Moving up to newer Prius, questions

Oh, then you are good!
How do you drive? City? Highway? Like an F1 Car? Or a Prius?

 

I have a 2021 Limited and the cargo space is very small and the rear hatch is sloped. I took a vacation with my wife and 2 young grandkids for 5 days and the cargo area was filled to the brim. The trunk is 40” x 60”, the back seat is 54” x 45”, clear with the rear seat down is 36” W x 18” H x 42” front-to-back AND there is no space for even a mini-spare. But all of this gets me great mileage. ICE: 55mpg, EV: 180+

 

There is a race this weekend...
That will certainly lower your mpg.

I rarely go over 65. I used to put 800-1000 miles a week on it so the more mpg I got the less
it cost me. And the engine burns less oil.
But now I only put about 50 miles a week on it. I have a Van I drive put about 200 miles a few
day a month on. I average 28pg in that.

I had planned on replacing the engine with a refurbished one, but I doubt I will be doing that now.

Try driving it like a Prius, for a week or so. Keep it under 70mph. And see what fuel mileage you get.

 

Yes I have a 2021 Prime Limited. It is exactly 5 feet from the back of the drivers seat to the inside of the closed hatch. Keep in mind that (1) the drivers seat was positioned for a driver who is 63 inch tall and (2) that since the rear hatch is sloped, the clearance at the inside of the hatch is not that big so that a ladder may or may not fit but my 5 foot wooden step ladder does.

 

Awesome! ......

 

Update on my 2021 Prius....just got four new tires installed at Les Schwab. I usually buy from Discount Tire but they don't have an alignment machine and I've noticed my right/front tire wearing more on the inside.

Anyway, the technician asked me if I knew my left/front CV Joint boot was leaking fluid. I hadn't noticed that but will have to check it out. (I'm skeptical because I do my own rotations every 6-months and shine my big light in there to check out everything...) But we'll see if it's leaking...might get to do my first Toyota CV Boot Repair job! (Glad Toyota sells the repair kits so we don't have to buy a new axle...big bucks!!)

 

I've had a Gen 2 (2009), a Gen 3 (2011), and two Gen 4 Primes (2019, and 2017). Here's my 2 cents:

The Gen 2 was the 'car of the future', at least for us. It had a navigation touch screen display, bluetooth,backup camera, voice commands, etc.

The Gen 3 is a bit less reliable, and a lot more stripped down. (no navigation, no backup camera, AM/FM/CD (says SAT, but no actual sattelite, has an EV mode that's useless).

The Gen 4's, went back to the 'car of the future', with all the bells, buttons and whistles. There was a lot to learn and get used to. When my wife hit a deer with the 2019, insurance totaled it. we got another Gen 4 Prime, which should tell you that we definitely like it, for the most part.

We like the Prime, but there are a few things to get used to there, and that's beyond the Gen 3 vs Gen 4 thing. There's less room in the back, no spare, no rear window wiper... We live in a small city, and in a couple more years, when we're both retired, it will be for the most part an EV to get us around town, with an ICE engine to go on longer road trips if we want.

There are a few downsides. The seats are less comfortable, and after 10 or so hours on the highway, this turns from uncomfortable to torture. I like the styling, but the driving visibility suffers. It's much harder to look around, change lanes, and merge into traffic (at least for me). There are blind spot monitors, cross-traffic monitors, and a whole bunch of other things (Toyota Safety Sense...) that partially make up for it. Some of the features I love - like the radar cruise control. There's also a lot that can go wrong with all of that too.
Both of my Gen 4s had the larger navigation display. When looking at other Gen 4s after our first one was totaled, I drove one with the smaller display. I actually preferred that one. The smaller display is in landscape mode, while the larger display is in portrait mode. Using the larger display pulls your eyes further off the road when you have to do things like change the radio station or change the Heater/Air Conditioner settings.

The smaller display doesn't do navigation, but it does do Android Auto. We've got Android phones, and the fact that the fancy display doesn't work with that as well (it still does phone and Bluetooth audio) has always frustrated me. I test drove a 2020 with the smaller display, and I believe it would integrate with Google Maps, so it's actually a much better navigation system than the larger Toyota navigation display (maps are always up to date, while Toyota wants way too much for a map update. The Toyota one doesn't have the live traffic updates or the best routing; The Toyota display's visual cues are integrated in with the Heads up display, but the turn instructions seem to have more lag, so I'm driving past my turns, or turning too early, where using Google Maps has the audio clues and the audio turn instructions have me looking away from the road much less. It's also far less useful as I don't need a navigation display to tell me how to get to the grocery store or to work. 95% of the time I know where I'm going and how to get there, so having a large navigation display is a waste of money, and the few times I need one, Google Maps and my phone work much better.

That's my take; your mileage may vary.

 

You're right about the seats. We drove my wife's 2017 Prius from Colorado to Maine and the seats are pretty good, but could be better. (The seats in our old 2008 Corolla are more comfortable than any Prius.)

My 2021 Prius is my commuter car so I put in a memory foam seat topper with heat and massage.....made the 45-minute drive better.

 

Around town, I barely notice, but when we took a trip to visit my brother in Helena, I definitely noticed it there.