Totaled My O5 Prius Friday

I was a little bummed about our mileage drop also. After checking the drop on our 99 grand caravan it really bothered me. The Prius went from 49 to 36/38 <_< . Granted colder weather, lots of snow and 4 awesome snow tires (Nokian Nordman 1's), but still getting at least 36. Guess I really shouldn't complain. The Van went from 20.5 to 19 mpg, which surprised me . My wife drives the Prius all over our county and I take the van 5 miles to work, go figure.

 

Dogtrainer:

I'd like to suggest you find a really good chiropractor and start to get off the meds when you can. You'll have less long term limited range of motion or damage if you go with a chiropractor over meds and a whiplash collar or whatever else the regular doctor's subscribe.

I used to think chiropractors were quacks but not any more. I'm a convert now. But find yourself a really good one; talk to your friends and get recommendations. Try a few if you have to to find one you really like and have confidence in.

 

I say stay away from chiropractors. They ARE quacks.

 

sounds like at least for the moment you'll be needing the hardcore drugs, especially with that kind of impact.

i am also not a fan of taking any drug, especially the serious pain meds, for any longer than necessary because of the physiological changes it produces in the body. (the more i learn the less i like them all) but while your body is still kind of in shock from the accident, it is probably good to just get rid of the pain feeling to comfort you a bit and let your mind foggily drift to more important things like reassuring your family.

i'd recommend a test visit to the chiro if you're at all interested, for some people it's useless and for some it's gold. i think it depends on the actual condition. i had a couple of vertebrae knocked severely out of alignment when i was younger and the only thing that fixed it enough for me to not be really disabled was combination PT and chiro.

back on topic, it sounds like you'll catch no fault for the accident, which is good. i hope that lady gets some nasty consequences for drinking and driving. hopefully her insurance will cover all your medical bills. sounds like they'll be adding up if you're in so much pain.

best wishes.

 

I wish you a quick return to normal. That had to be a most difficult experience. You're getting pretty good advice here and hope you can give yourself the gift of time to allow yourself to heal both mentally as well as physically.

Now about your thinking of not getting another Prius.....

You don't want to get one of those Prius(toric) cars do ya? :lol: They get even worse milage in the winter.

Best wish to you and your family.

 

Glad to hear you're ok, dogtrainer.....

Be careful for a while, you've used up a substantial amount of your luck.

 

Hang in there DogTrainer! Your brother/sister Prius owners are pulling for a quick recovery.

As for your replacement, I agree with OUR good doctor E. DO NOT MAKE ANY COMMITMENTS UNTIL OFF THE MEDS!!!

If you're going to replace with an '05, you should pay no more than MSRP. Same with '06 if taken before Jan 1st.

I am so happy to hear you'll be OK after that magnitude of a crash! As a former police officer, I've seen more crashes than I wanted to, and for you to be here at all, much less not even seriously injured, is very rare. You may very well owe your life to your Prius.

 

"those airbags stink man almost like burning something"

That's because something DID burn. The expanding gas in not always from decompression of stored gas pressure, it can also be the result of a controlled chemical explosion (burn), such as sodium azide, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure what the Prius uses, though.

 

I was rear ended while waiting at the back of a line of traffic last Tuesday. The kid who hit me must have been trying to make through the red and didnt notice we werent moving on the other side. I think he was going close to 40 when he hit me since he pushed me a couple of feet into the Yukon in line in front of me. The rear end of the Prius had the bumper pop loose around the seams, not bad, but the front end didn't line up with the SUVs bumper and the hood got munched along with a hole in the bumper from the Yukon's trailer hitch. The impact seemed well absorbed to me, no aches and pains except heatarche for the poor Prius.
The car is in the shop now and I must say our cat seems to like the Hyundai loaner better than the Prius. Seems the Elantra has more flat spaces, much better for napping. Guess the shape of the Prius is too slippery for her tastes.

 

Dogtrainer, I am so happy you are OK. Don't concern yourself at all about what happens to the other person. She will NOT get what she deserves and you have no control over it.

Be thankful for your family and your health...it's all that really means anything (Oh, as well as your PC family)

 

Well, I'll chime in with everyone else to say we are all glad you are doing/feeling better and that you've survived a horrible accident.

I have a comment/question about the first page of posts concerning your (perhaps) knee-jerk reaction to getting a Camry due to better mileage in the winter.

My knee-jerk reaction has always been to say "yes, the mileage goes down in the winter, but it does in ALL cars, so you're still coming out ahead." Some of the posts in this thread have just made me realize I've never really questioned my own conviction! Is the RATE of change summer to winter the same? That is, we know we're getting better milage than a Civic (just for example) in the summer. say it is 55 mpg vs. 45 mpg. Now winter comes and our mpg drops to 40 mpg (for example). A change of -15 mpg. Do I know for sure the Civic drops -15 mpg as well to bring it down to 30 mpg? I was assuming that is so, but maybe it's not. Maybe it IS possible that other cars could outperform the Prius in winter. Summer never, but winter???

My point is I had always assumed I was still doing better than eveyone else - summer or winter. But I have no numbers to back that up. We know the EPA numbers mean diddely-squat in the winter, so what do you compare? How do you know.

I THINK I'm right, but I know I don't KNOW I'm right.

Only a driver who drives a Prius and another car back and forth to work alternating days could really tell us how the mileages stack up. Interesting...

 

Chiropractors vs Osteopaths: My personal experience:

I hurt my back while shovelling snow about a decade ago, and ever since then I get pretty bad back pain if I lift something really heavy. This has happened a few times since then, plus a couple of times when the pain was triggered by an awkward movement. I've been to 3 different chiropractors (one of them on two separate occasions) and one osteopath, on two separate occasions six months apart.

The chiropractors provide some relief of the pain, but it typically returns the next day. They always want me to return every few days for a long course of treatments. One of them claimed she could cure children of ear infections because the "proper flow of energy" through the spine boosted the immune system. None of the chiropractors got me back to jogging in less than a month.

The osteopath was in Spain, when I was living there, in Seville. I had moved into a new apartment and had carried, among other things, a microwave oven up 4 flights of stairs. Two days later I could hardly walk, and I could not bend over far enough to touch my knees.

She began with a 10 or 15 minute back massage, to loosen up the muscles, and then twisted me up like a pretzel. What she did was very similar to what a chiropractor does, but without the snap. It was moderately painful, but when she was done I walked out practically like new. I asked when I should come back, and she said, Not necessary. The next day a little of the pain had returned, but after that it subsided again, and a week after seeing her, I was jogging again, and was fine until, six months later, I hurt my back again. I went back to her, and my experience was essentially the same as the first time, except by that time she had an assistant doing the massage.

Summary:

Chiropractor: multiple visits, some slight relief, one month to resume jogging. Treatment performed while the muscles are cold and stiff.

Osteopath: one visit, immediate relief, one week to resume jogging. Treatment performed on muscles warmed up and loosened by massage. No "snap."

 

It's not the change in absolute numbers you want to compare, but the actual mileage. I almost said it was the percentage change you want to compare, but in the final analysis, it's how much gas you burn. Even if the Prius dropped more in winter than the Civic, both by numbers and percentages, what really matters is, Does it still get better mileage? I am quite convinced that it does. I also think it probably drops more mpg (both numbers and percentage) in winter, than a conventional car, because it cannot shut off the engine as much in winter as it does in summer.

My '89 Civic got 35 highway in summer. I never measured it in winter, or in city driving because I lived out in the country when I got it.

My prius got 29 mpg in very short city driving in the dead of a Fargo winter with a 5-minute pre-heat. While I don't have test numbers, I do not believe my Civic would have managed anything close to 29 mpg in short city driving at 30 below zero and a 5-minute pre-heat.

 

Daniel-Just right! Of course you are right about the absolute mileage being the only important thing. it's just a question of how much gas is burned. The reason I just commented on the rate of change is because in the Prius we are always starting out from a position of better mileage in the summer. Therefore the ONLY way we can dip below a conventional car's mileage is if our change from summer to winter is disproportionately large!

As you said, I do not believe a conventional car would do as well.

Interestingly, a poster called "sarge" just posted some numbers in a thread in this forum called "gas millage(sic)" with some actual numbers about winter usage. He quotes a summer to winter change of a few percent in an Accura or some such similar car, but up to 30% in a Prius. If you look at his numbers, I think the point here is that with the higher relative change summer to winter it is much easier to NOTICE it. And perception has a LOT to do with people complaining about winter mpg.

And also, you confirm my point: you don't have test numbers. i don't either. I just didn't want to shoot from the hip without proof.

 

Okay, I'll tell a little story, but I don't want this to be an arguement. Just want to give another side.

I developed a pain in my hip (polite term for right buttocks) a few years ago. It would come and go. My Dr. at the time said I just pulled a muscle using my new weedwacker and it would take a while to heal. Like maybe years. Well, it got better but periodically it would return. Over the next two years it not only returned but seemed to get worse and happen more often. I finally had enough and went back to Kaiser. At this time I had a new Dr. He sent me to Physical Medicine who x-rayed my back to make sure I had no injuries and then examined me. He declared I had "piriformis" syndrome, gave me a cortisone shot, some exercises and sent me to physical therapy. The shot helped for a few days but then the pain returned. Physical therapy manipulted me, gave me a few more excecises in addition to the ones the Dr. gave and had me coming back every few weeks. I was told to do the exercises every night and then when I had pain.

Well, that's what I did. I got worse. It got to the point that I was having numbness in my toes and was starting to drag my right leg. It finally dawned on me that it was the exercises that were making me worse over the long term so I stopped.

I then went to a chiropractor highly recommended by a friend. She serves on several boards and is one that is approved for Workman's Comp.

She agreed that I had piriformis syndrome but that the exercises the Dr/Therapist gave me were totally wrong. She said it wasn't that my piriformis was too tight and I needed to stretch it out, but that I was too limber and my piriformis was too weak. (Even the Dr. commented I was very limber and I *asked* him if that was the problem and he said no.) So she gave me a different set of exercises and recommended I get an MRI on my back. My regular Dr. approved and I eventually got one. (Kaiser takes a while, in this case 9 weeks). Turns out...I had to herniated discs in my lower back. The Dr. says I won't get much better. The chiropractor says it can be improved but takes time.

Well, I only see her once a month now and I am improved. I'm pretty much pain free unless I do something stupid. I'm not to lift anything heavier than 20 lbs and should avoid bending over. I can aggravate it but too much walking or standing still in one place.

The chiropractor told me to get new shoes (no more heels), a buy a girdle (more like elaticized bicycle shorts). I am convinced she knows what she's doing. Not only do I feel better after a visit, but it lasts quite some time and over the long term I am seeing marked improvement I didn't when going to physical therapy/physical medicine. I wlll say I'm lucky to have a primary care physician who listens to me and doesn't just say "You're getting old." or "It's just in your head."

Whoever you go to, it depends on who you go to.

BTW my chiropractor has never said she could cure diabetes, allergies, warts or influence the phases of the moon with chiropracty. If she did, I wouldn't go.

 

I think the Prius is much more affected by winter than "regular" cars, MPG-wise. At least that's true for me with my short commute. Comparing the best months (late spring, early fall, no heat or a/c on) with the coldest months, my Prius mileage drops by 20% or more ...the ICE is generally running at all stoplights, etc. My wife's Accord drops by less than 10%. But, bottom line, overall I'm getting 46 in the Prius and 26 in the Accord, so I know which car I wanna be driving, winter or summer.
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