Changing some of the Factory default settings

In the U.S. "jap" is a rather nasty epithet. Is it not so amongst Kiwis?

 

Its not in Europe, but then we didnt have a pearl harbour with them.

 

Try harder hannah! We go to 108 in the U.S.

 

your FM radio goes UP to 90 mhz or u mean down??

since the FM band starts at 88 Mhz on the low end and stops at 108 Mhz on the high end, me thinks you basically have hardly any stations at all.

btw, as far as i know, and i could be wrong, the FM band is the same the world over.

 

Except in parts of Long Island, where it is borne, all in capitals, as a badge of pride by some.

 

ummm my guess would be why would there be an english manual for a car that was only distributed in Japan??

and also, i think you will find similiar difficulty in getting the screen into english.

your only hope i would guess is that the difference bet your 1998 and the classic which started in 2001 and isnt exactly the same will be close enough that your learning curve of the japanese language wont be too severe.

as for the mini disc player, i would assume you are talking about the sony?? if so, its too bad that the technology was buried by the big business machine in america because it was truly awesome technology.

as for the radio, i would not think that it originally was that way. i fear she maybe broken. what you described was a reasonably common thing in older technology where the tuner was basically an RC (resistor-capacitor) circuit and a varistor. if the varistor wire broke it could effectively reduce the range of the resistance which would reduce the tuning band. but i was kinda under the impression that they didnt do that anymore, but maybe.

you know the touch screen has a lot of pictograms so you might not need to be able to read the screen that much. i must admit that i didnt really read the manual that came with my car until after i had had the car over a month and was bored at work one day, so i picked it up then.

most of what i learned, i learned here waaay before i got my car.

 

Hi Hannah

I'm a fellow kiwi and just happened across your thread... hopefully I can help. I don't own a Prius myself but I do have a morbid facination for them and have been waiting for them to come into NZ for years.

The 1998 model as someone else said is the Mk1 but I think it might have been sold in the US too. To find a manual I think your best bet will be to try Tech Books in Newmarket (auckland) or try your local Toyota dealer, they will probably refer you to Tech Books though.

I would very much doubt that there's a way to change the LCD display to English, sorry. The best thing you can do is find someone that speaks Japanese to translate the menu items to english for you and to make a note of them ..you'll get used to them. Unfortunately that's the bad thing about Jap imports. The company that translates all the Japanese car manuals to English for Tech Books is called JAL or something, they're in New Lynn from memory, you might be able to coax them into helping you too.

The band expander would work even though the radio is integrated into the controller system. No idea re the minidisc, but who's complaining

For those outside NZ, band expanders are quite common here since jap imports are so common here too..we got sick of only being able to listen to perhaps one station so some bright spark invented a little circuit that sits inline with the aerial connection to the back of the car stereo, powered by 12VDC, that somehow shifts the frequencies down 12Mhz - no idea how, i'm not a radio geek! Most people here just dump the japanese stereo and buy their own but there's some exceptions, like Prius owners, because it gets confusing tuning to a station that normally transmits on 91mhz on 79mhz in the car!

Also, as for the Prius situation in NZ (probably the world's biggest importer of cheap 'jap import' cars, at least per capita) .. Kiwis are just discovering hybrid cars, there's been news on them on and off in the media over the past 4-5 years but only in the automotive columns. Last year or so they started importing used Japanese Prius's here and a 1998-1999 model will sell for around NZ$10-15K. The Toyota dealers have started selling the new 2004 model, but the waiting list goes well into the next millenia. one or two larger companies have even bought 04 Priuses for fleet use, which is pretty cool.

Hey Hannah, if any of that info was useful and you feel generous I'ld love to see your Prius when you get it and take it for a test drive!
:lol:

 

NZ 04 Prius - Not a long wait!

I just picked up my new 04 Prius on Tuesday!

The waiting list was only 2.4 months. I am under the impression more left-hand drives are produced that the right-hand ones.

Got mine from Rutherford & Bond in Wellington, there is a demo here in Wellington so check them out. You'll need to call ahead for a booking!

-d

 

Hi Diz - wow that's really cool. A friend of mine said he took an 04 for a test drive up here in Auckland somewhere from a Toyota yard buit when I went there they had none (and neither did the 2 others I tried)

Do you mind me asking how much it was? They're about $43k aren't they? Damn..I really really really wish I could afford that :/

 

Hannah - did you end up buying yours?

If not the same friend I have that test drove the '04 used to work at Auto Trader and someone else he knows that used to work there apparently is starting up/has started up a car yard here in Auckland that specialises in - you guessed it - used hybrids.

Steve (now DYING for a Prius)

 

wow an original...

i hope you are planning on posting several pics inside and out...

would really be interested mostly just to see where my car came from.

 

Cool, awesome Hannah! Keep us tuned as to how you get on and yes, post some photos!!!

Only because I'm happy to help a Prius owner, I do know a bit of Japanese and can read some of it, so if you can't understand something on the screen take a photo of it, I *might* be able to translate it.

Reminds me of a 1982 Nissan Bluebird my dad once owned, when you opened the door when it was going anything over 20km/h or left the lights on etc a magic female voice would utter commands in Japanese. Just to frustrate him I'd never tell him what it was saying to him, but you got the general idea. It was actually exactly what you'd expect, "Please close the right hand front door" or whatever. What amused me was how overly enthusiastic the woman sounded and how formally polite it was

Oh, I've seen a lot of Hondas that say "rokku shimashoo!" on the doors next to the door locks. This translates to "Lets lock the doors!".

OK I'm babbling now.

Steve