black ones from and installed by a good body shop (see photos of Zang's Prius in the thread I've linked above).

If you elect to get the BumperDefender.com bumper strips, it would be good to either have a good body shop install them, or to have another person to help you install them yourself. I already own the proper bumper strip cutting shears which I will be glad to lend to you and/or I will be glad to help you install them (I live in Stuyvesant Town), but we'd probably have to wait until Spring when the weather warms up.

If you want to get those little, spool like, front license plate screw bumpers (see my photos in the thread I've linked above), the cheapest place to get them is GirlsLoveWheels.com. BTW, since the time of those photos, I've replaced those 2 license plate screw bumpers with 4 license plate screw bumpers that I made myself out of a 4-pack of black rubber chair leg tips that you can typically buy from a hardware store for about $2. They look pretty good because they're tapered and spikey --- almost punk, gay or S&M like lol! I'd post pictures of them, but because of the (hopefully temporary) file size limitation of the new PriusChat software, I can't. If you want to see photos, PM me with an email address that I can send them to.

I like the bumper badger, and may get one myself for additional protection. It protects more of the center of the rear bumper, but obviously it doesn't protect the end corners and sides of the rear bumper, and none of the front bumper. It's ugly (but since it's not as if it's trying to "blend" --- I think it has its own appealing aesthetic), and with its increasingly prevalent use on NYC cars, I'm getting very used to it. All over the City these days, I see the bumper badger used on all types of cars --- from Hyundai's & Kia's to Mercedes, BMWs & Audi's --- and it seems like a lot of New Yorkers just leave it on and out all the time.

Let everyone know when you pick up your Prius. Ahh ... the anticipation!

 

Cool! Like a child waiting for Santa!

What bumper guards did you get? Width, lengths, color?

 

Hey congrats!

Last night I was wondering whether you were going to hold off picking up your Silver Bullet until after today's "wintry conditions" passed.

Last year, I picked up my Prius on a clear evening. But on the next day, the St. Valentine's Day Blizzard hit New York (remember?), and then it snowed periodically for the rest of the winter, so I didn't drive my Prius much until the spring.

* * * * *
Hope you got your BumperBadger already.

If you eventually decide to try the BumperDefender.com bumper strips, I think you should just use one 2" wide strip. Adding another strip, whether 1" or 2", would look rediculous or ugly or rediculously ugly, in my opinion. Anytime I've seen double strips used, I haven't liked it.

BTW, on the BumperDefender.com website, there's a picture of someone's Honda Civic with double strips (looks like 2" main strip in middle, 1" strip on top). I don't like it. But maybe you will. Check it out:

http://bumperdefender.com/rear_bumper_guard_pics.html

Also, if you decide to get the BumperDefender.com strips, you should order all the silver samples first (I think they have 4 shades of silver). I think Christo said that the Brite Silver is a very good match, but I don't know if he saw all 4 silver samples (you can PM him and ask).

Finally, if you locate the BumperDefender.com bumper strips at the same location on the bumpers as I did, you will need to order the following length strips:

Front: Two (2) 3' Strips --- one strip for each side of the front license plate mount. [EDIT: Make that two (2) 3.5' Strips, to be safe]

Rear: One (1) 8' Strip.

* * * * *
Good luck and enjoy!

 

Whoa Nellie, I know you're excited, but I think it would be wise to slow down!

Don't mean to quell your enthusiasm (I think the Prius is great myself), but I feel compelled to tell you that a lot of us think that the stock Prius does not handle all that well and that the stock tires are mediocre at best, especially in rain, snow, ice and/or wind. You can do some modifications to make it handle better in good and bad conditions. But in any event, you should still always drive defensively, and even more so in inclement conditions.

Congrats again.