Prius Question for the Community (LONG)

Hi there,

I have two questions for the Prius community. But first let me give you some details and some background. As you can see below, this is kind of long so if you do not have patience skip this post.

Just wondering what peoples opinion is about Prius 2009 that at least from what I've read in the forums seems to getting fuel economy that seems to be way lower than what people or posting on the net. I advised this couple to buy the car as all indications in forums suggested that the car is both reliable and fuel-efficient. After five months wait on a waiting list the car finally arrived. In pre-delivery inspection two items were found defective. The stereo system and the glove box both had issues. Not a big deal, they picked up the car and came back a week later for service and had repaired once the parts came in. Not a big deal, everything that fixed in reasonable time and effort but it sure has put a dent in the myth that the Prius is super reliable. Now I know people say these are just minor problems easily fixed. It's just the fact that his brand-new 2009 car and had two problems right off the bat. Now they had 3000 km or 2000 miles of trouble-free driving since then. All I can say is probably bad luck as these things happen to all vehicles. It's just a shame that the so-called good reliable car seems to have more problems than other cars I've owned. If it stays reliable than it's not a bad thing but certainly they had more problems than most people seem to have so far.

Well here comes the bigger disappointment of the vehicle. It's the real fuel economy they are getting. At the very beginning when they got it was very cold here in Canada. That explains its miserable 35 miles per gallon fuel economy for the first tank of gasoline. Okay no problem, the car might have not been filled not right with soso gas or whatever. Second tank of gasoline and fuel economy is down to 33 mpg or 6.8l/100km. While it stayed cold for a while, then it finally warmed up. Guess what, the economy improved. They are now averaging in relatively warm weather 48 mpg or 5 L per hundred kilometres. I would say that it is actually a very good result. But certainly nowhere near what is fleet of government Prius that in British Columbia are getting at 4 L per hundred kilometres. This is urban commute. Still not a bad result, but it could be due to short 15 minute commutes everyday. 15 minute commutes is actually reasonable commute for city, but it is still very good fuel economy. The real disappointment came on the trip on the highway which was relatively 800 km or 550 miles approximately. With four people in the car, not speeding, the car obtained fuel economy of 5.5 L/100km or just 42 mpg. 42 mpg is not that great as I can achieve that in the 98 Toyota Corolla. This number is definitely lower than the 50 mpg that people claim you can easily get. I doubt the air-conditioning was working much as it was a relatively cool day. I should also add that I know people with the Volkswagen Jetta TDI and they seem to be getting 4.5 L per hundred kilometres. Which is interesting, because in most reviews I have read that compared the TDI to the Prius the highway mileage of both vehicles seem to be within 2 to 3 mpg. I'm not even mentioning the fact that the Volkswagen has more torque and feels faster, with the price of diesel being allowed 20% lower than gasoline right now. There is however the disadvantage of diesel that it is much harder to start in the winter if not plugged in. Where I live it gets pretty cold in the winter and the winters are long. I guess my biggest complaint about Volkswagen is that it's quality is not there. I know too many people with Volkswagens that have problems. While some people claim the quality has improved, I still have very much doubts. Not only that, there is a lot more maintenance on the Volkswagen with the dealer charging $1000 for a timing but change and $600 30,000 km service. There is only two Volkswagen dealers in my city. There is at least five Toyota dealerships. If it was not for the quality issue a thing I could probably go with the Volkswagen. Honda was supposed to start selling clean diesel Accord in North America. It seems they have announced that they've scrapped the program. This would be a very good candidate to compete with the Prius. There are rumours that Subaru will also start selling boxer diesel version of the Impreza. Again, I'm a little bit conservative in fear that Subaru's lack of expertise in the diesels might be a problem in the long-term. And just like Honda this rumour could disappear and vaporize very quickly before any launch.

First, I feel kind of bad that the car is not getting what people claim to be getting on forums. Second I'm planning to buy a car myself and guess what I was thinking of getting the same thing except maybe 2010 version or 2011 version. But unlike they, I do mostly highway driving with a little bit of slower traffic for part of the trip of about 20% as I go through a town. Now I'm kind of wondering is Prius worth it. The only thing that makes it semi-plausible is the fact that my commute is roughly 70 miles a day. Now here in Canada the Prius costs $31,000 right now. The matrix costs $24,500 here in Canada. Now I know eventually in the long-term fuel prices might go up again as well to keep my cars till the wheels fall off with 420,000 km on my Honda Civic right now. Since the civic is 94 you can guess my payback period has to be just under 15 years. One thing I might add, long-term maintenance costs are going to be higher as the car would require servicing at the dealership. That's not a bad thing when the car is relatively new, but once the car gets older this is going to get expensive. However my experience with other Toyotas has been so good that if they are as reliable as my Corolla and Matrix have been that it's not an issue. One more thing to add is that currently the matrix has a $2000 rebate going for it. I did not include the rebate in the price, so the price gap is larger than above. In a year or so if the economy and the price of oil diesels not go up there might be rebates on the Prius as well. One reason I don't want to buy the 2010 is to want to see if the new car is as reliable as the old one at least from what people say on the Internet. Now it seems that the car does run high customer satisfaction, my question is does this mostly hype or the car actually relatively good. The other alternative is that the people who buy the Prius simply tend to be less grumpy than others. I have read many reviews about Toyota Corolla and matrix and owning them both I can say that it is in those cases the forms are generally accurate and representing both cars is very good.



My question is does this fuel economy seem a little bit low? My other question is for a highway commute of the kind I'm doing, does the Prius makes sense? Why? Any input very very appreciated. :yo:

Thanks
Marcin

 

Hi

First I have to thank everybody on their input. I think if Honda decided to bring the diesel to North America like they were planning to, I would be seriously looking at the Accord diesel is my next vehicle. I don't see myself buying a Volkswagen since the quality is not there. I know people will say the new models are much better, but I very much doubt that. Every manufacturer claims that every new model is much better quality then the last, but it takes years to improve quality thru mostly trail and error. The Subaru diesel is an interesting choice, but Subaru is a small company and while they try hard they don't have the resources to make things as Toyota in quality. Most people who own both say that Toyota is better quality than Subaru. Not to say that Subaru is bad quality. But I need a vehicle that simply goes with virtually no problems, as my number two thing behind safety for what I want in a car. Fuel economy is number three but still important. If Subaru were building diesels for a long time with a proven record I might go for it. Even though the Prius is not the vehicle for me, as it is geared toward city drivers, it's still very tempting as it does deliver relatively good fuel economy and is relatively reliable. I will still see how this 2009 Prius holds up over the year. Toyota at least claims that the new 2010 Prius is a lot better in the winter and on the highway. I would say these are the two things that influence my fuel economy in this northern climate. There's a lot of high-speed wide-open road in the winter. The thing is 7% fuel economy increase is not exactly mind blowing, or to be more accurate if you economy should improve from the current fuel economy of 5.5 L per 100 km to 5.1 L per hundred kilometres. You have to keep in mind that the matrix is rated at 6.2 L per hundred kilometres. So the difference in theory should be quite small. My other choice actually is the Toyota Matrix. It's quite a bit cheaper and my brother owns one and it's been bulletproof. He's not exactly the kind of person who takes care of stuff too much and he still got 140,000 km trouble-free. Fuel economy is worse much not by much on the highway.

As for the pricing that I revealed, it's with freight, PDI and taxes. It's the entire price of what it would take to take the vehicle home minus insurance or registration when buying with cash. The matrix price, is the price of the base model with option package that includes vehicle stability control. That's a big item I want my next car. This unfortunately, is one of those deals where I have to get the touring package of the base model. For that price I can almost get the bigger engine with the five speed automatic transmission. While that sounds great there's two problems, that being there seems to be reliability issues with the five speed auto. The other issue also related to the transmission is that the five speed auto hunts a lot for gears. The bigger engine also gets slightly worse fuel economy. The 1.8 L I think is more reliable, and also is the only version that comes with the electric heater to keep the cabin before the engine warms up.

As for the comment about the government of British Columbia fleet I'm only looking at fuel economy of the new 2004 models. The number you're talking about was for the first generation Prius. But their data is only for very limited mileage of 5000 km on average.

Thanks again for input

 

Toyota claims that the 1.8 L engine is brand-new. Toyota it is to an evolutionary company not a revolutionary one. So I very much doubt that the 1.8 liter engine is actually all new, it's most likely an evolution of the previous engine. It's kind of like the claim that the hybrid component is 90% all new. While the parts may not fit, they're most likely a minor adjustment on the old ones. I'm also thinking with the reliability record or the perception being good, Toyota feels confident enough to push the technology closer to its design limits. Thereby pushing the technology is more performance and hopefully does not sacrifice much or any quality. Manufacturing technology and design expertise work in favour of quality so as long as the two are in balance this should be a good car again.

As for pricing, I live in Alberta so the PST rebate does not apply. As for this four speed auto transmission the matrix is less aerodynamic and is significantly heavier car which is why it has to do more to accelerate.

While cars are never foolproof. There seems to be a big difference between two cars and how much repairs you have to do. I've been keeping track of a Corolla , Matrix and Honda Civic. To add to that I have a 02 GMC Sierra 2500HD. And I'll have to say is that the first three cars with combined driving of 29 years. That is just adding the age of all of the first three vehicles, their total repair bills combined together or less than the GMC for just three years of ownership. That is a huge difference a major major pain in the butt to even deal with all the repairs for the truck. And it's nothing special as other people with the same vehicle seem to have the same experience.

While the Prius may be more susceptible to changing conditions and driver. One thing is to be understood, the car has to be driven relatively safely and I'm not about to slow down to 90 km an hour when the speed limit is 100 km/h. Most of the traffic moves along at 110 or even 120. While I do not speed, I'm not about to drive super slow. I guess my question is Tideland seems to be getting 4.9 l/100km. While Matt Herring is getting 4.2 l/100km. On the trip to Jasper driving style should make that much difference as long as the speed was maintained within the speed limit of under 110 km an hour. Even if he accelerated relatively hard he was most cruising the whole three hours. Knowing him it was all done on cruise control. Knowing the way I drive, and simply some of the places I have to drive I would be using occasional hard acceleration. As much as going for fuel economy it simply cannot be done in a place where you have to merge with traffic on a busy highway. One left turn for me means pretty hard acceleration everyday. I'm also kind of curious if the matrix or the Corolla were treated this way would they not be getting much better as well. I do not accelerate hard most of the time but it has to be put into my routine in one spot as I have no choice. Also knowing me every morning I do not speed to work, but I'm not about to start driving super slow.

My commute will be at least 45 minutes one-way. So the length of the commute won't be the issue, but the speed will be at it's going to be 100 km an hour most of the way. I'm sure hoping the new Prius delivers a better fuel economy. However, as drastically as the claims may exaggerate the improvement in fuel economy, the reality is if you go to site john1701a and look at total fuel economy difference between the first-generation and a second-generation you can see that the difference over the lifetime was only three mpg. That's pretty insignificant, yet the second-generation seems to have captured the perception that it was much better than the first a few economy as well. What I do not dispute that the second-generation was a lot better automobile, fuel economy I don't think was actually all that much different. I am expecting the same thing to happen to the next generation, and all this hype will probably amount to another three mpg difference in fuel economy. I'm sure not complaining about that, in fact I think it's really really good but in the perspective of things not a huge difference.

The question is to Tideland is what would you consider your driving style of the car to get the fuel economy are getting. I'm sure you're not accelerating hard, but do you feel left behind at every stoplight or generally cruise with the traffic. My question to Matt is you're obviously getting extremely good for the economy, what are you doing that is so different to get the economy are getting. Are you doing stuff like drafting behind trucks or any of the extreme measures? Do you definitely drive slower than most enjoyed most in the city.

Sure would appreciate, any feedback you might have?