New to Toyota/Prius! A journey of discovery...

Hello there! Name's Alex and I'm a first time Toyota/Prius owner!

After several years of driving GM cars and finally having the courage to buy my very own car for the first time, I've decided that my ol' 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier needed to be traded in. So I considered one car: the smart. It's affordable, will give me great gas mileage -- other than the fact that the transmission is comically slow.

So I was on my way to the smart dealership this past Wednesday to seal the deal on the vehicle until the VP of our company and I got into talking about cars (our execs drive Ferrari's and the like - so they're really into cars) and he asked if I was considering getting another car. Somehow, "Prius" popped into my mind. I've always wanted to have a Toyota, so I suppose that was why I thought of it - coupled with the fact that the only cars I'd been pining over the past few years were the Echo and the Celica. Also, it probably helped that I test drove a Prius last year.

From there, I called around and found out that no one around the area had any Prius(es?) and I'd have to drive the opposite direction of the smart dealership in order to find one that had it. This lot, which was in Simi Valley, had a fleet of 20 Prius(es?). Not knowing anything about the Prius models being sold, I went in anyway.

To my surprise, these Prius models were the 3rd generation models! I quickly started checking out several of the models and eventually settled on a Blue Ribbon Metallic Prius IV* with Navigation and heated leather seats. The dealer was quite patient and accepted my dear old 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier for the trade-in and even itemized all the costs to help facilitate the drive-off.

Needless to say, my fiancee was pissed off -- she didn't know I was going to be driving home in a car costing much more than the smart. But after driving her a couple of times in it, she felt relieved. If we'd gone for the smart, she probably wouldn't have wanted to be driving in it at all. It's only been literally 3 days since I got the car, and I couldn't be any happier!

With that fairy tale story out of the way, I wanted to see what threads people would recommend that I check out on here? I've read every stickied post on each of the forums and I think I have a grasp of how the information is being sorted out.

And lastly, I hope to share some ideas with some of you guys and learn more about this great piece of technology. I live around the Thousand Oaks area and would like to also know if there are meet ups here as well!

Thanks for your time! arty:

 

Thanks! Like I said I've always wanted a Toyota... so what better one to have than the Prius?

 

Yea, I'm trying to break the habit of pushing the vehicle a lot. I have a 12 mile commute both ways and I'm trying to find the most efficient way to use the car. I'm trying to learn the whole pulse/glide thing and it'll be quite challenging!